Question regarding Accountant

P

PDCAT

Guest
Hi Folks

My Partner has just set up her own Beauty Business Salon and i have undertaken to do help her with here books.
Weve seen an Accountant and he has shown me how to keep these books. His Fee for the year is 900 euros paid quarterly. I seem to be spending an awful amount of time myself doing these books (alot more than i originally thought was necessary). I am keeping a Daily Cash Book with a summary at the end of every 2 months for Vat Returns as well as calculating Vat returns and sending payment. I also am keeping a Credit Journal which includes all there Direct Debits and Cheques written for each month. Also i keep a Purchases Invoices Book with means each invoice goes into this book detailing total amount, Vat amount, amount for resale at % and amount not for resale %. Some of her friends who also own Beauty Salons have been telling her that im doing most of his work for him and their accountants only charge approx 500 euros and do most of this work for their clients.
Just wondering if any one could give me any info.
 
Hi PD

A good accountant will get you do the work can do yourself. This allows you to control the business better. I would not let or pay an accountant to do this type of work.

To me, €900 a year seems very little for quarterly accounts and general hand holding. But I am an accountant, so maybe I am biased.

€500 seems ridiculously low for an accounting and bookkeeping service. But it could be that they are using bookkeepers and your partner is using a qualified accountant. If so, your partner will probably get a better overall financial management and accounting and tax service.

Brendan
 
Accountant

You did not specify whether your partner was working through a limited company or acting as a sole trader. Doing accounts for a Ltd company is a lot more expensive, especially if the accounts have to be audited.

Septic
 
Accountant

Sorry Septic

She's a sole trader.

Brendan -- Just the amount of work that's involved for myself is what im concerned about, not the cost of service. Not having much of a life at the moment trying to keep on top of things and wondered was it going to get better.

Also concerned whether i am doing all the accountants work. What will he have to do that im not already doing.
At this rate i could possibly do her books myself next year.

Rgds

Paul.
 
It's not unusual to spend two full evenings a week keeping the books for a small business. This is after you are fairly familiar with the systems and not while you are in the learning phase. I attended an interesting course for the self-employed not long ago and figures about the average working week for self employed individuals were discussed. From memory in year one it was 90-100 hours per week. They made the point that "bookwork" was usually done outside of "normal" working hours.

Could you teach your partner how to do some of the books so that you are sharing the load? Maybe the cash book could be kept at the till. If she is too busy to do any book work during the day, that's probably a good sign as if she's not looking after custmers she's not making money.
 
learning curve

Another thing to remember that as times goes on, the paperwork, accounts etc you need to maintain will become easier for you to understand/manage and what takes you a couple of hours to complete now may only take one hour when you are more familiar etc and more sure of what you are doing.

Perhaps you need to talk to your partner and explain the extra workload involved and maybe she can help out?

She could be more careful with receipts and invoicing etc and take some responsibility with the daily account keeping so that you can spend your time more productively.
 
As a matter of interest are you doing it manually or on computer??
I give clients an excel workbook which has the cash book, purchases invoice book, chequepayments book in it. The cash book and purchases book are linked to a vat computation sheet which does the calculations for the vat return and all sheets do summaries for year end. I generaly customise it for each client to allow for the different types of business and related expenses.
I would sugest that you do something simular.

With regard the fees I wouldn't expect that €900 is very expensive, remember pay peanuts...
 
Accoutant

Thanks everyone for there replies.

I am doing books on a computer but the books themselves i've created myself on Excel, Cash Book, Purchase Invoice and Cheque Journal. Do not compute vat automatically but seems easy enough to do manually.

Rgds

Paul.
 
Re: Accoutant

Make sure you keep an up to date back up version of your electronic records. I know this is common sense but it's so easy to let it slip a few weeks.
 
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