Accountancy services for Bristol businesses

It depends on your profits, your other income and whether the work carries any risk. A limited company usually means less tax above a certain level of profit, but more paperwork and filing. The crossover point shifts whenever rates change, so it is worth revisiting every couple of years. We will run both sets of numbers for your situation and show you the difference.

Bank statements, sales invoices and purchase receipts for the year, plus anything unusual. A shoebox, a spreadsheet or a login to your bookkeeping software are all fine. We will tell you what is missing rather than guessing.

Usually, yes. Most years can be reconstructed from bank statements and whatever paperwork does exist. It takes longer, so it costs more, but it is rarely impossible. Tell us at the first meeting rather than after we have started.

Not unless you are VAT registered, in which case Making Tax Digital requires digital records. Otherwise a spreadsheet is perfectly acceptable. We work with Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent and Sage, and we will not push you onto something bigger than you need.

Accounts are due at Companies House nine months after your year end. Corporation tax is payable nine months and a day after it, and the CT600 return is due twelve months after. Three dates that do not line up, which is why we track them for you.

Companies House charge £150 for being up to a month late, rising to £1,500 at six months, and the penalty doubles if you filed late the previous year too. HMRC charge their own penalties and interest separately. None of it is negotiable.

Most director-shareholders take a small salary and the rest as dividends, but the right split depends on your other income, whether your spouse holds shares, and the rates that year. We work it out for your circumstances and put it in writing before the year starts.

You tell your current accountant, we write to them for the handover information, and they pass it across. There is no gap in your filing and very little for you to do. It can be done at any point in the year.

You will need one if you are self-employed, a partner, or a company director with untaxed income. Also if you receive rental income, have income over £100,000, have capital gains to report, or the High Income Child Benefit Charge applies. If you are unsure, ask us, because it takes a few minutes to establish.

An online return and any tax owed are due by 31 January following the end of the tax year on 5 April. Paper returns are due by 31 October. If your bill is over £1,000 you will usually also make payments on account in January and July.

We deal with this regularly. HMRC are considerably easier to work with when someone approaches them first, and penalties can sometimes be reduced where there is a reasonable excuse. Bring us what you have and we will establish where you actually stand before anything else.

It depends on how you earn. For the self-employed, expenses incurred wholly and exclusively for the business. For landlords, allowable property costs with the mortgage interest restriction applied. Higher-rate taxpayers routinely forget pension contributions and Gift Aid, both of which are worth claiming.

Once your taxable turnover passes the threshold in any rolling twelve-month period, not a period of your choosing. That rolling test is what catches growing businesses out, because the month you cross it is often not the month you expected.

It can be worth it if your customers are VAT-registered themselves, or if you are spending heavily on stock and equipment. If you sell mainly to the public it usually is not, because you will either absorb the VAT or raise your prices. We will work out which applies to you.

VAT-registered businesses must keep digital records and file through compatible software. Typing figures into the HMRC portal is no longer possible, and a spreadsheet on its own only works if it is bridged properly. Bridging software is often the cheapest compliant answer for a business already using spreadsheets.

For some businesses. The limited cost trader rules removed most of the benefit for service businesses with low costs, so it is worth less than it used to be. Cash accounting or annual accounting may suit you better. We will tell you which, if any, is worth moving to.

Payslips for every employee, Real Time Information submissions to HMRC on or before each pay day, PAYE and National Insurance calculated with a clear figure for what to pay and when, statutory sick and parental pay, starters and leavers, P45s and P60s, and the year-end returns. Pensions auto-enrolment is handled alongside it.

If you take a salary, yes. It still needs a PAYE scheme and still needs RTI submissions every month, even for one person. A good number of the payrolls we run are exactly this, and the fee reflects the size of the job.

Every employer must enrol eligible staff into a workplace pension and contribute to it. The assessment happens every pay period rather than once when someone joins, because an employee can become eligible simply by earning more in a busy month. Re-enrolment comes round every three years and almost everybody forgets it.

The same named person handles it throughout, payslips go to each employee individually rather than in a single email, and nobody else in your office needs access to the file.

If you pay subcontractors for construction work, CIS applies whether or not construction is your main business. That catches property developers and landlords carrying out significant work, not just builders. If you are paid as a subcontractor, it applies to you too.

By the 19th of each month, including a nil return in months when you have paid nobody. The penalty starts at £100 for a late return and applies to nil returns as well, which makes it one of the most avoidable fines in the tax system.

By filing a self assessment return. Twenty per cent of your labour has usually been deducted at source, often more than you actually owed once expenses and your personal allowance are accounted for. The difference comes back as a refund, but only when a return is filed.

If your turnover is high enough and your compliance record is clean, you are paid in full with nothing deducted and settle with HMRC at the year end instead. It makes a substantial difference to cash flow. There are turnover, business and compliance tests, and the status can be withdrawn if you start filing late.

Since 2021 most construction services between VAT-registered businesses within CIS fall under the domestic reverse charge. The customer accounts for the VAT instead of the supplier, so subcontractors no longer receive the VAT on those invoices. Invoices have to be worded specifically for it.