Five questions, answered without hedging.

What does it cost?

There is no price list here, because no two businesses are the same. What you pay depends on how many transactions run through the business, how many of the services you need, the complexity of the work, and the state the records are in when we pick them up.

So we do it the other way round. A short consultation, free of charge, where we look at what the business actually needs. Then a full written proposal: the scope in plain terms, what is included, what is not, and the fixed monthly fee to cover it.

You read it in your own time, and there is no obligation to take it up. What we will not do is quote a number that later turns out to have excluded half the work.

How do I switch accountants?

You do not have to tell them, and you do not have to have an awkward conversation. We write to your current accountant for professional clearance and they are required to hand over your records.

We then update HMRC and Companies House, set up the software, and pick up the next deadline. About two weeks end to end, and around twenty minutes of your time.

The four steps are set out here.

Do I need to register for VAT?

Registration becomes compulsory once your VAT taxable turnover passes £90,000 in any rolling twelve months, or as soon as you expect to pass it within the next thirty days. It is a rolling test, not a test on your accounting year.

You can also register voluntarily below the threshold, which can be worth doing if your customers are VAT registered or you buy a lot of stock and equipment.

Which scheme suits you is a separate question, and the wrong one is expensive.

Are you regulated?

Yes. Both of us are ICAEW Chartered Accountants, Deloitte trained, with more than thirteen years of combined experience. Anyone in the UK can call themselves an accountant, which is exactly why the qualification is worth asking about.

We are supervised for anti-money-laundering purposes, which is why we ask for identification before we start, and we carry professional indemnity insurance.

If something goes wrong, there is a professional body behind us and a complaints process that does not depend on our goodwill.