Accounting

E-commerce Accountants · Central London

E-commerce accountants in Lancaster Gate

If your Lancaster Gate business sells through marketplaces, your own store or both, the hard part is not the bookkeeping, it is the VAT: when the marketplace accounts for it, when you do, how imports are treated, what happens with EU customers. We handle this for sellers across Central London and the £149 health check finds the errors before HMRC does.

from £79/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
  • Online Self Assessment filing deadline and balancing payment due

Who this is for

E-commerce Accountants for Lancaster Gate

Online sellers in Lancaster Gate: marketplace traders on one or several platforms, brands selling through their own store, dropshippers, subscription box businesses, sellers importing stock from overseas, UK sellers with EU or international customers, and businesses approaching or past the £90,000 VAT threshold who need the registration and returns handled correctly.

What is included

Everything inside the fixed fee

  • Sales, fees, refunds and payouts reconciled per channel from marketplace and payment-processor reports
  • VAT handled correctly for UK sales, marketplace-collected VAT, imports, EU and overseas customers
  • Inventory accounting with cost of sales and stock valuation in the top package
  • Cloud software integrated with your channels so transactions post automatically
  • Annual accounts and Corporation Tax or Self Assessment, with the figures tying back to channel reports
  • Marketplace VAT health check: a one-off review of your registrations and settings against the rules

How it works

E-commerce Accountants from Lancaster Gate, 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

Why Lancaster Gate businesses file with IGI

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

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

Online only, UK based. There is no office in Lancaster Gate to pay for, which is why the fee is the same here as anywhere in England; the work is done by people in the UK who answer the same day.

You get one contact for e-commerce accountants, not a queue. Lancaster Gate clients message the same person throughout and get an answer in working hours, usually within a few hours.

The output for Lancaster Gate 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 e-commerce accountants.

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

Local facts

About Lancaster Gate

Lancaster Gate is in Central London, within Westminster, in the W2 postcode district, England. Income tax in England follows the UK rates: 20% basic to £50,270, 40% higher to £125,140 and 45% additional, with the personal allowance of £12,570 tapered away above £100,000. National Insurance, VAT and Corporation Tax are UK-wide, and Stamp Duty Land Tax applies to property purchases.

Nearby places we also serve for e-commerce accountants
PlaceDistanceDirection
Bayswater0.1 miSW
Westbourne Green0.5 miNW
Paddington, Westminster0.5 miNE
Notting Hill Gate0.5 miSW
Little Venice0.6 miN
Pembridge0.6 miW
Campden0.6 miSW
Westbourne, Westminster0.7 miNW

Worth knowing

Rules that come up in this work

Salary versus dividends

The salary-and-dividend split is the central planning decision for an owner-managed company. Salary costs employer National Insurance above £5,000 but is deductible; dividends are not deductible but attract lower personal rates and no National Insurance. The optimum changes each April with the thresholds and depends on the director's other income, so it should be set deliberately every year.

Director's loan accounts

Money taken from a company has to be something: salary, dividend, expense reimbursement or loan. If it is a loan and remains outstanding nine months after the year end, the company pays tax at the dividend higher rate on it until it is repaid. Clearing the balance with a properly declared dividend before the deadline, where reserves allow, is routine year-end work.

The VAT registration threshold

VAT registration is compulsory once taxable turnover in any rolling twelve-month period exceeds £90,000, or when you expect to exceed that in the next thirty days alone. The test is rolling, not by tax year, and includes zero-rated sales. Businesses regularly cross it without noticing, and late registration means accounting for VAT on sales where it was never charged to customers.

Corporation Tax rates and marginal relief

Corporation Tax is not a flat rate. Profits to £50,000 pay 19%, profits above £250,000 pay 25%, and the band between is taxed at an effective marginal rate of 26.5% through the marginal relief mechanism. Associated companies share the thresholds, which catches directors who own more than one company and is the most common cause of underpaid tax in owner-managed groups.

Late filing penalties

Lateness is expensive in a way that compounds. For individuals, £100 immediately, then daily penalties, then percentage-based ones at six and twelve months, with interest running on unpaid tax throughout. For companies, Companies House penalties scale with delay and double on repeat, and HMRC adds its own for a late CT600. Filing on time is the cheapest tax planning there is.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax

MTD for Income Tax replaces one annual return with quarterly digital updates and a year-end declaration, submitted from software. The threshold is gross trading and property income, measured two years earlier, and started at £50,000 in April 2026 before falling to £30,000 in April 2027. Anyone affected needs digital record keeping in place before their start date, not after.

The Self Assessment calendar

Four dates govern Self Assessment: 5 October to register, 31 October for paper returns, 31 January to file online and pay, and 31 July for the second payment on account. Missing the January date triggers an automatic £100 penalty before any tax is even considered, so we treat it as the fixed point around which the rest of the year is planned.

Questions

E-commerce Accountants questions from Lancaster Gate

Who accounts for VAT on marketplace sales?

For goods sold to UK consumers through an online marketplace, the marketplace accounts for the VAT if the seller is overseas or the goods are imported in consignments up to £135. A UK seller selling UK-held goods to UK customers accounts for their own VAT. Mixed situations are common and we separate them on every return.

How are imports treated?

Import VAT is charged when goods enter the UK and can be reclaimed as input VAT if you are registered, using postponed VAT accounting so nothing is paid at the border. Customs duty depends on the goods and origin and is a cost, not reclaimable. We make sure the C79 or postponed accounting statements are matched to the return.

What is in the £79 single-channel package?

Monthly bookkeeping reconciled to one marketplace or store's reports, software integration, and the annual accounts and tax return (Corporation Tax for a company or Self Assessment for a sole trader). It is for sellers under the £90,000 VAT threshold; once VAT registration is needed the £129 package applies.

Why does e-commerce bookkeeping cost more than ordinary bookkeeping?

Because a single payout from a marketplace bundles hundreds of sales, fees, refunds, advertising charges and reserves, and each has a different VAT treatment. Reconciling the payout to the underlying report is the job. Our fee is fixed by channels and VAT status rather than by transaction count for exactly this reason.

What is the marketplace VAT health check?

A one-off £149 review of your VAT registration, your marketplace tax settings, your treatment of imports and overseas sales, and a sample of recent returns against the rules. It produces a written report of errors found and what to do about them. Most sellers who have set things up themselves have at least one.

Can you reconcile my payment processor as well as the marketplace?

Yes. Card processors and payment gateways on your own store are integrated so that gross sales, fees and payouts post and reconcile automatically. The fee treatment, including VAT on processor fees, is configured at setup, which is where most self-built integrations go wrong.

Do you have an office in Lancaster Gate?

No. IGI Accounting is an online-only firm. We serve Lancaster Gate 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 e-commerce accountants is the same in Lancaster Gate as anywhere else in the country, and why there is nothing to visit and nothing to print.

Is e-commerce accountants in Lancaster Gate really the same price as elsewhere?

Yes. The fee published on this page is what a client in Lancaster Gate pays and what a client in any other part of England 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.

Ready to fix your fee in Lancaster Gate?

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