Hi all,
Last week I set up my ltd company and applied for business account. Could you let me know what should not make myself be my own accountant? Is it really something difficult to do? I do not think I need 3 or 5 years studying to do a piece of paperwork.
You can do your own book-keeping but as a Ltd Company you need an accountant to certify your accounts every year.
Whilst keeping books is fairly easy to do, knowing how to minimise your tax bill is where a good accountant becomes worth their money. £500-£1000 a year for an accountant could save you thousands in tax.
You don’t need to do 3-5 years studying to do your books but it’ll take you a lot longer than that to learn the intricacies of the tax system. Its almost a full time job just researching all the tax allowances you could use.
As above, if you are thinking it ain’t worth paying an accountant to save a few quid, it really isn’t worth it, if you can’t afford an accountant don’t bother with the limited company.
Conor:
You can do your own book-keeping but as a Ltd Company you need an accountant to certify your accounts every year.
As a small business you do not need to prepare full audited accounts, therefore there is no legal requirement to have an accountant. I don’t use one but I am confident in preparing my returns and what is allowable and what is not under HMRC rules.
I would recommend an accountant unless you can speak and read double Dutch and are like Billy Whizz on a computer as everything for HMRC is now online and real time.
Get a good book keeping package like Kashflow for a start and ignore some of the daft advice on this forum about claiming for all your meals when out!
Conor:
You can do your own book-keeping but as a Ltd Company you need an accountant to certify your accounts every year.
You only legally need a accountant if your turnover is over 6.5 million, which I doubt applies here. Despite being fairly clued up, I have always used one though. A good accountant should save you as much in tax as they cost and allow you more time to concentrate on making money. I just hand over all my receipts and bank statements and she does the VAT, PAYE, annual return etc and sends me a set of accounts each month. Well worth it in my opinion. I also think that if you were doing your own, DVSA would expect you to be allocating some working time allowance to it each week.
try speaking to gary at box accounts, i used to work with him and he saved me loads 08453881612
just my own experience nothing more.
Just from my own experience. At least one Agency will not use you unless you have an accountant/bookkeeper
Hi again. Just to top up my topic. What is the best for SIC code - Nature of Business. As a driver of Limited Company I only deliver a service which driving and I found I might need to supply this: “Freight transport by road”. Am I right?
Wilk:
Hi again. Just to top up my topic. What is the best for SIC code - Nature of Business. As a driver of Limited Company I only deliver a service which driving and I found I might need to supply this: “Freight transport by road”. Am I right?
Hi Wilk
The ones I looked at are below. I went with the second one, 52219, as I thought the end bit of n.e.c. stood for not elsewhere classified and driving is not classified in its own right as far as I can see, but I suspect any of them will be OK.
49410 Freight transport by road
52219 Other service activities incidental to land transportation, n.e.c
52290 Other transportation support activities