Fixed fee schedule How much does an accountant cost?

Clear costs

How much does an accountant cost?

The cost of accountancy fees for Limited company accounts start at £300 for a low turnover company. For self assessment accountant fees we charge £179 for a basic return.

Our fixed fee schedule is based on the requirements of your business and your turnover. Separate fees are charged for accounts preparation, filing of tax returns, VAT and PAYE. You will only be charged for the services you need. See a full breakdown of all of our fees below.

Please note these are total annual fees.

Company accounts and Corporation tax return fees

Turnover	Fee rate
£0k to £10,000	£300 + VAT
£10,000 to £20,000	£360 + VAT
£20,000 to £30,000	£420 + VAT
£30,000 to £40,000	£480 + VAT
£40,000 to £55,000	£540 + VAT
£55,000 to £70,000	£600 + VAT
£70,000 to £100,000	£660 + VAT
£100,000 to £130,000	£720 + VAT
£130,000 to £160,000	£780 + VAT
£160,000 to £200,000	£840 + VAT
£200,000 to £250,000	£900 + VAT
£250,000 to £300,000	£960 + VAT
£300,000 to £400,000	£1020 + VAT
£400,000 to £500,000	£1080 + VAT
Others on request

This includes all preparing and filing the Company accounts with Companies House and the Corporation Tax return with HMRC. We will also look at options to improve tax efficiency. The turnover is the net number in the accounts so does not include VAT. This does not include confirmation statement, this is a very straightforward process so we encourage clients to do their own but we can complete this for £50 plus VAT plus the filing fee.

Occasionally a company may have a period over 1 year. Since HMRC only accept corporation tax returns for up to 12 months a second CT600 is required and we charge an additional £50 plus VAT for this additional work.

Individual Self Assessment Tax Return fees

Type	Fee rate
Self assessment tax return	£179 + VAT

For a basic tax return with PAYE income, dividend income, interest income or pensions. Separate additional fees are charged if business accounts are required or property rental income calculations.

Sole Trader/Partnership accounts (Self-Assessment)

Turnover	Fee rate
£0k to £10,000	£50 + VAT
£10,000 to £20,000	£100 + VAT
£20,000 to £30,000	£150 + VAT
£30,000 to £40,000	£200 + VAT
£40,000 to £55,000	£250 + VAT
£55,000 to £70,000	£300 + VAT
£70,000 to £100,000	£350 + VAT
£100,000 to £130,000	£400 + VAT
£130,000 to £160,000	£450 + VAT
£160,000 to £200,000	£500 + VAT

If you have a Sole Trader or a Partnership business you will need to prepare accounts in order to complete the self assessment tax return. Our fee schedule reflect the additional work involved as a business grows.

For example the total fees for a person with a small business with turnover between £30k and £40k would be the £200 + VAT accounts fee along with the £179 + VAT self assessment return fee. So a total of £379 + VAT for all year end filings.

MTD reporting

Type	Fee rate
Quarterly MTD reporting	From £75 + VAT per quarter

We can provide quarterly MTD reporting and submission for clients in a number of ways. The cost will depend on the work we need to do to prepare numbers.

If quarterly numbers are provided by a client completed with no additional preparation in a timely manner then the cost is lower. If we need to do bookkeeping work to prepare numbers either from a bank transaction download, spreadsheet transactions or using bookkeeping software, the cost will increase.

Because of the tight deadlines we will provide a strict date for receiving information and if that date is not met there will be additional charges.

Partnerships

Type	Fee rate
Partnership return	£150 + VAT

For a partnership there is an additional tax return to prepare along with the individual partners tax returns. We charge a £150 fee a partnership returns along with the business accounting fee and the cost of individual self assessment returns as shown above.

This is in addition to the self-assessment tax return fees for the individual partners. HMRC requires that a separate partnership return is completed along with the self assessment tax return for each partner.

VAT Returns

Annual turnover	Fee rate per return
£0 to 100,000	£120 + VAT
£100,000 to 200,000	£180 + VAT
£200,000 to 400,000	£240 + VAT

Fees for preparing and submitting VAT returns are charged per return. Therefore if a business has annual turnover of £92,000 and doing quarterly returns it would be charged £120 per quarter or £480 per year for VAT work.

Rental Property Income (Self-Assessment)

Description	Fee rate per return
Annual charge per property	£30 + VAT

Fees for rental properties are charged annually per property included on the tax return. These fees are in addition to the standard £179 for a self assessment tax return.

If you share the ownership of a property you will only be charged once. Eg, husband and wife own 2 properties and both require self assessment tax returns. Fees are 2 x £30 plus 2 x £179 = £418 plus VAT total fees.

PAYE

Description	Fee rate per return
Annual charge per employee	£120 + VAT

Company directors often pay a monthly salary to make use of personal tax allowances. If a director wishes to pay over the lower earnings limit (£6396 for 2024-25) then PAYE registration and monthly submissions are needed. You may wish to do your own PAYE submissions or we can help.

We can also offer payroll for regular employees. Fees are based on a charge per year per employee. Because there is so much work involved in adding or removing employees the cost is the same if an employee is included for 1 month or 12 months. We find this system is simple to understand and administer.

PAYE reporting is time sensitive, it is easy to get penalties if reporting is not completed on time. Many businesses do not need to register for PAYE so reporting may not be required.

Our PAYE service is available if you are using us for year end accounting or VAT work.

If we are doing the payroll work we can also offer reporting for auto enrolment pensions (using NEST) at a cost of £30 per employee per year.

There may be additional costs if you need help with PAYE or NEST registration and set up.

Cloud Accounting Services

We provide cloud accounting services based on your businesses specific needs. Because of the wide range of options here we struggle to provide a menu of services and costs.

You may wish us to review your own cloud bookkeeping work on a regular basis or you may wish us to do all of your bookkeeping for you. Reviews may occur on a monthly basis or perhaps quarterly to coincide with VAT quarters.

Our packages can include the subscription costs which may help to bring the total cost of the package down. Our software partners include Quickbooks and Xero.
There may be some upfront additional costs required to set up cloud accounting services. These tend to be on an hourly basis. We will aim to give a rough idea of time/cost and keep you updated if the level of work required changes at the earliest opportunity.

Record Keeping

We appreciate that our fees are relatively low compared to other Chartered Accountants.

In order to provide these low fee rates we do require that records are well maintained and the information provided to us is accurate and delivered on a timely basis.

If your records are in poor order we may look for additional fees to complete the necessary bookkeeping work to get them up to date.

Tax Planning

Sometimes the work we do can flow into complex tax planning matters which take up additional time than we make allowance for in our above fee schedules.

If it looks like we are spending significant time on tax planning we will make you aware of this at the earliest opportunity and ideally at the initial meeting. We would look for extra fees based on the tax planning work required.

Other work

Occasionally we are approached to do work which is outside of the normal fixed fee schedule items. A fixed fee for this type of work can normally be provided on request. If that is not possible we may be able to consider charging at an hourly rate.

Incomplete work

We may be approached to take on work at a fixed fee and the work is started but not completed due to changes in the client circumstances. If this occurs we may look to invoice part of the agreed fixed fee based upon the level of completion of the work.

Invoicing and Payment Terms

If we are preparing year end accounts or quarterly VAT returns we normally issue an invoice at the point where we issue draft numbers.

We then go through a review process and identify any potential issues and this is followed by obtaining approval that the numbers are ready to be submitted.

At that stage all numbers are prepared to be submitted and we look for payment prior to actual submission. The final submission normally can take place on the same or following day and we can provide confirmation that submissions have been accepted.