Considering doing my own accounting …

Namya

Hello ! I’m after some advice.

I’m currently self employed / sole trader .

I have a business which is a shop where I also employ 2 members staff who are both on payroll

I also do some uber driving .

I’ve always had an Accountant  but recently been considering doing my own accounts just to reduce my costs as business is slow. -

My record keeping is already very good . I file my sales and purchase every day in spreadsheet and 99% of invoices I pay are emailed anyway so I’m half thinking it might not be too difficult !

What do you guys think ? Should I stick with an Accoutnant ( currently costs me around £200 p/m) or do I start teaching myself how to use some software .

I’ve never done this before . Is the software available these days pretty easy to use ? Does anyone in similar circumstances do their own ?

For reference my VAT is submitted every quarter and of an end of year which has just been filed

tacpot12

This is an example of where making tax digital might actually work in your favour. Once you have migrated your accounts to an online platform where you can do your bookkeeping and file your income tax, paye and vat returns digitally, you might well be able to do it all yourself. Payroll is usually the most difficult bit. I might be worth paying your accountant for some support during the changeover until you are happy you can go it alone.  

mlz1413

Is £200pa for monthly payroll, quarterly vat returns and year end accounts?

Or are you doing payroll and vat yourself?

As you are so organised it maybe worth getting an accounts package, it will definitely mean you will be MTD compliant too.

Sage used to do a basic system for £10pm and payroll £5pm. But i daresay that has gone up!

Some bank accounts offer software.  I know my Nat West business account offers something. 

Namya

mlz1413 said:

Is £200pa for monthly payroll, quarterly vat returns and year end accounts?

Or are you doing payroll and vat yourself?

As you are so organised it maybe worth getting an accounts package, it will definitely mean you will be MTD compliant too.

Sage used to do a basic system for £10pm and payroll £5pm. But i daresay that has gone up!

Some bank accounts offer software.  I know my Nat West business account offers something. 

That is inclusive of everything yes ( payroll / vat / self assesment )

ppp123

£200 a month for payroll, VAT, Self Assessment and year-end accounts is actually pretty reasonable.

You could do it yourself with software if you’re organised (the bookkeeping side sounds fine), but payroll, VAT edge cases and year-end adjustments are where mistakes usually creep in.

A middle ground might be doing the day-to-day bookkeeping yourself and paying the accountant just for payroll review and year-end — that often cuts the cost without taking on all the risk.

MyRealNameToo

Are you currently doing cash accounting or accrual? As a sole trader it's most likely cash but could go either way if you have been going for a decent time. 

ppp123 said:

£200 a month for payroll, VAT, Self Assessment and year-end accounts is actually pretty reasonable.

Are they doing year end accounts beyond the Self Assessment? They are a sole trader so wouldnt be doing the corporation returns etc. 

Never run a shop so never asked accountants to price doing one. For our consultancy business our accountant is charging less for doing payroll, vat, 2x self assessment and corporate returns. I dont think it's a bad price (ours hasn't changed their prices in 15 years) but cheaper options are likely out there. 

Mistral001

I think it will be a false saving.  There will be times when you need to get some direct advice from your accountant on more nuanced matters to do with your accounts.  Matters for which a search on the internet will not give you what you want to know.  I am not an accountant myself, but having an accountant when I was in business for over 25 years is one of my better decisions.  And my business was much smaller than yours.  

kity_kitty388

I know this is an older thread, but stumbled upon it while looking for something else. If you haven't made a move yet: honestly, keeping track of the shop and Uber is the easy part. The real headache when dropping an accountant is running payroll for those 2 employees.

I moved away from my accountant last year for similar cost reasons and started using PayEscape just to handle the staff payroll side. It's way cheaper than £200/m, there's no long contract, and it leaves you to do the basic spreadsheet bookkeeping yourself without screwing up the taxes for your staff.