Accounting

Startup Accountants · Scotland

Startup accountants in Glasgow

If you are starting a company in Glasgow, the accounting decisions you make in the first three months, share structure, VAT registration timing, how founders are paid, whether to seek SEIS assurance, shape the next three years. We get them right for startups across Scotland, online, for a monthly fee agreed before you join.

from £59/mo · fixed, per month

Next deadlines

  • VAT return and payment for the quarter that ended last month
  • VAT return and payment for the quarter that ended last month
  • VAT return and payment for the quarter that ended last month
  • Confirmation statement due within 14 days of your review date, at least once every 12 months

Who this is for

Startup Accountants for Glasgow

New and early-stage companies in Glasgow: founders incorporating for the first time, technology and product startups preparing to raise seed investment, service businesses moving from side project to full time, two or three co-founders who need the equity and payroll structured properly, and companies in their first two years who set up alone and want it done properly now.

What is included

Everything inside the fixed fee

  • Company formation and HMRC registrations in the Launch package, or a review of what has already been set up
  • Cloud bookkeeping configured for a growing business, with bank feeds and expense capture from day one
  • Annual accounts and Corporation Tax return, with first-period and long-period rules handled
  • VAT registration timing advised and quarterly returns run in the Grow and Scale packages
  • Payroll for founders and first hires, with auto-enrolment, in the Scale package
  • SEIS and EIS advance assurance applications prepared for founders raising investment

How it works

Startup Accountants from Glasgow, step by step

  1. Tell us your situation

    A short message or call about what you do and what needs filing. We ask the questions that determine the right package and nothing more.

  2. Fixed fee in writing

    You receive one price for the work, confirmed by email before anything starts. It does not change if the job takes longer than we expected.

  3. Send records, review the draft

    Records come by WhatsApp or email. We prepare the draft, explain the figures in plain English and answer your questions.

  4. We file, you get the receipts

    Once you approve and the fee is settled, we submit electronically and forward the HMRC or Companies House acknowledgement the same day.

Why IGI

What you get in Glasgow

One fixed fee for startup accountants in Glasgow, agreed in writing before any work starts and never changed part-way through the job, however long it takes us.

Nothing for Glasgow is left to the last week. Each deadline relevant to startup accountants is tracked from the day you join, with the next four shown on every page we send you.

No appointments, no travel across Scotland, no parking. Everything for startup accountants in Glasgow happens online, with a real person on the other end during UK working hours.

You get one contact for startup accountants, not a queue. Glasgow clients message the same person throughout and get an answer in working hours, usually within a few hours.

The output for Glasgow clients is never just a form. It is the form, a one-page summary of what it says, and a note of the decisions it points to for startup accountants.

Approval before filing is a rule, not a courtesy. For startup accountants in Glasgow, every submission to HMRC or Companies House follows your written go-ahead.

Local facts

About Glasgow

Glasgow is in Scotland, in the G2 postcode district, Scotland. Scottish taxpayers pay income tax under six Scottish bands set by the Scottish Parliament, from the 19% starter rate through 20%, 21%, 42% and 45% to the 48% top rate, applied to non-savings income. Dividends and savings are taxed at UK rates, National Insurance and Corporation Tax are UK-wide, and property purchases pay Land and Buildings Transaction Tax.

Nearby places we also serve for startup accountants
PlaceDistanceDirection
Merchant City0.2 miSE
Blythswood New Town0.4 miW
St Enochs0.4 miS
Garnethill0.5 miNW
Port Dundas0.8 miN
Anderston0.9 miW
Gorbals0.9 miS
Sighthill, Glasgow City1 miNE

Worth knowing

Rules that come up in this work

Switching accountants

The main reasons people switch accountant are surprise invoices, missed deadlines and not understanding what they are being told. Switching involves a clearance letter between the firms, a transfer of records and agent authorisations, and a short handover of the current position. It takes about two weeks and should cost nothing extra.

Closing a company

Voluntary strike-off is available only to solvent companies. One that owes money it cannot pay needs a creditors' voluntary liquidation through a licensed insolvency practitioner, and directors who dissolve an insolvent company face personal consequences. For a solvent company the process takes three to four months from filing the DS01, with notice to creditors and shareholders within seven days.

Employer National Insurance

The cost of an employee is more than the salary. Employer National Insurance at 15% above £5,000 a year, the 3% minimum pension contribution, holiday pay, equipment and management time all come on top. The Employment Allowance of £10,500 reduces the National Insurance for most employers with more than one person on the payroll.

Workplace pensions and auto-enrolment

Workplace pension compliance is part of payroll, not separate from it. Each pay period the payroll assesses who is eligible, calculates employer and employee contributions on qualifying earnings between the lower and upper thresholds, and sends the contribution file to the scheme. The minimum total is 8%, and many employers choose to contribute more as a recruitment advantage.

Dormant companies

Dormancy is a status that is easy to lose. The strict rule is no accounting transactions other than share capital and Companies House fees, which means no bank account activity at all in practice. Fees should be paid personally by the director. A company that traded and has stopped becomes dormant only after its final trading accounts and tax return are filed and HMRC is told.

The trading and property allowances

Not every small income needs a tax return. The trading allowance exempts the first £1,000 of self-employment or casual income and the property allowance does the same for rental income, each measured on gross receipts. They cannot be combined with rent-a-room relief on the same income, and claiming the allowance means giving up the expense deduction for that source.

Crypto records and reporting

Most crypto holders have taxable events they do not recognise, because every swap is a disposal even when no pounds change hands. The computation requires the complete transaction history from every exchange and wallet, pooled by asset with HMRC's matching rules applied. Exchange-generated tax reports are frequently wrong because they cannot see transfers between a user's own wallets.

Questions

Startup Accountants questions from Glasgow

Can I switch to you from another accountant mid-year?

Yes. We request your records and professional clearance from the previous firm, pick up the bookkeeping where they left off and take over the filings. There is no charge for the switch and the first month's fee is the same as any other.

What if the startup fails?

Then the company needs to be closed properly: final accounts, final CT600, deregistration from VAT and PAYE, and a strike-off application or, if there are debts it cannot pay, a formal insolvency process. Our strike-off service with final accounts is from £349. SEIS investors can claim loss relief, which softens their outcome.

Do I need a separate business bank account?

Legally the company must have its own account because it is a separate person from you; using a personal account mixes funds and creates director's loan problems. Digital business banks open accounts quickly for new companies, and we connect the feed to your software as part of setup.

What do investors expect to see in the accounts?

Clean, current bookkeeping; a cap table that matches Companies House; founder payments properly documented; VAT and PAYE up to date; and management accounts showing runway. Due diligence on a seed round routinely finds undocumented director's loans and unfiled confirmation statements, both of which cost time at exactly the wrong moment.

Should I register for VAT before I have to?

If your customers are VAT-registered businesses, early voluntary registration lets you reclaim VAT on setup costs with no real cost to customers. If you sell to consumers, registration adds 20% to your price or cuts your margin, so waiting until the £90,000 threshold is usually better. We model it for your business.

How should co-founders be paid?

Early on, often not at all, with equity as the reward. Once the company can afford it, a modest salary through payroll keeps National Insurance records intact and is deductible. Dividends require distributable profits, which loss-making startups do not have. Director's loans are a trap. We set the structure to suit the cash position.

Do you have an office in Glasgow?

No. IGI Accounting is an online-only firm. We serve Glasgow and every other UK postcode remotely, with records sent by WhatsApp or email and everything filed electronically. The absence of local premises is why the fee for startup accountants is the same in Glasgow as anywhere else in the country, and why there is nothing to visit and nothing to print.

Is startup accountants in Glasgow really the same price as elsewhere?

Yes. The fee published on this page is what a client in Glasgow pays and what a client in any other part of Scotland pays. It is confirmed in writing before work starts and the invoice matches the quote. Where a higher package applies because your situation is more complex, we say so at the quote stage, never afterwards.

One message from Glasgow, one fixed price

Tell us what you need. You get one fixed fee in writing, and nothing is filed until you approve it.

WhatsApp for a fixed quote