Accountants fees

[Peter1982]

I guess this has probably been asked before but hey.

What would be a reasonable fee for the following. The business is a retail partnership with 2 employees. Pretty typical ins and outs.

2 employees PAYE for 12 months
VAT return for 12 months

and

12 months accounts for a business turning over 370K gross
projected accounts for the next 2 years with cashflow estimates

I got a total bill of £3200. Sounds a bit steep to me.

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

It really depends on how much of the bookkeeping you are going yourself.

I would suggest preparing a terms of refernce and see the sticky at the top of this forum.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

I guess this has probably been asked before but hey.

What would be a reasonable fee for the following. The business is a retail partnership with 2 employees. Pretty typical ins and outs.

2 employees PAYE for 12 months
VAT return for 12 months

and

12 months accounts for a business turning over 370K gross
projected accounts for the next 2 years with cashflow estimates

I got a total bill of £3200. Sounds a bit steep to me.

Hi Peter

It's always very difficult to answer a question like this - as accountants we all operate our businesses in different ways, charging very different fees.

I dont doubt you will find a much cheaper option.

There are several accountants on this forum, myself including, who would I am sure gladly give you a quote, some such as myself are very happy to include bookkeeping if required as we appreciate it's not something all businesses want to spend time doing.

 

[Andrew @ PLA]

Hi Peter

As Elaine has already indicated, the 'biggy' there in terms of fees is probably the bookkeeping as the Payroll and VAT would be pretty straight forward (I would imagine). I'm sure there would be a few people on here prepared to give you a quote, but in order to receive an accurate one, they are going to need a bit more information than you provided in your OP.

 

[longleaf1]

I guess this has probably been asked before but hey.

What would be a reasonable fee for the following. The business is a retail partnership with 2 employees. Pretty typical ins and outs.

2 employees PAYE for 12 months
VAT return for 12 months

and

12 months accounts for a business turning over 370K gross
projected accounts for the next 2 years with cashflow estimates

I got a total bill of £3200. Sounds a bit steep to me.

Did you not ask for an idea of costs before hand?
My accountant I would like to think would inform me if she thought her fees were going to go up drastically.
We are a Ltd company, my accountant does my VAT returns every quarter and the year end accounts etc, she also does the Self Assessment for the two directors. I do the PAYE for the 2 employees and all the bookeeping with her on tap for any questions.
We don't have projected accounts/cashflow estimates as we have a rough idea ourselves and that is sufficient.
My bill is less than £1000 so yours does seem a little steep like you say but like others have said, all accountants charge differently and you have probably been paying top wack for the bookeeping that could have easily been done by yourself.
How long have you had the accountant for?

 

[Bob]

I guess one of the big costs may be the projected accounts and cashflow estimates for 2 years. Why do you need these?

 

[FusionAccounts]

As mentioned above 'It really depends on how much of the bookkeeping you are going yourself'

Many businesses nowadays use online accounting software to assist with their bookkeeping and then grant their accountant access to the software. This way you can reduce costs and receive real-time support from your accountant.

 

[EnhanceAccountancy]

We have a few similar clients who do the bookkeeping on Sage 50 themselves.
If they wanted basic forecasting and cashflow estimates for 2 years (on top of the other services that you mentioned) we would charge them a total fee in the region of £2,700 a year.

Hope it helps.
Thanks,
Gareth