Our Services
FAQs
If there's something else you’d like to know, please call or send us an email.
What are statutory accounts?
These are year-end accounts (or accounts for other periods) that are submitted to the relevant authorities, such as the Inland Revenue. Limited companies’ financial statements are also submitted to Companies House. Company accounts can be complex and require a variety of disclosures to be made in addition to the profit and loss account and the balance sheet. It is therefore important to appoint an advisor who will prepare these accounts for you and give you the appropriate guidance and information.
What is management accounting?
Management accounting is vital to a successful company. It’s about analysing costs, producing realistic forecasts and budgets (planned costs and sales) and comparing your company’s actual performance with those forecasts and plans. It can make a huge difference to how well your company performs and improve your decision-making immeasurably.
What’s the difference between management accounting and what my accountant does at the end of the year?
Your financial accountant is there to keep the Inland Revenue and any external stakeholders happy by recording financial information at the end of the year. A financial accountant focuses on tax. A management accountant, on the other hand, is there to help you throughout the year by regularly providing you with useful information that will enable you to make good decisions and optimise your company’s performance.
What is corporation tax?
This is tax paid by UK companies (with some exceptions) on ‘chargeable profits’. Rates are fixed each year by the government.
What is a limited liability (Ltd) company?
It is a separate legal entity, a company whose shareholders have limited their liability to the value of the shares they hold.
What is a partnership?
This is when two or more people agree to carry on a business together intending to share profits.
What is a sole trader?
This is the simplest type of business. There are no shareholders, just the owner’s money and borrowings. A sole trader may also be known as a sole proprietor.
What is working capital?
This is the difference between current assets and current liabilities.
Why should I use you rather than someone providing a bookkeeping service in their spare time?
With us you get bookkeeping with a management accountant’s eye – so you get advice, insights and training that you wouldn’t normally get from a bookkeeper. You also get the peace of mind that comes from knowing you’re dealing with a company that has professional indemnity insurance and will be able to appreciate the bigger picture of your business.
Why should I get you to do the bookkeeping when I or one of my staff can do it?
If you enjoy doing the bookkeeping or already have staff who can do it, that’s fine. But bear in mind that we can also provide cover when people are sick or on holiday, and we can help out during peak periods. If you’d rather be doing something more profitable with your time than bookkeeping or are thinking of employing someone to do it, perhaps you should consider us. It’s a much more flexible arrangement for you than having an employee. And we can really add value as well.
How much will your service cost me?
That really depends on exactly what you want us to do. Rest assured that our service is cost-effective. You will generally either end up saving money (by paying less to your accountant at the end of the year) or freeing yourself up to focus on your customers, turnover and profit.
How much time will you be likely to spend at our office, and how much can you do from yours?
If we are going to provide you with a regular bookkeeping or management accounting service, we generally like to spend some time in-house with you initially. This lets us get to know your company and find out how everything works. After that we can do most of the work from our own office. But this is all negotiable.
How do you transfer paperwork and information?
This depends on your location and requirement but we have successfully used email, post, or arranged to meet customers at a mutually convenient time and place.
What do you do about data backup and security?
Your data is backed up regularly to two hard disks on our office network as well as to CD. The data is protected by hardware and software firewalls.
What’s a bank reconciliation?
It’s what you do when you check your bank statements against your invoices and receipts to make sure the money has come into or gone out of your account when it should have. It's one of those irritating, time-consuming tasks that you really ought to do but often don’t. We do it all the time and get paid for it, whereas you could probably use your time better doing something else.
What’s a cash flow forecast?
Cash flow forecasting helps you predict cash surpluses and deficits that are likely to occur in the course of a given planning period. So it helps you plan your borrowing or tells you how much surplus cash you will have to invest. If you take on a large project, for example, a cash flow forecast will help you make a decision about staged payments. It’s no good taking on an apparently profitable project that will be invoiced on completion if you’re not going to have enough cash available to keep the company afloat until the end of the project.
What’s budgetary control?
A budget normally includes planned sales, costs, assets, liabilities and cash flows over a certain period – a quarter or a year, for example. In budgetary control, the budget is compared with actual performance over the period in question.
What are internal accounting controls?
These are accounting forms, procedures and precautions that are established primarily to prevent and minimise errors and fraud (beyond what would be required for record keeping). We can help organise and establish appropriate accounting controls for your office.
What does ACMA stand for?
Associate of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. To become a member, you have to pass a series of rigorous professional examinations, study for several years and have a minimum of three years of relevant professional experience.
What’s CIMA?
The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. CIMA offers an internationally recognised professional qualification in management accounting.
What does ACCA mean?
This is the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. It is an internationally recognised professional accounting qualification. This can only be attained following the successful completion of 14 professional examinations. To become a full member of the ACCA, you have to have completed at least 3 years of relevant practical experience in many areas of general practice.
What’s AAT?
The Association of Accounting Technicians. As the name suggests, it’s a professional association for accounting technicians. The association offers a series of qualifications from basic bookkeeping to a full accounting technician qualification, which can be a stepping stone to training in chartered accountancy.
