Kent Accountant for Trades

Bookkeeping Services for Tradespeople

Being self-employed or running a small business means you need to keep track of invoices, record all your expenses, and make sure your books are balanced. With all the client work on your plate, let our team at AK Tax handle all your time-consuming tasks, including:

• General Bookkeeping — Utilising market-leading Xero accounting software, we can help you transition to this powerful cloud-based financial system. Say goodbye to spreadsheets, as you will not need to manually input every single transaction anymore. You can also see all your finances on a single platform, so you’ll know where your money is going in real-time. This will effectively reduce your costs, as it removes the need to print hard copies of documents and the clutter of receipts in your office.
• Regular Reports — Whether you need to meet with us every week or every month, you’ll receive regular reports on your financial health with key metrics for growth. This includes profit and loss accounts, balance sheets, and your cash flow statement. With these data on hand, you’ll be able to see if you’re going the right track towards your goals or if you are deviating in any way.

• Company Formation — If you’re just starting out, we’ll help you create a limited company, register it to HMRC, and submit all taxation requirements on time.
• Payroll — We’ll administer your payroll, making sure your employees are paid on time and ensuring you’re compliant with all employment laws and submit your RTI to HMRC.

Taxation

The complexities involved in the taxation process are often too much to handle for the self-employed or small business tradespeople that we work with. We aim to lift that burden off your shoulders and take care of the following:

• Personal Tax Returns — Your annual tax return is one of the most important taxes you need to file. We’ll help you calculate it, add all the items that should be included, and file all requirements on time.
• VAT — We’ll explain to you what VAT means, how to calculate it, and which schemes you qualify for (e.g. standard VAT, Flat Rate Scheme), so you won’t have to worry about getting this wrong again.
• Year-end Accounts and Taxation  — If you’re running a limited company, we’ll help you produce your annual company accounts and submit it to Companies House. We’ll also submit your self-assessment tax return and corporation tax return to HMRC. While self-employed tradespeople are not required to do this, we advise doing accounts for your own self-assessment, which we can also lend a hand with.

• Claiming Expenses — If you’re unsure which expenses you can claim, we’ll run through each transaction you’ve made, so you won’t end up paying more than you should. We’ll also set up a system to make sure that you’ll have the proper documentation for all future expenses.

CIS

If you work with subcontractors, as most self-employed tradespeople do, you are required by the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) to deduct 20% tax from their pay. Apart from explaining to you how this works, we can also help you meet all related HMRC requirements, including:

• Registering yourself as a contractor with HMRC
• Verifying your subcontractor is registered under the CIS
• Figuring out if you’re exempt from deducting taxes from their pay (e.g. they have Gross Payment Status)
• Creating and issuing certificates to your subcontractors after every transaction
• Accomplishing requirements and submitting monthly CIS returns to HMRC

In the event that you are a subcontractor yourself, we’ll advise you on the advantages of having a Gross Payment Status. If you aren’t registered under the CIS yet, we will do it for you. If you do get CIS tax deducted, we’ll help you reclaim this in the soonest time possible.