From: usenet@isbd.co.uk
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Re: Small Business - Accountant
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2006 09:18:51 +0000 (UTC)

mo  wrote:
> Hi
> Me and frined are considering starting a small business (perhaps a food 
> shop)
> 
First make some sort of business plan to see if it really all adds up,
you may have done this already, not sure.  There are quite a few
agencies who will help startups but don't get too involved with them
or believe everything they say or you may end up in a morass of
unhelpful (and unnecessary) bureaucracy.

You need to decide is whether it's going to be:-
    Sole trader (one of you will be the 'boss')
    Partnership (both of you, quite a lot of extra complexity)
    Ltd. company (not all that complex, some advantages, some
    disadvantages)

You also need to decide:-
    Are you going to VAT register, by the sound of the sort of size
    of business you are starting you will have to be.  The turnover
    limit (above which you *have* to register) is 54k/annum at present
    I think, thereabouts anyway.


> Hopefully in this sort of venture keeping records will be straightforward - 
> what I want to know is what kind of jobs is the accountant usually paid to 
> do? - keep end of year accounts, make sure you pay the correct tax?
> 
You can pay the accountant to do as much or as little as you want, if
you want book-keeping done then it may well be more economical to
employ someone (for a few hours a week maybe) to do that as opposed to
accounting, accountants are expensive.


> Do you HAVE to have a Accountant to do certain tasks?

No, not any more, even for a Ltd. company.  It may well be a good idea
to have one for the annual returns and dealing with the Inland Revenue
for you.  FWIW I have an accountant for my two person Ltd. company, he
deals with our tax returns (personal and company) and produces the
Annual Return for Companies House.  I do the PAYE/NIC monthly and deal
with all the VAT returns.  Our accountant costs about £700/year.


> Also wondering - if a company has 5 employees and they are paid ?400 a 
> week - how does the company pay their tax and NI?

By PAYE, you fill in all the records on forms supplied by the Inland
Revenue (or proprietary, approved, replacements, maybe using a
computer based system) every time you pay your employees (including
yourselves).  If you pay weekly then you fill forms weekly, if you pay
monthly then you do it monthly.  Up to a certain level you can
actually send the tax/NIC to the IR quarterly rather than monthly,
with four employees I *think* you'd be under the limit for paying
quarterly.

> I understand the company pays their tax in a lump sum at the end of the 
> year - is this when you would pay the employees for them (so in effect 
> saving up laods of cash to give away?!?! :)
> 
No, as I say above you have to pay tax/NIC at least quarterly and
maybe monthly.

-- 
Chris Green