Whats do you pay for your accountant?

GingeG

Hi all,

Just wondering what others pay for the services of an accountant. We are a small (3 Directors) Ltd Company and have just been given a bill of £1500 plus VAT. I thought that was steep considering all he really done was close down our books which, were in good order and not just a shoebox of reciepts, and send off the companies house bumf.
Anyone care to comment?

GingeG

Or, If you are an accountant and want our business for next year PM me with a rough cost

marzipan23

We're just about to go limited and have been quoted £850 +vat from current accountant, up from £450 +vat for sole trader accounts. Like you, our accounts are handed over in good order, full bank reconciliation done etc, just a handful of stuff I maybe haven't posted to the correct ledger. I checked a couple of other places and the £850 seemed to be roughly the going rate - did find someone at £700 but we like our accountant and have confidence in him, so that's worth something. HTH

Snow_Dog

£1500 doesn't sound that far off the mark, i've heard of a lot higher (worst case was £4000 for a similar sized company) and experienced lower (but not by much).

Is he doing your payroll? AGM?

richt71

I've just changed accountant and he has a fixed fee of £750 for my 2 ltd's companies, sole trader account and personal tax returns. I paid £1300 for my last accountant for same.

Petmidget

richt71 wrote:

I've just changed accountant and he has a fixed fee of £750 for my 2 ltd's companies, sole trader account and personal tax returns. I paid £1300 for my last accountant for same.

I would personally be worried about that level of fee for that amount of work. Fixed fees in this industry can be somewhat fictitious, amazing how you get an unexpected bill for "extra work"

Of course you may be the model client and your accountant will have to do very little, but that fee at a fairly average charge out rate would equate to less than 1.5 days work. Even a small set of ltd co accounts would take 5 hours to prepare and thats if the client effectively does all the work and all in required it putting it into statutory format.

richt71

Petmidget wrote:

I would personally be worried about that level of fee for that amount of work. Fixed fees in this industry can be somewhat fictitious, amazing how you get an unexpected bill for "extra work"

Of course you may be the model client and your accountant will have to do very little, but that fee at a fairly average charge out rate would equate to less than 1.5 days work. Even a small set of ltd co accounts would take 5 hours to prepare and thats if the client effectively does all the work and all in required it putting it into statutory format.

My dad ( a solicitor for over 30 years) checked the contract before I signed it. Their are no extra's involved apart from norms such as running paye for employees or preparing paperwork for business sales.
I must point out that none of my businesses involve stock, employee's or large expenses as they are online businesses.
Thnks anyway for your concerns. :beer:

kimbatty

I run my own business as a sole trader and have no employees so my accountant bill is a once a year simple transaction whereby he just checks over all my accounts and does the final tax retunr paperwork for £250.00

zenmaster

We pay about £500 for limited company end of year and personal returns - and that is a shoebox full of receipts (although we have few outgoings).

They also do our payroll, but that is just me.

GingeG

ZEN,
Please PM me some more details

ukbill69

£500 for 1 ltd company with turnover around 50k is about right doing your personal director returns and company. I got quoted £1000 for same thing by one firm lol