The Summer’s Over. Is Your Ltd Company Admin Still on Holiday?
September has that familiar ‘back to normal’ feeling.
The summer holidays are coming to an end, the kids are back at school and, for many contractors and small business owners, work is settling back into its usual routine.
But while you’ve been enjoying the summer, a few bits of business admin may have quietly been gathering in the background.
We’re not talking about spending your evenings checking Corporation Tax deadlines or trying to work out when your next VAT return is due. If you have an accountant looking after your company, they should be keeping an eye on those things for you.
Instead, September is a good opportunity for a quick tidy up of the everyday bits of your business that only you really know about.
How is the bookkeeping looking?
If you use accounting software such as FreeAgent, take a quick look and see whether everything is reasonably up to date.
Are there bank transactions from June that you still haven’t explained? Expenses you know you’ve paid but haven’t recorded? Perhaps a few transactions that you meant to come back to and never quite did?
Nobody expects you to spend every evening lovingly tending to your bookkeeping.
But keeping it reasonably current means your accountant has a much clearer picture of your business when they need it. It also saves you trying to remember what a mystery £63 payment was for several months down the line.
Where did you put that receipt?
Receipts seem to have a particular talent for disappearing over the summer.
They could be sitting in an email inbox, a wallet, the glovebox or buried underneath the collection of things that came home from holiday and still haven’t been put away.
Most day to day business spending from the company bank account will be easy enough to spot, but expenses you’ve paid personally can be much easier to miss.
If your accountant doesn’t know about an expense, they can’t make sure it’s dealt with correctly.
So if you’ve been collecting business receipts over the summer, now might be the time to rescue them.
Have you actually been paid?
Bookkeeping isn’t only about what you’ve spent.
If you’ve been busy with client work, take a moment to check that the invoices you’ve raised have actually been paid.
An overdue invoice can easily slip through the net, particularly when holidays and time away from work interrupt the usual routine.
And while you’re looking, make sure everything that should have been invoiced actually has been.
After all, doing the work is only half the job. Getting paid for it is rather important too.
Thinking about taking some extra money from the company?
Perhaps the company bank account is looking particularly healthy after a busy few months and you’re considering taking some extra money out.
Before doing so, it’s worth checking what that means for both the company and your personal tax position.
The balance showing in the company bank account isn’t necessarily all available to spend. There may be Corporation Tax, VAT, PAYE or other costs that need to be allowed for.
There can also be tax implications depending on how money is taken from the company and how much you’ve already received during the tax year.
This is one of those occasions where asking your accountant before moving the money can be much more useful than telling them afterwards.
Has anything changed?
Quite a lot can happen in a business over a few months.
Maybe you’ve started a new contract or taken on a new client. Perhaps you’ve bought a vehicle or an expensive piece of equipment. You might have started working with an overseas customer, opened another bank account or changed the way you’re working.
Not every change will have an accounting or tax consequence.
The important thing is that you don’t need to work out whether it does.
Tell your accountant what’s changed and let them decide whether there’s anything that needs attention.
What about the proper accounting stuff?
This is where having a good accountant should make running a limited company easier.
Company accounts, Corporation Tax returns, VAT returns, payroll submissions, Confirmation Statements and the various deadlines that come with running a company shouldn’t all be sitting in your head.
Your accountant should be keeping track of the work they’re responsible for, letting you know when something is needed from you and explaining what you need to pay and when.
There will always be some involvement required from you, nobody knows your business quite like you do, but you shouldn’t feel as though you’re managing the whole accounting process yourself.
A quick September reset
Running a limited company comes with some admin. There’s no escaping that completely.
But it doesn’t have to take over.
Keeping your bookkeeping reasonably tidy, recording those easily missed expenses, checking you’ve been paid and keeping your accountant in the loop gives them the information they need to deal with the rest.
And if you’re spending your evenings worrying about Corporation Tax deadlines, payroll submissions and whether you’ve forgotten to file something?
It might be time to find an accountant who takes a little more of that off your plate.
At PaperRocket Accounting, we work with contractors, freelancers and small limited companies across the UK. We keep the accounting side simple, keep an eye on the important deadlines and let you know when we need something from you, so you can get on with running your business.
PaperRocket are a multi award winning Chartered accounting practice, and Accredited FreeAgent Practitioners.
We specialise in providing friendly, non-accounting jargon, services for contractors, freelancers, sole traders, and landlords across the UK.
Our fixed fee monthly accounting packages all include a FreeAgent subscription as standard and unlimited support from your allocated accountant.
To find out how we can help you please get in touch now.
