Accounting

Bookkeeping · South West

Bookkeeping services in Littlewood Cottages

Tidy books are the difference between a cheap year end and an expensive one. We keep the records for Littlewood Cottages businesses current every month: bank transactions matched, receipts captured by photo, VAT coded correctly, and a short summary of where you stand. The fee is fixed by volume and agreed before we start.

from £49/mo · fixed, per month

Next deadlines

  • VAT return and payment for the quarter that ended last month
  • MTD quarterly update deadline (7 August, 7 November, 7 February, 7 May)
  • VAT return and payment for the quarter that ended last month
  • VAT return and payment for the quarter that ended last month

Who this is for

Bookkeeping for Littlewood Cottages

Sole traders, partnerships and limited companies in Littlewood Cottages with anything from a dozen to a few hundred bank transactions a month: trades, consultants, online sellers, cafes and shops, landlords with several properties, and anyone approaching the VAT threshold or Making Tax Digital for Income Tax who needs digital records kept properly.

What is included

Everything inside the fixed fee

  • Cloud accounting software set up with bank feeds for every business account and card
  • Every transaction categorised and reconciled each month, with queries sent to you in one batch
  • Receipt and invoice capture by photo or email forwarding, matched to the bank
  • Sales invoices, supplier bills and VAT coding kept current and Making Tax Digital-ready
  • A monthly position summary: income, costs, cash, what you owe HMRC so far
  • Year-end handover to our accounts team or your own accountant with no re-work

How it works

Bookkeeping from Littlewood Cottages, step by step

  1. Scope the job

    We find out what you need filed, when it is due and what state the records are in, and tell you which fixed-fee package applies.

  2. Agree the price

    The fee is confirmed in writing. There is no hourly billing and nothing added for questions during the work.

  3. Hand over the records

    Photographs, PDFs, software access or a spreadsheet, sent however suits you. We confirm what we have and what is missing within two working days.

  4. Approve, then we submit

    You review the draft with our explanation, sign off, and we file. Receipts, copies and the next deadlines come back to you immediately.

Why IGI

The IGI way of working, in Littlewood Cottages

No hourly rate and no surprise invoice. Littlewood Cottages clients know the fee for bookkeeping before they send a single document, and it stays fixed.

Deadline-first: the dates that matter for bookkeeping are shown at the top of this page, diarised for every Littlewood Cottages client and chased before they arrive.

Online only, UK based. There is no office in Littlewood Cottages 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 bookkeeping, not a queue. Littlewood Cottages clients message the same person throughout and get an answer in working hours, usually within a few hours.

Plain English, with the numbers. Every draft for Littlewood Cottages comes with a short explanation of what the figures mean and what, if anything, you should do about them.

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

Local facts

About Littlewood Cottages

Littlewood Cottages is in South West, England. For businesses in England the tax rules are those set by the UK Parliament: the 20/40/45% income tax bands, Class 4 National Insurance for the self-employed at 6% and 2%, Corporation Tax at 19% to 25%, and Stamp Duty Land Tax on property. Business rates are set locally by the council.

Nearby places we also serve for bookkeeping
PlaceDistanceDirection
Muckleford0.6 miNE
Grimstone1.0 miNE
Southover, Dorset1 miN
Frampton, Dorset1 miN
Winterbourne Abbas2 miSW
Rew, South West2 miS
Bradford Peverell2 miE
Winterbourne Steepleton2 miS

Worth knowing

Rules that come up in this work

Workplace pensions and auto-enrolment

Every employer must assess its workers for automatic enrolment from the first employee's start date. Those aged 22 to State Pension age earning over £10,000 a year must be enrolled into a qualifying pension with minimum contributions of 8% of qualifying earnings, at least 3% from the employer, and a declaration of compliance made to the Pensions Regulator within five months.

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.

The trading and property allowances

Small side incomes are covered by two £1,000 allowances, one for trading and one for property, which remove the need to register or report income below that level. Once income exceeds £1,000, the allowance can be used in place of expenses, a choice worth making deliberately: a freelancer with £900 of costs is better off with the allowance, one with £3,000 is not.

CIS deductions

Under the Construction Industry Scheme, contractors deduct 20% from a registered subcontractor's labour invoices, or 30% if unregistered, and pay it to HMRC. The subcontractor reclaims the deductions against their actual tax through Self Assessment, usually producing a refund because deductions are on turnover while tax is on profit. Contractors file a monthly return by the 19th.

Dormant companies

A dormant company is one with no significant accounting transactions in the year, where the only permitted entries are the payment for shares on incorporation, Companies House fees and penalties. It still files a confirmation statement and simplified dormant accounts every year. A bank charge or an accountant's fee paid from the company ends dormancy and requires full accounts.

Confirmation statements and identity verification

Every company must file a confirmation statement at least once a year, within fourteen days of its review date, with a £50 Companies House fee. Since November 2025 directors and people with significant control must also verify their identity with Companies House, and the confirmation statement is where existing officers confirm they have done so during the transition year.

The 60-day property CGT return

Since April 2020 a gain on UK residential property must be reported and the tax paid within 60 days of completion through HMRC's dedicated service, separately from the annual return. Non-residents must report all UK land disposals in the same window whether or not tax is due. Getting the computation right first time matters because the figure is then carried into the Self Assessment.

Questions

Bookkeeping questions from Littlewood Cottages

Is bookkeeping the same as accounts?

No. Bookkeeping is the ongoing recording and reconciling of transactions. Accounts and tax returns are the year-end filings built from those records. Clean bookkeeping makes the year-end work faster and cheaper, which is why our sole trader accounts fee from tidy records is £149 and from a shoebox is £249.

What do I have to do each month?

Forward or photograph receipts and supplier bills as they arrive, and answer one batch of queries from us about transactions we cannot identify. Most clients spend under an hour a month. Sales invoices can be raised in the software by you or by us.

Which software do you use and who pays for it?

We work in the main cloud platforms that are compatible with Making Tax Digital and set up the one that suits your business. The subscription is in your name and billed to you by the software company, typically £15 to £35 a month, so you own the data and can leave at any time with your records intact.

How do you count transactions for the fee?

Every line on your business bank and card statements for the month, including payments in and out. Transfers between your own accounts are excluded. Up to 50 lines is £49 a month, up to 150 is £89, up to 300 is £149. We check the count from your statements before quoting so the band is right from the start.

How do you handle cash sales and personal spending from the business account?

Cash takings are recorded from your till or daily summary, and personal spending is coded to drawings or the director's loan account so it does not end up as a business expense. We flag patterns that could cause problems, such as a growing director's loan balance.

Will I need this for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax?

If you are a sole trader or landlord with qualifying income over £50,000 you joined MTD for Income Tax in April 2026, and the £30,000 threshold follows in April 2027. It requires digital records and quarterly updates to HMRC. Our bookkeeping service keeps the records in the required form and submits the updates.

How do I get started from Littlewood Cottages?

Message us on WhatsApp or email with a sentence about your business and what you need. We reply in working hours with any questions and a fixed fee for bookkeeping. Once you confirm, we tell you exactly which records to send and the work begins. Most Littlewood Cottages clients are set up within a day.

Which deadlines matter most for bookkeeping?

The next four dates that apply to bookkeeping are shown at the top of this page, calculated from today. For Littlewood Cottages clients we diarise every one of them from the day you join and send reminders before each, so the work is done in good time rather than in the last week before a penalty.

Fixed fees, filed on time, for Littlewood Cottages

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