Tax/Accounts Software for Self-Employed

Lizardland

Hi Folks,

I used to work through a composite/umbrella company pre-budget but thanks to Mr Brown I'm now forced into going down the full Limited Company route (I am IR35 compliant).

I've had quotes from various companies for doing a weekly service. I tell them how much to invoice the client for, they raise the invoice on my behalf and send me a statement of how much I need to put aside from that to pay for tax, VAT and NI with how much I can take for PAYE and dividend.

I'm put off by a few things, mainly it doesn't look like I'm divorced from the company doing the books (i.e it still looks like an umbrella) and their fees are quite high for not much work.

Can anyone recommend a bit of software that I can replace them with so I can just employ an accountant for the end of year returns? My books are very simple, it's a straight payment from the client for services every week. I've no sales or stock to purchase, no overheads other than mileage and parking (and day to day supplies like stationery), my office is at home. As it's just me I work for one client at a time too.

I want something that I can type in how much I'm invoicing them for and have it spit out what goes to the government and what goes to me.

Cheers,

Stuart

WHA

Sadly such a beast does not exist.

You can easily get software to do the invoicing and book-keeping, such as winweb.co.uk which is free. You can also get either a separate piece of software to do your payroll (or get a better package like Sage or Quickbooks that does the invoicing and book-keeping and where payroll is an optional extra, but then to start to be paying a few hundred pounds).

Then you can get software that does the annual accounts preparation, and the corporation tax, and personal tax returns. You can also get software that deals with the company secretarial issues such as preparing the dividend minutes and vouchers.

What you can't buy "off the shelf" is something integrated that does it all. There are too many different disciplines in play, all of which have their own rules and where the rules, tax rates, etc change frequently. Even we, as accountants, use 5 or 6 different pieces of software when dealing with personal service companies.

You may find that some accountants give out a spreadsheet to their clients which is tailored to the personal service company industry, some charge, others give it free, but as far as I am aware, no-one actually sells a product on the open market.

I would question whether you really want to waste your time trying to do it yourself though. If you use one of the specialist accountants for contractors, you are looking at an average of £75 per month for them to do everything, compared with probably say £500 per year if you do the vat, payroll, books, dividends, etc and leave them to do the year end accounts and tax return - false economy saving a few pounds per month and having to keep up with all the formalities and number crunching yourself.

ukbill69

You dont have to buy software really, you can use excel, most accountants dont mind this way. Id also get the free cd-rom from hmrc called employers cd-rom as it does the calculations for you what tax you have to pay etc.

EagerLearner

I do invoices in Excel and always keep aside 20% of the income received for tax... plus about £2.20 a week for NI. I was told the 20% was a 'safe' amount to put aside until Mr TaxMan decides what my bill is...