Limied Company Tax Software

stevemcd_2

Hi

I have a limited company that is currently managed via personal service company. They currenly invoice my employer and once paid deduct corporation tax, income tax, national insurance and employers national insurance. As I live away from home to work, I also have expenses which are taken into account.

The current accounts structure is that both myself and my wife recieve a small PAYE salary with the rest being distributed via dividends (80/20).

I am looking to purchase some software or spreadsheet that will allow me to check what is being paid on my behalf taking all the above into account. Eventually I will be looking to go it alone and employing an accountant to prepare my end of year accounts.

Can anyone suggest a piece of easy to use software that would accomplish this task??

Many thanks

Steve

WHA

You will probably have difficulty in finding such a comprehensive piece of software due to the different disciplines involved, i.e. payroll, VAT, corporation tax, and the differences in treatment between tax accounting and accounts-accounting of things like uninvoiced work in progress, unpaid customer bills, capital equipment, etc. As an accountant, we have different software for each different task - a total of at least four pieces of software, some of which are integrated and some not. This is made worse by the fact that tax laws frequently change, meaning the software would be out of date almost as soon as it was released. Your best bet is to make up your own spreadsheet tailored to your own circumstances.

I am not sure why you are delaying a move to your own company with an accountant. It would almost certainly work out cheaper and you'd be in more control. There are loads of accountants who specialise in providing personal service company packages where for a fixed fee (averaging £75 per month), the accountant does the VAT returns, payroll, end of year accounts, etc and they should also tell you how it all works.

By the sounds of it, you are with a "managed service company" which I am sure you already know are being outlawed in just over two weeks time, so you need to change to an alternative anyway.

stevemcd_2

WHA Many thanks for the reply and confirming my suspicions regarding the software.

I have built a spreadsheet to model my situation, but it appears to be always slightly out from other sources. A key one being my payslips!! Granted it is not much (pounds rather than tens of pounds) but I just can’t understand why.

The company which deals with my business accounts is not one of the big guns in this area, but they have assured me that they have taken advice from the top tax people and can still provide a similar service come April.

Saying this though, I really would like to be in more control. Invoicing is a particular concern as there have been a couple missed.

The delay in `going solo' is simply a lack of time and partly a lack of understanding. A particular problem is getting the right insurances in place (which is currently supplied by the business accounts company).

I am sure that you are right and I will make time to sit down with an Accountant and discuss my situation.