I am a director of a small electrical contracting company which must reduce its overheads in order to survive.
Our turnover is down to approx €150,000. We pay €7000 of this in annual accounting & bookeeping fees (5% of turnover). I feel this is too high.
We employ a part-time bookeeper (€3500 per anum) who looks after our purchases, payrole (2 working directors only), VAT returns, P30's & bank rec.
Everything is updated weekly.
I look after all the invoicing and credit control myself.
We use Quickbooks accounting software.
The accountant only appears once a year for our annual return. He prints reports directly from the quickbooks software, takes them away and prepares and files our annual accounts. He charges €3500 for this.
I have contacted other accountancy firms and i am receiving similar quotations. It appears to me €3500 is the minimum charge for an annual return. (Additionally this is paid in a lump sum before filing. I have heard there are firms who will charge in installments over the course of a year but i am unable to find any.)
I was considering letting the bookeeper go. The entire bookeeping would be too time consuming to do myself (we have a lot of purchase invoices).
I had planned to continue using Quickbooks just for the sales/payrole. I could do the VAT return (quarterly) myself by hand. I would then wish to hand an accountant the Sales, Purchases & Bank Statements folders once a year for the annual return.
I put this idea to the accountant and was told the extra fees incurred would nearly cancel out any savings gained by letting the bookeeper go.
I received similar answers from other accountancy firms.
If anybody else in a similar size company is paying cheaper accounting costs or knows of a better system i would greatly appreciate any advice.
Our turnover is down to approx €150,000. We pay €7000 of this in annual accounting & bookeeping fees (5% of turnover). I feel this is too high.
We employ a part-time bookeeper (€3500 per anum) who looks after our purchases, payrole (2 working directors only), VAT returns, P30's & bank rec.
Everything is updated weekly.
I look after all the invoicing and credit control myself.
We use Quickbooks accounting software.
The accountant only appears once a year for our annual return. He prints reports directly from the quickbooks software, takes them away and prepares and files our annual accounts. He charges €3500 for this.
I have contacted other accountancy firms and i am receiving similar quotations. It appears to me €3500 is the minimum charge for an annual return. (Additionally this is paid in a lump sum before filing. I have heard there are firms who will charge in installments over the course of a year but i am unable to find any.)
I was considering letting the bookeeper go. The entire bookeeping would be too time consuming to do myself (we have a lot of purchase invoices).
I had planned to continue using Quickbooks just for the sales/payrole. I could do the VAT return (quarterly) myself by hand. I would then wish to hand an accountant the Sales, Purchases & Bank Statements folders once a year for the annual return.
I put this idea to the accountant and was told the extra fees incurred would nearly cancel out any savings gained by letting the bookeeper go.
I received similar answers from other accountancy firms.
If anybody else in a similar size company is paying cheaper accounting costs or knows of a better system i would greatly appreciate any advice.