Being paid to do partner's accounts/basic book keeping?

stoozie1

Hello,

I read about someone on another forum doing this, but was unsure of the correct process to set it up.

My OH is a self-employed dentist, part-time, and I do do all his accountancy/filing/book keeping.

1) How much can he reasonably pay me for doing this?

2) Could I do this on a self-employed basis, and complete a SA to acknowledge the payments?

Many thanks if anyone knows.

xylophone

http://www.safeworkers.co.uk/employingyourspouse.html

Will he be enrolling you in a pension scheme?

Is he a sole trader or does he work for his own limited company?

stoozie1

xylophone wrote: »

http://www.safeworkers.co.uk/employingyourspouse.html

Will he be enrolling you in a pension scheme?

Is he a sole trader or does he work for his own limited company?

Thank you.

Sole trader.

No pension as my earnings would be too low, I thought?

Pennywise

£10-£20 per hour is a realistic rate for accounting/book-keeping.

You can only be "self employed" if you fall within HMRC's guidance as to what constitutes a "business". Highly unlikely if you only have your partner as your sole client.

That means you'd be an employee, so you need to work through HMRC's pages re setting up as an employer, whether PAYE registration is required (depends on your pay), whether stakeholder pension is required (depends on your pay), employers liability insurance, etc.

The higher your wage, the more cost/formality/hassle, but if your wage was relatively small, say £50 per week and you had no other income, then it will probably be cheap and simple to set up.

BoGoF

Do you have any bookkeeping/accounting qualifications?

stoozie1

no but in my defence I've saved OH far more money than the specialist accountancy firms who used to charge him £600/annually.

kidmugsy

To book-keeping: £10 per hour.

To doing it while serving tea, biscuits and the occasional affectionate peck: £9 per hour.

Total £19 per hour.

spadoosh

stoozie1 wrote: »

no but in my defence I've saved OH far more money than the specialist accountancy firms who used to charge him £600/annually.

Did you take on the multi million pound liability cover they offered too?


Im normally the first person to advocate someone being there own accountant (it aint that ahrd) but you do need to know what youre doing and you need to keep up to date. Saving someone a few quid on their phone contract is not book keeping.

Accountancy firms reduce costs by reducing tax liability (ie by knowing how to apportion costs properly) they dont negotiate or recommend service/product contracts. Are you saying youve saved more in taxation than they could?

stoozie1

kidmugsy wrote: »

To book-keeping: £10 per hour.

To doing it while serving tea, biscuits and the occasional affectionate peck: £9 per hour.

Total £19 per hour.

I'll stick to the £10 then.

stoozie1

spadoosh wrote: »

Are you saying you've saved more in taxation than they could?

I'm not meaning to be critical of all accountancy firms, but I have saved OH more in tax than either of the 2 firms he used before did, yes. Mostly through things I learnt on here.

BoGoF

It depends on what you are paying the accountant to do, if its to prepare accounts thats all they will do.

And sometimea a little knowledge is a dangerous thing - from your posting history you are asking fairly basic questions - what makes you think you are doing the books correctly.

ps Not having a go and totally get you are trying to save money but seen plenty DIY books that are a disaster