Annual Accounts & CRO Annual Returns

TallPollins

Registered User
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Hi All,

I have recently created a ltd company. The main reason is the protection of ltd liability. I am in the BER Energy service sector.
I am also VAT registered even though I wont reach the threshold in year 1.

This business is a part time one for me. I don't expect a huge amount of financial transactions from month to month and I am confident enough that I can do my own VAT returns and also handle the PAYE modernisation/Payroll part as I have some knowledge in this area. I expect to take a small regular amount as a salary from the company on a monthly basis.

The one bit that I am not as confident about is the Annual Accounts and Annual Returns to the CRO. I would like to keep my costs here as minimal as possible.
My question is this... I assume that an accountant needs to do the annual accounts and AR to CRO? If there was a template that I could use then I would definitely have a go at bringing it to a stage where the accountant would have little work to do. My old account quoted me 1200 + VAT for this work which seem excessive in my mind.

Any advice on what the best way to proceed is?
 
If you can do your own VAT return, you can teach yourself to do your own CRO returns.

Two points,

- The filing deadlines are absolute, miss them and you will be fined and have to get an auditors report for three years.

- The CRO staff are very helpful. If there is anything you are unclear about you can get advice.
 
Why not get an accountant to do the returns the fist year, then you have a template specific to your company to work on?
Was the quote just for CRO or including Revenue returns?
 
Just a comment on your vat registration. If you aren't reaching the vat registration threshold (€37,500) then is it to your benefit being vat registered? If you are supplying business users then it won't make any difference. However if your customers are private individuals, who can't recover the vat, then you are making yourself 23% more expensive than needs be. If your market is private individuals you are paying the vat as your customers won't care either way if you are vat registered or vat.

The only benefit to you being vat registered is that you can reclaim back vat that you are charged - this may not be a lot of money given the nature of your business. Take a look at the maths. You are also giving yourself a lot more paperwork to do if you are vat registered. Obivioulsly if your sales exceed €37.5K then you are required to register for vat. A lot of businesses only become vat registered when they expect to invoice more than €37.5K in the next twelve months.
 
Thanks for all the info above.

Perhaps I don't need to get VAT registered initially.... one of the reasons I was thinking i needed to is a scenario that I have this week.

I won a contract from company 999 which involves me doing a portfolio of BER Certs, some domestic, some commercial. I am only a domestic assessor so I need to contract out the commercial part to someone else. The guy who is doing the commercial certs for me is VAT registered and so when he invoices me i'll have to pay his VAT.

Then when it comes to me invoicing company 999 if I wasn't VAT registered I wouldn't charge the VAT. Therefore I am caught paying VAT to the guy who did the work for me but not being able to pass that on to the company who I won the contract off.

Have I got this right?
 
Yes, but if you are VAT you will have to invoice all your customers VAT.
Your VAT registered customers won't care as they will be able to recover the costs
Your other customers, mostly personal customers or small business, will care because unless you reduce your price, they will be paying 13.5% or perhaps 23% more
 
What sort of a Ltd did you form?
IIRC, the most recent Company law on this matter went a long way to removing/reducing the notion of hiding behind the corporate veil.
So don't get hung up on that.
Looking at your business model, IIRC, you need c euro1.3m in insurance cover to meet the SEAI BER registration requirements..
This cover is needed I think for 6 years after you do your last one.
In addition, who will carry the can for the non domestic stuff, SEAI will look to your subbie, your clients may look to you, so you need clarity on that.

Re the accounts/CRO its not hard, but as noted earlier, keeping to the filing deadlines are crucial.

Are you on ROS?
 
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