justme0316 wrote:

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Hey guys.

I've a few questions I'd like you to answer for me please - 

Hi Dee (why do I want to follow that with saying "Hi" again!!!) 

welcome to the forum.

1) Is it necessary for the vehicle to be in 'the books' to claim AMAP? 

No. Mileage Payments are (almost) total compensation for use of your vehicle.

2) If AMAP is claimed, or used, is road tax added back when calculating tax?

The road tax should not have been claimed though the business in the first place. Mileage allowance is compensation for use of a vehicle not owned and run through the business. Things like road tax should not be used to reduce either paper or real profits.

3) If I rent a property, it's occupied for 11 months, empty for 1 - how many months do I charge to P/L?

What sort of property? Are we talking business premises? Need more explanation over what you mean.

4) Stolen or damaged stock, how is this recorded/expensed? 

Stock should be written down to the lower of cost and NRV.

5) How important is knowing the ways of payroll? 

Very. Even if you don't run a payroll (I don't offer it as a service to clients) you will feel pretty stupid if a client asks you a basic question that you are unable to answer. There are certain levels of knowledge expectation from clients. For example, a client would expect you to know sufficient about things like P45's, P60's and RTI to pass comment but they may be more undertstanding if you needed to go and look something up in relation to (say) pensions, holiday entitlement or maternity / paternity rights even though all of them come ostensibly under the same heading of payroll related. 

If you cannot answer questions on what a client would consider the basics that may knock their confidence in employing your services.

Some pretty basic question I know, my texts books, unfortunately do not answer many of the questions I have...

Which text books? I may have some suggestions for some better one's.

Thanks for your time 

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Hope that my answers help,

kindest regards,

Shaun.

justme0316 wrote:

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Hey, thanks for your reply. 

 

In reference to point 3)

Residential private property let's say. 

Loads of potential complexity associated with the business paying for residential property for an employee / director. You would be much better off reading that up from your F6 text (or one of the suggestions below) than trying to cover it in a short reply here.

What happens with stolen cash? 

File a police report as evidence of theft

Was the money insured? If so you may have a contingent asset.

In the short term :

Cr Bank

Dr an expense account (write off through the income statement)

Note that if you do not make it official with a police report, and/or insurance claim then HMRC would just regard the reduction in funds as having been used by the owners of the business.

AAT Kaplan books I have at the moment. BPP F6 ACCA. Just seems that the basic questions aren't really covered much. In terms of when things go wrong anyway. Too clean, too clinical. 

Kaplan study text for ACCA paper P6 / F6 is much better than the BPP version as it uses more example based tutoring.

Also try Taxation by Alan Melville. Much smaller than the ACCA texts but packs a lot in with over 250 questions for you to try.

The Kaplan text for P6 covers much of the same ground as F6 but there's more of it... And boy do you get your money's worth as it comes in A4 size and its a good 6cm thick.... If you absolutely positively have to kill someone with a book (and cannot find a king James bible to hand) then accept no sustitute.

Are there any books/exercises around which aren't so black and white?

Any technical how to, you need to ask for this, for that. The need to keep certain spreadsheets of certain workings etc... 

This site is a great general font of knowledge as is Accountingweb. You will find discussions on most subjects will be answered. Just think of a subject and then enter into Google Site:www.book-keepers.org.uk followed by keywords related the question. I generally follow the questions with -mobile as personally I hate the mobile format that is invariably returned.

Up to yet, the text books leave me needing to ask more questions than they actually answer! 

You may find doing old ACCA exam papers much better than the study texts. Both Kaplan and BPP update a selection of old questions each year for F6 and P6 which is well worth buying and working through as the questions will really test your understanding.

ACCA no longer publish past exam papers but even when they did there was never any point doing the tax one's as they were only ever any good for the current finance act.

 

Thanks 

 

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