How do I pay expenses from my limited company, to myself?

SeniorSam

greensalad wrote: »

Yes, I am looking into it. I have contacted three but because I work all day, I'm not able to attend appointments with them. And accountants don't work on Saturdays. And I work such short contracts back-to-back that requesting time off is often not possible. Very hard to find an accountant comfortable working with a small amount of contact.

I just Googled a search Accounatas working week ends. Loads of them came up, so they are about. You just havent made the effort. If you do not, I can only see your business ventures going one way .......... (guess!)

Before starting a business, the first thing for anyone to do is to talk with an accountant. You are starting on the wrong foot and can get yourself into a huge mess if you don't make a little more effort on this.

Good luck

Sam

greensalad

As I said, I'm trying my best! I've contacted four accountants now. Two wanted to meet, and the other two only call me at 11am when I'm in the middle of working. I tried calling both back at 1pm and was told that the person who had contacted me was 'away', presumably on lunch.

I've found some accountancy firms that offer a package where you can just sign-up and do everything by email. Problem is they all want a monthly rolling contract.

I'm still looking. Thanks for your advice everyone. If you have any recommendations please let me know!

booksurr

accountants have a duty to check out new clients for money laundering purposes so a meeting is inevitable. Once that is done though the need to meet again is negligible. My main client's admin people are in Eire and I get all the info from them via dropbox. I met the director once at the start.

There are firms who specialise in small businesses and are thus used to remote working

TheCyclingProgrammer

booksurr wrote: »

accountants have a duty to check out new clients for money laundering purposes so a meeting is inevitable.

Interesting. I've had three accountants since I started business - the first a big contractor accounting firm, the other two small independent accountants. I've never met any of them face to face!

agrinnall

greensalad wrote: »

But I had to be a limited company in order to register with the agencies I now have work through. So there was really no way around it.

I suspect you misunderstood what they were telling you. They need to deal with a limited company in order to avoid you being regarded as an employee of the agency (or even worse, the client), but it doesn't have to be your limited company. Using an Umbrella Company would probably have been a more cost effective solution for short term contracting.

Pennywise

booksurr wrote: »

accountants have a duty to check out new clients for money laundering purposes so a meeting is inevitable.

Not at all. I'm an accountant and havn't met well over 75% of my clients. It's not a requirement to "meet" your clients.

Anyone caught under the Act can satisfy themselves as to the identity and address of their clients in a variety of ways.

Likewise, I've not met my solicitor whom I used to buy my office.

I didn't present myself to the bank when I've set up personal and my business bank accounts.

Nor have I ever met my independent financial advisor who set up my pension schemes.

chrismac1

Too right! Some people are unbelievably anal on AML, the rules can be applied in a really stupid way. Now do not get me wrong - for high risk people with lots of overseas business dealings, or political risk, I do AML forward and backward, and update every 6 or 12 months. But for everyone else I do the absolute bare minimum required by law, job done end of story.

Pennywise

Seeing someone face to face isn't even the holy grail of ID proof. All you're doing is verifying that the person in front of you looks similar to the picture on the passport they're showing you.

Makes no allowance for a look-a-like and no allowance for a forged or doctored passport.

Before MLR came into force, I had a client who openly admitted to having two identities. The complete works. Two passports with different names, two driving licences, two sets of bank and credit card accounts. He gave a credible reason and I saw no sign of any impropriety.

ID proof is all about risk evaluation. 90%+ of my clients are very low risk clients, so minimal ID proof needed and certainly no need to major-ly inconvenience the client when I can satisfy myself as to their ID and address by less intrusive methods.

SeniorSam

greensalad. Have you thought of indicating the area you live in?

That may prompt accountants inyour area to make contact with you ?
Sam