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Sole Trader - I need a Cheap Accountant
Comments
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A simple sole trading operation requires little more than two spreadsheets: one for income and one for expenditure.
Since you are going to have to log these two for a book-keeper or accountant anyway, you might as well do it yourself.
If you process the transactions as they arise then you can probably do it in 10 minutes a day.No free lunch, and no free laptop
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£240 PER YEAR...I'd rather do it myself. It takes a few hours but if you can do a little bit every week it doesn't take very long and the amount of time you tke collecting everything for the bookkeeper/accountant is about the same anyway. It's just matter of adding it all up yourself and entering the figures yourself.A simple sole trading operation requires little more than two spreadsheets: one for income and one for expenditure.
Since you are going to have to log these two for a book-keeper or accountant anyway, you might as well do it yourself.
If you process the transactions as they arise then you can probably do it in 10 minutes a day.
I get where you're coming from, but now i'm 6 months in.....it's gonna be a bit more of a pain to do. (I did try starting it the other day, but it looked too daunting - what with 6 months worth of transactions to play with).
I guess i should've done a little every week from the start. But too late now.
What exactly would i have to gather up to give the Bookeeper/Accountant anyway?
I thought you just handed over copies of your invoices (Sales), receipts/transactions for outgoings & expenses along with your Business Bank statements and let them get on with it.
Didn't think i'd have to do any adding up myself.
p.s Most of my outgoings/purchases/ etc. are done via Paypal. So would a list of my Paypal "outgoing" Transactions [printed off] be acceptable?0 -
Yes, you can just hand over a pile of invoices and receipts-but that way you are paying the book keeper to do your basic admin.
As you say, little and often is the only way if you want to do it youself.No free lunch, and no free laptop0 -
Accountants usually do not take figures from invoices and prepare your books, at least not unless you are willing to pay a fortune. A book-keeper does that, but with a little knowledge and if your business is quite straight-forward books can be done by yourself easily. The way I do it is as follows.
1. Get all the receipts for payments made and put them in a pile. Do not worry if they are not in order. Also do not worry for now that some might be missing, usually some are.
2. Get a felt tip highlighter and go through all the receipts highlighting the dates (suppliers/shops put dates all over the place so this process really does makes life simplier).
3. Sort the receipts by date. Punch them and put them in a ring file. If they are small reciepts stick them to an A4 sheet. Also make sure that you do not punch through any information on the receipts.
4. If the invoice file copes are loose repeat steps 1 to 3 with them.
5. Collect together chequebook and lodgement book stubs and put them in a box file or shoe box.
6. Collect together all your bank statements, punch them and put them in ring files. Do not forget credit card statements. Also if you use Paypal, that is really a bank account get a list of all transactions there in the last financial year from their website and print it out. If any money for the business is put through personal accounts or credit cards (and let's face it this is very hard not to do during a busy working day) then get all the statements for those accounts punch them and put them in a file.
7. Make a spreadsheet for money received with following headings: Date, Details (customer name or just "cash sale" if over counter cash sale), Cash, Bank You can put other headings if the money goes into more than one bank account.
8. Make a spreadsheet for payments made with following headings: Date, Details ("stationery", "telephone", "goods" etc), Cash and Bank plus other columns if more tha one bank account also respective headings for credit cards, paypal etc if those are used.
9. Start entering details from all those neatly compiled receipts an invoces files in the ring binders.
10. Check bank, credit card, paypal statements against spreadsheets ticking off on the statements each time. If there are items in the statements which are not already in the spreadsheets then do a bit of digging and find out why. Sometimes it is best just to make a list and sort them out all at the end rather than dwelling on them while doing the books***
11. At the end of all that you should have totals for money in and money out and can work out proffit by subtracting one from the other, but it is rarely as simply as that and you will usually need an accountant at this stage, but at least you will have a set of Books for them to use. The accountant may want you to split up the items into different categories depending on the type of business and whether there are items which are considered capital expenditure. This will probably involve putting another heading in the spreadsheet called something like "category" and puting in a code letter such as "s" for sundry expense etc and then perform the "sort" function on the spreadsheet or if you are good at excel do a pivot table (I use pivot tables but they can be difficult to use with a large number of entries and I do not recommend the novice using them even they though they are brilliant when the work)
12. Take spreadsheets back to accountant and impress them with with your business skills and hopefully look upon you as a client they want to hold on to.
*** Note having a book keeper takes out the personal anguish with regard to missing items or information. They just see figures when looking at the books as the business person sees ackward customers, slow payers, bad judgements in buying that piece of software that is no good etc when doing the books. I do not have a book keeper or secretary that does books but that I see is the main avantage of having one.
I hope this helps.0 -
...I thought you just handed over copies of your invoices (Sales), receipts/transactions for outgoings & expenses along with your Business Bank statements and let them get on with it. ...
Yes, that's exactly how it is done across the length and breadth of the nation since time immemorial. Although tradition dictates that you're supposed to shove it all into a shoebox before you hand it over to your accountant....Didn't think i'd have to do any adding up myself. .
Well accountants do precious little adding up themselves these days. They have spreadsheets for that sort of thing. But I know what you mean....p.s Most of my outgoings/purchases/ etc. are done via Paypal. So would a list of my Paypal "outgoing" Transactions [printed off] be acceptable?....
It would help I imagine, but I'd print out everything, and select the 'with balance' option - I think that's what it's called - the one that looks like a bank statement.0 -
Mistral001 wrote: ».... The way I do it is as follows.
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What a palaver! It's no wonder that some people.......just don't want the hassle to be honest.
which is perfectly understandable. It's your first year of trading; chuck it all at an accountant and get them to do your tax returns for you. Minimum grief and job sorted. Talk to them about what sort of records you should keep.0 -
which is perfectly understandable. It's your first year of trading; chuck it all at an accountant and get them to do your tax returns for you. Minimum grief and job sorted. Talk to them about what sort of records you should keep.
Yes, i think this is what i'm going to do.
The £240 a year doesn't seem so bad, if it prevents me from a lot of headache & stress. There are companies that sort out everything for you, so it's a small price to pay tbh.
All i can say to Mistral001 is...... Wow! :eek: (Lol)0 -
Yes, i think this is what i'm going to do.
The £240 a year doesn't seem so bad, if it prevents me from a lot of headache & stress. There are companies that sort out everything for you, so it's a small price to pay tbh.
All i can say to Mistral001 is...... Wow! :eek: (Lol)
best wishes to you in the future.0 -
What a palaver! It's no wonder that some people....
which is perfectly understandable. It's your first year of trading; chuck it all at an accountant and get them to do your tax returns for you. Minimum grief and job sorted. Talk to them about what sort of records you should keep.
What a load of pavlova!!
Its no wonder some people get massive bills from their accountants for spending hours sorting out basic stuff that can easily be done or organised by the person running the business.0 -
And, if you are in your first year of trading, don't you find it essential to know what your income and expenditure is on at least a monthly basis? Rather than waiting for a book-keeper to tell you in 12m time.No free lunch, and no free laptop0
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