This may have been discussed before, but I could not find the posts through a quick search.
I was just wondering on the legalities of ACCA students carrying out the bookkeeping up to trial balance and then using the services of an accounting practise to complete the final accounts. Do any of you do this at present?
In doing so, is it possible to get the final accounts "unbranded" i.e. without the accounting practise's name on it? It is just that I would like to promote annual accounts as an additional service but want to do it in a legal way.
my understanding is that you can do bookkeeping to trial balance, VAT and Payroll as you do now.
You can do accounts provided that such is supervised by a properly qualified accountant or you can hand forwards the work to a properly qualified accountant for finalisation and filing.
However, you cannot sign the accounts yourself and you cannot be registered as an agent with the tax office and you cannot prepare management accounts that may be used by third parties.
Seems sometimes as though on one hand they give us a top of the range computer, the best software and a huge library of reference material and then on the other chop our fingers off so that we can't use any of it!
I can see why the ACCA do this and the only reason that I get so agrieved about it is when I know that people with other qualifications lower down the tree than ACCA can file accounts and tax returns but we cannot even though in many cases we are higher qualified with more experience.
That's not intended in anyway to belittle other qualifications (every qualification has merit) but when you've got your three years experience signed off plus best part of ten years of high level study to find that you are unable to compete against people with considerably less study time and experience under their belts it can grind a little.
To quote Marvin, the paranoid android from the Hitchhikers guide. "Brain the size of a planet and they use me for opening doors!". lol.
Talk in a bit,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I had to change my company name as it breached the ACCA's rules as like yourself I had the word associates in it when I didn't in fact have any associates!
My fault, it was an off the shelf company that I bought because the name sounded professional but then best part of twenty years after buying it I ended up having to change it anyway.
While we're talking about business names. Also worth noting. Never, ever have a name with the word Pheonix in it as I was talking to a guy at HMRC a few years back and apparently the implication of risen from the ashes is like free straight to the top of any semi random investigation list.
Actually, now companies to investigate are chosen by computers rather than inspectors it's probably not so much of an issue anymore but just felt like mentioning it.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
