Doing year end accounts, problem with figures, help

System

classy69 wrote: »

I assume you are vat registered on that level of turnover?

definitely,yes

paddyrg

TBH if I were you I'd re-examine the ltd company route. You already keep your VAT, and you have to keep accurate books for HMRC anyway... the difference is the year-end returns which is what accountants are for, plus any advice they can give.

System

paddyrg wrote: »

TBH if I were you I'd re-examine the ltd company route. You already keep your VAT, and you have to keep accurate books for HMRC anyway... the difference is the year-end returns which is what accountants are for, plus any advice they can give.

If I was a ltd company, how much tax would I save on gross income of £40k?

quidsy

I'm a contractor with a LTD co. I pay approx 8.5k corporation tax a year on 38k income, corporation tax only as I pay myself 6k a year salary & the rest is taken by dividend. I also deduuct a small amount for telephone, clothing etc , nothing extravagant.

seafarer82

Paypal do indeed provide an itemised transaction history. I use it instead of eBay records as some people pay us by cheque or postal order (which get put through our shop till) and so my ebay and Paypal records never tally up. If you go to 'History' then 'Download History' you can download any date range you want. I download them monthly and use them to split up the VAT/No VAT sales by using country filters.

You really should be reconciling every month though, this makes it far easier to spot any discrepancies or missing receipts more quickly. An accountant would definitely help, I'm sure we pay ours too much but he saves us a lot in tax reliefs etc that we otherwise wouldn't have known about.

As for a Ltd being hassle, we changed from a partnership to a Ltd company three years ago. I can't really say there's much more paperwork, but we do save on tax and national insurance. The one problem we're still trying to work out is how to pay two directors who work different numbers of hours though dividends (if anyone has experience of this, please let me know!), but unless there are two or more of you in the business this may not be an issue for you.

AbbieCadabra

berbastrike wrote: »

If I was a ltd company, how much tax would I save on gross income of £40k?

In the link i posted earlier, you can put different amounts in & it will tell you.

We take a small wage, no tax or ni, rest is in dividends. If it's only you, no employees, take a little more in wages, pay a small amount of ni & dividends for the rest. Also claim for £4 per week (possibly more for current rate, can't remember without checking) for misc home office expenses, no receipts/bills/breakdown required.

trailingspouse

I think the basic problem is that the OP is trying to reconcile what PayPal thinks he's sold with what ebay thinks he's sold. What does HE think he's sold? As Pluto said, there should be three records.

I run a limited company, and it really isn't too onerous - not sure where the idea of one bank account comes from, we have two (a current account and a savings account where we keep money that we know we will have to pay out in the future such as corporation tax and future dividends).

Our accountant does the books at the end of the year, but I do everything else (RTI, VAT, reconciling the bank statements etc) - they charge about £1500 but for that I get easy access to information at the end of a phone, active help to maximise our tax efficiency (he just rang me yesterday to make sure we'd taken the maximum amount of dividends for the financial year), and the books sorted once a year. And I get to sleep at night, knowing it's all been done right.