Startup Accountants

We are startup accountants. At CloudBook Online Accountants, we’ve helped many businesses startup and grow into established profitable companies. If you’re looking for an accountant for startups, read on below to find out how CloudBook Online Accountants can help you.

Unlimited Startup Advice

You get unlimited advice on all of our accounts packages except Annual. So you don’t need to worry about what it’s going to cost you to ask your accountant startup advice. Even if you’ve run a business before, good up-to-date advice early on from a specialist startup accountant is invaluable. It can help you avoid costly mistakes and to save tax from the start.

Startup as a Company?

One of the most important decisions you’ll have to make is what kind of structure your business should be. We have a guide and a tax calculator to help you decide. This will help explain whether to startup as a company, a partnership, or a sole trader. However, it’s usually best to talk it through with us before going ahead. You can change structure after starting a business. However, it can be costly and time consuming, so it’s best to get this correct from the start. It’s not a straight forward decision as there may be many factors to consider. Such as how to get the best tax relief if you expect a loss in the first few months.

Free Incorporation Services

If you decide to operate as a limited company, we can register a new company for you at Companies House. We don’t charge extra fees for this. We’ll just ask for the first month’s fees towards your accounts, plus the Companies House charge of £12. We have a new company form to take the details we need for the free company registration service. We’ll also check your answers and get in touch if there’s anything that you might want to change. As specialist startup accountants we know exactly how your company should be setup to save you the most tax.

Registering a new business with HMRC

Any kind of business will need to register with HMRC to submit tax returns and pay any taxes due. That could be for a personal tax return for sole traders and partners. A partnership tax return. Or a corporation tax return for companies. We will do this for you, all included in our low fixed fees.

Payroll

Payroll is the procedure of paying wages to employees. As a startup business you may not need employees for a while. However, if you operate as a company paying a small amount of wages to yourself is usually the best way to pay yourself. However, if that’s over a certain amount, you will need to register for PAYE at HMRC. We will do that for you for no extra charge. We can also help you choose software to do your own payslips etc. Or we can do them for you for a low add-on fee.

VAT

VAT is a tax on the final consumer of non-essential goods and services. Small businesses don’t have to register for VAT which means they suffer any VAT on their costs. However, they can pass on this cost to customers in their prices. Also, they don’t have to add VAT onto their sales prices. Businesses that do register for VAT have to add VAT onto their sales prices. The VAT charged to customers minus the VAT on their costs is payable to HMRC, usually quarterly.

As startup accountants with clients who are growing quickly, we know how important it is to regularly check that your sales don’t exceed the VAT registration threshold. We will explain the rules to you so you know exactly what to check. On all of our accounts packages (except Annual) we will also check this quarterly if you use online accounting software. Also, we know what kinds of businesses can save money by registering for VAT before they have to. When you do need to register for VAT, we will do that for you for no extra fee. You will then need to use accounting software to submit VAT returns. This is a HMRC requirement to comply with the new Making Tax Digital for VAT rules.

Accounting Software

Accounting software will help you do the bookkeeping (see below) and send invoices to customers. As well as being startup accountants, we are also specialists in online accounting software. There are many benefits to using online accounting software, as explained in our guide. Since we started business in 2013 we have dealt exclusively with clients who use online accounting software, including spreadsheets. So we can advise you what’s best to use. That could be spreadsheets such as Excel or Google Sheets. Or low cost software such as Pandle or QuickFile. Or higher end software like Xero and QuickBooks. Unlike many other accountants, you can use whichever accounting software you prefer, and changing software will always be an option.

Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping is listing and categorising all of the business transactions. It’s a requirement to keep your bookkeeping records up to date at all times. By doing this you’ll know how the business is performing and what financial position the business in. We offer bookkeeping services which will give you peace of mind that your records are up to date. It will also provide you with useful reports on the business from the start. However, if you’d like to do the bookkeeping yourself, we can guide you. As well as talking you through it we have some guides. See our bookkeeping using either software or spreadsheets articles.

Startup Accountants Fees

Our startup accountants fees are the same as our normal low fees for a couple of reasons. Firstly, our normal fees are as low as they can go. We keep are costs low and work as efficiently as possible to keep our fees as low as possible. Secondly, you usually need more services and more advice in your first year. So if anything we should be charging you more! Other startup accountants may offer low fees for the first year, but will you be getting the best service if it’s heavily discounted? How much do their fees go up from the second year to compensate? Get a 5 star service from day 1 with CloudBook Online Accountants.