Hi Nick
Welcome to the forum. We always ask newbies to do a little intro about themselves, bookkeeper or Accountant, where based, which prof body you are with, level of study or QE, how long you've been in this crazy business, that sort of thing. Just a few lines, helps everyone to get to know you a little and also to help pitch answers.
For this one as well, it's probably worth advising with software you are using. I know as I use it but Im playing devils advocate this evening! Also advise whether it's desktop or cloudy (and for some, perhaps even the version number etc) then advice can be more specific.
Also, we ask peeps to add their first name to their signature bar so that it pops up on all posts, just saves us keeping looking it up. I know you have added to your message, but will save you doing that next time. Go to edit profile, easy peasy and only takes a sec.
Thanks and I look forward to hearing more and then helping out.
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Thank you for your reply. I'm just starting out doing the bookkeeping for my ltd, based in England. I don't have any experience, but I've done (and am doing) a lot of reading and I find the field interesting. It's pretty small scale so far and nothing too complicated, financially, so I think that with the odd bit of advice I should get by. These boards have been a great help already, so thank you for the time you've all put in.
I'm using QuickFile online which I like because it doesn't seem to hide (or oversimplify) too much. It's simple enough that I understand what's going on, but still powerful and customisable.
I hope this is ok - do let me know if I'm wasting everyone's time by asking stupid questions! Or indeed if I'm out of my depth.
Hi Nick
I'm sure if you have had a good look around the site that you will have picked up that the site is not for business owners, but for Bookeepers and Accountants. Also that we are not able to give advice without there being a formal agreement in place between client and professional. Although on this occasion given its a simple Q, I will give you a steer .....it all depends on how much analysis you require as the year progresses, although in this case, given its an annual fee I would suggest you set up a new nominal code in either the 71xx or 76xx range called 'virtual office services' or something along those lines. Its not really a subscription.
Not sure if you have come across prepayment or accruals as yet in your reading, but items such as these will need to be prepaid or accrued, depending on your year end/timing of the invoices.....one for your Accountant at year end. If you haven't yet got an Accountant I would ensure you do employ one and let him have an update at least a good month or two before the year end so that they can suggest appropriate tax mitigation methods if any are available before it's too late.
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Thank you for your reply - I fully appreciate that you can't give detailed advice - that's absolutely fine. Steering in the right direction is often much more helpful.
That's very useful guidance - thank you for your time. It's much appreciated.
Going off topic here slightly away from the bookkeeping to the business principles behind what you have conveyed in this thread and I'm a little concerned about the virtual nature of the offices.
It is a legal requirement that any member of the public should with be able to view your accounts at the companies registered office but you state that all that they do is open and scan official mail?
Just to confirm is the registered office your accountants address where your company's memorandum and articles and accounts are kept? Or is it simply another virtual service address where your company is registered with companies house?
Note that if your documents are kept at a SAIL address (Single Alternate Inspection Location) then that address must be on public record so in your case does that defeat the idea of using a virtual registered address (unless that address is also the address of your accountants but your posts to date give the impression that you don't have an accountant otherwise they would have told you what is deductible and what is not).
Following on from Joannes advice you need to understand acruals before calculating what apportionment of the virtual office expense is allowable in which period for tax purposes.
Even if you do your own bookkeeping I would advise that you use an accountant to look after your self assessment, CT600, filing of accounts, companies house return and as either your registered office or SAIL address if they will permit either (some accountants do not offer registered office services at their address). An accountant will require access to all of your original documentation (bank statements, invoices, receipts, etc) so ensure that you develop a regime of filing these away with no gaps in the documentation.
At the period end the accountant may well restart all of your bookkeeping from scratch is they believe that there are too many errors in your documentation so not using a bookkeeper may end up saving you nothing.
That said, some business owners keep very competent records making the accountants job much easier (and as such quicker for them and cheaper for you) so that call is very much down to you but certainly, I would advise not to attempt to do the accounts prep and filing yourself as if things go badly wrong then it can be expensive to get an accountant to unwind everything.
I've come accross one or two people using cloud based bookkeeping who think that they only need to keep minimal paperwork but remember that you need to keep all of your records (invoices, receipts, bank statements etc.) for at least twenty years. Some believe it to only be six plus one (prior six plus current) but thats not completely correct. If HMRC find anything they consider needing further investigation they can go back much further with twenty years now being the accepted norm.
If you keep electronic copies of documents you also need to keep the original document for inspection for the six plus one plus for the copies you need to copy both sides of the document even if the other side is blank (in order to prove that there was nothing on the reverse side).
It takes a bit of getting into the mindset of needing to be in a position of having to prove absolutely everything but its certainly a good idea to get into doing that very early in your business.
Also, if you claim mileage remember that you need to keep a mileage log detailing every mile that you claim through the business.
Good luck with your business venture Nick whatever it may
kindest regards,
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.
Thank you for your input. The virtual office service provider also stores 'statutory records' that I can administer through a web portal. I believe that this meets all statutory requirements, but I will definitely confirm. Form AD03 change of location of the company records to the single alternative inspection location (SAIL) doesn't appear to apply to financial accounts, which are public anyway.
It does raise an interesting question about anyone who serves a document to the company at the registered address though. If these are from the courts then they will be opened and scanned under the 'registered office service', but not from anyone else. With the 'virtual office service' they will open and scan all mail which should meet all the legal requirements, but it raises the question of whether the 'registered office service' alone is sufficient. Anyway, these services are quite commonplace now.
I will use an accountant to complete the returns. I see this as a learning experience anyway. It is a very small scale business right now, so the worst case is that the accountant will re-do everything, but it will be good for me anyway to have a better idea of how these things work.
I fully understand the importance of keeping good records, and I'm a hoarder anyway so I will probably keep records indefinitely! I fully appreciate the concerns around business owners doing their own bookkeeping - I certainly wouldn't trust everyone to do it right - but the reason that I'm asking questions here is because I care about doing it properly.
the reason that I'm asking questions here is because I care about doing it properly.
Hi Nick
Please be aware that we will not be able to answer more than we have already, as already mentioned this forum is not for business owners. Happy to have helped so far but we have to draw a line or this would end up as a free for all for all business owners and that is not the intention of this site.
I certainly appreciate business owners who care enough to understand what goes on with the books - makes life a lot easier for us professionals in the long run. Certainly can recommend some courses if you wish to take this further.
Good luck with your business though - here's hoping it takes off quickly so you dont have the time to do the courses
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
glad to hear that you do have an accountant on board already.
The worry on here is always for those business owners who try to do it all themselves without realising quite how much there is to this. For example accountants with the major bodies may study and be gaining post qualification experience for ten years plus in order to work as an accountant.
For the smallest businesses you are right in that sometimes it does not make financial sense to have a seperate bookkeeper. But I hope that your business grows quickly to the stage where you soon need one.
It sounds as though you come to this with the right attitude of keep absolutely everything. Wish that some of my clients would take a leaf out of your book on that one.
What it seems that you are doing by way of bookkeeping is simply collating the information before giving it to the accountant. Pretty much just keeping a cashbook to get some idea where your business is before passing everything to the accountant to sort out.
I've got a couple of clients who use Quickfile which does give them a constant view of their business... It might not be completely correct, but it's good guidance. With my ones that are on quickfile I redo their accounts from scratch (original documents) each year and in both cases what I get is always different to what they have been working from but thats a good thing as it helps them see where they have been going wrong and year on year they are getting better at the bookkeeping as I'm sure that you will so when you give it up it will be because you need the time to grow your businesses, not because you do not understand the bookkeeping.
In many ways it can be argued that business owners should have a basic understanding of the bookkeeping for their business otherwise how do you understand when things are going wrong.
Must say that I find clients coming to me where they have had a go with something like Quickbooks or VT Cashbook a lot easier than those who have tried building their own Excel spreadsheets which invariably have issues that I end up resolving for them.
Following on from Joanes comments I feel that I need to fill in that we on here have all seen so many horror stories of where clients have attempted to do it themselves and things have gone horribly wrong. By giving advice diretly to business owners we are enabling their misunderstanding so unfortunately people such as yourself who are attempting to do the right things in simply collating the information properly before handing everything off to your accountant do get something of the fall out from that.
Also we need to be really careful as because you have an accountant already, asking on here is the equivalent of getting a second opinion. To do that we should contact the incumbant professional to confirm that it is ok to do that (it seldom is).
You will also note that many professionals on here have an exclusion clause on their signitures to protect themselves from any comments made. It basically says that no matter what you read here you need to talk to your own accountant and only their advice should be acted upon.
The above reasoning is why we tend to talk to each other here (accountants, bookkeepers and students of both) but try to avoid giving any advice directly to business owners as whilst we are not responsible for a third parties interpretation of what we have said we do not like to think of businesses suffering on the basis of a misunderstanding or other professionals needing to explain why their approach is different to that read on an open forum.
lol, and you only asked what code to put something to! (which I personally would classify under "other legal and professional" as its a service, not something that physically exists, however, other accountants would classify the same thing in different ways. No matter how it is classified it is a tax deductible business exense).
kindest regards,
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.
