Book keeping advice for LTD Co ?

[andyc]

Hi

I have just started a LTD company in partnership with my brother. we have a very low initial investment in the company and i suppose you could call it a "work in progress" , we don't expect to turn over very much in the first year or so and at the moment our input would be classed as part time. Our hope is to bilud something over a period of time. We have no bank finance or loans and are using our own money to get it going.

My question is about bookeeping

As a Ltd company , do we have to employ the services of an accountant ?
or can we manage on our own ?

We are not paying ourselves any wages and we have no employees , also i doubt that we wil reach the turnover required for compulsory VAT registration this year and it would not benefit us to register voluntarily.

We currently do have an accountant , but his recent bill for over £400 has left us wondering if we really need him , as £400 for the very little work he has done seems extreme.This was not for end of year or any other submissions , just general advice and phone calls ! . It has me wondering what his end of year bill will be !!

He told my partner to purchase a sage package and we now use this.

Can we manage without an accountant for the first year or so?

Is this allowed for a Ltd company?

We don't expect to turnover more than around 25,000 this year.

any advice will be appreciated

Many thanks

 

[Alpha]

Andy

Unfortunately it is a little late to undo what has already been done.

Unless you are quite capable/comfortable in producing accounts to the format required by companies house and also doing your own corporation tax computations for submission to the revenue I would advise you to get an accountant........but I suspect that the accountant you have currently used is not the right one for your current business situation.

Currently using sage may also not be the most cost effective way forward but as you know have it you might as well continue to use it.


Many accountants will give you a fixed fee quotation with the advise given free certainly on these forums I know that is the way that Joyous operates and it may also be the same for DCaccounting.

To Summarise

No you do not have to have an accountant but I would strongly advise that you do.

Initially I would imagine that it may not be beneficial to register for vat but it depends on particular circumstance and that £400 should have covered that!!

Talk to another accountant.

Should you require anything else by all means ask either via forums, PM or e mail

 

[dcaccounting]

I have to agree, with LTD compainies I would always advice people to have the use of a professional and certainly for a Tax Calculations.

Sage is surpposed to be the leading provider of accounting software... yet everytime a client mentions that they use this to me I cringe! In my view its sometimes not user friendly and certainly not accountant friendly, but then again I am bias has I offer the use of my online accounts system.

I would certainly give fixed fee quotations and I'd like to think that Im not one of those accountants that charge for every minute on the telephone, email etc.

Also I would say that for £400 would that not included incorporating the company, registering for VAT and giving advice on private cars, shares and dividends and payroll?

If you would like any further help feel free to send me a PM

Regards

Dean

 

[Joyous]

We currently do have an accountant , but his recent bill for over £400 has left us wondering if we really need him , as £400 for the very little work he has done seems extreme.This was not for end of year or any other submissions , just general advice and phone calls ! . It has me wondering what his end of year bill will be !!

If I were you I'd ask him how much he charges for accounts preparation and corporation tax returns. It's better for you to know now so that you can decide whether you want to stick or move.

He may well tell you that it depends on how good your bookkeeping is but he should be able to give you a ball park figure on the assumption that your bookkeeping is fine.

A lot of accountants now work on a fixed fee basis as one of the top complaints from clients is "I can't believe how much my accountant has just charged me!"

Regarding your use of Sage - for your own sake be sure that you are using it properly and that you're able to get meaningful info from it. If not your current accountant is likely to charge you an arm and a leg for sorting it out. I'm doing a set of accounts at the moment and the Sage backup that I've been given is frankly garbage.

If your comfortable with Sage then fine, if not - do it in Excel.

Regards

Joy

 

[DuaneJackson]

If your comfortable with Sage then fine, if not - do it in Excel.

Or KashFlow (See advert ---->)

It'll soon export all your info in a Sage Compatible format for your accountant.

Sorry, couldn't resist the plug.

 

[BMS]

If you'd like some advice on the use of sage then iId be happy to help.

 

[Neilh]

Hi

I have a friend who is a management trainer, trading through a Ltd. He uses excel etc and his accountnat uses these for year end, tax etc. He only uses his accountant at year end and tax, apart from the odd bit of advice, and he was charged well under £1000 for the 'job lot'. But its hard to make easy comparrisons due to complexities in the companies and the accounting meeded etc.

On the issue of VAT, it may be agood idea to compare non-registration with registration and see how you fare, and you could do this without the work of your accountant! There are various schemes (flat rate, cash accounting etc) that might suit you better than standard registration.

Neil

 

[andyc]

Thank you all for the replies , you've been very helpful.

I will contact our current accountant and pin him down (if thats possible) to a fixed fee for the end of year. If he's too vague with his price , i'll just have to find another.

many thanks