Not sure about my accountant

killamangiro · 11 August 2017 at 10:14PM

In April I made the move from sole trader to limited company to continue my freelance work.

I also hired an accountant. He told me I was able to pay myself salary monthly right away and all registrations were taking place behind the scenes. In June I asked for payslips for my salary, to which he said he would check registrations and get sorted in the coming weeks.

It's now August and he is saying final registrations are happening now. No payroll has been done and no book keeping. No idea what, if anything has been done.

It can be quite hard to get a reply & when I do it's normally 'ill check in on the registrations'.

Is it normal for things to take this long? & am I likely to get fined by HMRC for late registrations if that is the case?

I've told him I am extremely concerned and asked for a full breakdown.

Any thoughts?

sjbrun · 11 August 2017 at 10:54PM

It took me at most 2 weeks to set payroll up, it's quite quick, it was just getting the letters from HMRC with the payrol ref numbers on and setting the software up.

You need a new accountant, and to find out what's happening. It's still in this tax year so there shouldn't be any issue if you phone up HMRC as soon as you can and start doing things properly. You pay yourself end of the month if you wish with the software and then you log onto the HMRC website before the 19th of the following month to pay the tax due, you don't really need to use an accountant to do payroll.

trailingspouse · 12 August 2017 at 9:29AM

It's up to you, of course - but there's no reason why you can't do your own payroll (I'm assuming you're the only employee?). Ditto bookkeeping. Getting the accountant to do it is a very expensive way of running a business.

I've been running our Ltd for 6 years now, and only ever used the accountant for the end-of-year books - I do payroll, VAT, bookkeeping, invoicing, Companies House returns, everything basically. Apart from anything else, it puts you in a better position to see how things are going and keep tabs on things. I prefer to be in control of my own company!!

If you have any queries, I've always found HMRC to be very helpful (not always easy to get through to, but once through they've always been helpful). It makes their life easier if you get things right, so they are happy to help you get it right.

Not sure about my accountant

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