Sorry if this is in the wrong topic (this is my first post and not sure what to do) i have got a client who wants me to do his vat return when its due it appears to be quite straight forward but have no idea how much to charge? Any ideas would be appreciated.
If it's part of an overall bookkeepingservice youre providing for him, i personally wouldnt charge that much, in fact for good clients, i just charge for an hours work every quarter.
As a stand-a-lone activity, it really will depend on what work will be required of you - will he provide a bag of receipts for you to work out his return, in which case it will be more expensive.
You will find that different bookkeepers have different charges - some may charge up to e.g.£60 for a return, others do it for free as part of the overall bookkeeping service.
Your first step i think would be to ascertain what information he will be giving you, in what form (manual or computerised) and how organised it will be (bag of receipts, excel spreadsheet etc...) before quoting.
I'm sorry i cant be more specific with price, but you will find as i'm sure others will agree, it really is down to the client, how organised they are, the amount of paperwork they produce before you can give a price.
Might be an idea to decide on an hourly rate you will charge, try to estimate how many hours it will take you to do the work and use this as a ball park figure.
I agree with Nimac, all depends on how well organised your client is, the famous bag of receipts senario !
I only charge for the first vat return when I first take on a client, only because I feel that there tends to be more work involved as sometimes they have not been very organised, and I tend to go over their previous returns just in case something has been missed. Depending upon the client (organised or disorganised) the fee would be the equivalent of two or three hours.
After that, its just a case of pressing a few buttons to produce the return and quickly check it over. Provided I have done my job correctly over the previous quarter, no problems are going to be found and it will be very straightforward For that reason, I don`t feel I could justifly charging them for that !
Thank you for your replies,they were very helpful. I think its more of a reciepts in bag type, so will try and work out hourly rate and use that as a guide. Hopefully i will be okay! Lucyx
