Accounting

Bookkeeping, VAT & payroll

Bookkeeping services

Bookkeeping is the continuous recording of a business's financial transactions in a form that can be relied on: every bank line categorised, every receipt matched to a payment, every sales invoice raised and tracked, VAT coded correctly, and the whole thing reconciled to the bank at the end of each month. It is not glamorous and it is the foundation of everything else. Accounts, tax returns, VAT returns and Making Tax Digital submissions are all only as good as the records beneath them, and HMRC's record-keeping rules require records to be kept for at least five or six years depending on the tax.

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

Fees

Packages, fixed and published

£49/mo

Up to 50 transactions a month

£89/mo

Up to 150 transactions a month

£149/mo

Up to 300 transactions a month

£119/mo

Bookkeeping + VAT returns bundle

Who this is for

Bookkeeping

Sole traders, partnerships and limited companies in the UK 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

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

In detail

How bookkeeping works

We deliver bookkeeping as a fixed monthly service in cloud accounting software, priced by transaction volume because that is what drives the work. Up to 50 bank lines a month is £49, up to 150 is £89, up to 300 is £149, and the bookkeeping-plus-VAT bundle at £119 covers up to 150 lines with quarterly VAT returns included. The software subscription is yours, in your name, so your data is never held hostage. Bank feeds connect your accounts and cards; receipts come to us by photo or email forwarding and are matched automatically where possible and manually where not.

The monthly cycle is simple. Transactions arrive through the feed daily. Within five working days of the month end, once your receipts are in, we reconcile the month, send you a single batch of queries for anything we cannot identify, and produce a short position summary: income for the month and year to date, costs by category, cash in hand, and the VAT or income tax accruing so far. That last number is what most small business owners are missing, and having it monthly rather than once a year changes how decisions get made.

Making Tax Digital has turned bookkeeping from good practice into a legal requirement for a growing share of businesses. VAT-registered businesses have had to keep digital records and file through compatible software since 2022. From April 2026 sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000 must do the same for income tax, sending quarterly updates to HMRC and a final declaration after the year end, with the threshold falling to £30,000 in April 2027 and £20,000 planned for April 2028. The records we keep are in the required digital form and the quarterly updates are submitted from them, so clients already in the service have nothing new to do when their threshold date arrives.

At year end, clean bookkeeping pays for itself. Our own sole trader accounts fee from tidy records is £149 against £249 from a shoebox of receipts, and limited company accounts prepared from a reconciled file take days rather than weeks. If another accountant prepares your accounts, we hand over a trial balance, bank reconciliations and supporting documents in the format they want, with no re-work. And throughout the year the books tell you things worth knowing: a director's loan account creeping up, a customer who always pays late, turnover approaching the £90,000 VAT threshold, a cost category that has doubled. We flag those as we see them, because that is what having a bookkeeper is for.

Process

From first message to filed

  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.

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

Employers pay National Insurance at 15% on each employee's earnings above the £5,000 secondary threshold, following the April 2025 changes. The Employment Allowance offsets up to £10,500 of this for eligible employers, which for a small team often removes the liability entirely, but companies where the director is the only employee do not qualify.

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.

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.

The 60-day property CGT return

Selling UK residential property that was not your main home for the whole period of ownership triggers a separate Capital Gains Tax return, due within 60 days of completion along with payment of the tax. This is in addition to the annual Self Assessment. The gain is taxed at 18% or 24% depending on your income band, after the £3,000 annual exempt amount.

Crypto records and reporting

HMRC treats cryptoassets as property. Swapping one token for another, spending crypto or gifting it are all disposals for Capital Gains Tax, and staking and lending rewards are income. Gains are computed under pooling rules with same-day and 30-day matching. From 2026 HMRC receives data from exchanges worldwide under the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework, so unreported activity is increasingly visible.

Allowable expenses

An expense is allowable against trading profit if it is incurred wholly and exclusively for the business. Materials, business travel other than ordinary commuting, a proportion of home running costs, software, insurance, professional fees, bank charges and protective clothing qualify. Client entertainment, ordinary clothing, fines and the private share of mixed-use costs do not.

Questions

Bookkeeping: your questions answered

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.

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.

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.

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.

Can you catch up a backlog?

Yes. Backlogs are quoted as a fixed fee based on the number of months and transactions, agreed before we start. Once caught up, the normal monthly band applies. We tell you honestly if the backlog is small enough to do yourself.

What is the VAT bundle?

Bookkeeping plus quarterly VAT returns for £119 a month, covering up to 150 transactions. Because we already have the coded transactions, the return is prepared and submitted through MTD-compatible software without extra data entry, and you approve it before anything goes to HMRC.

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 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.

Can my existing accountant still do the year end?

Yes. Many clients use us for bookkeeping and another firm for accounts. At year end we hand over a reconciled file with the trial balance, bank reconciliations and supporting documents, in whatever format your accountant prefers.

How quickly are the books up to date?

Bank feeds update daily. We reconcile within five working days of the month end once your receipts are in, so the monthly summary arrives in the first week of the following month. Queries are sent in one message rather than piecemeal.

What if my volume changes?

We review the transaction count each quarter. If you move into a higher or lower band we tell you before the next invoice and adjust from the following month. There is no penalty for moving down and no back-charging for a busy month.

Do you do bookkeeping for landlords?

Yes. Rental income, agent statements, mortgage interest, repairs and the split between revenue and capital costs are all coded correctly for the property pages of your return. Portfolio landlords usually sit in the £49 or £89 band, and MTD for Income Tax applies to rental income as it does to trading income.

Where

Bookkeeping across the UK

This service has a local page for every one of the 60,946 places we cover. A selection:

England: Central London · East London · East Midlands · East of England · M25 Fringe · North East · North East London · North London · North West · North West London · South East · South East London · South London · South West · South West London · West London · West Midlands · Yorkshire

Scotland: Scotland

Wales: Wales

Northern Ireland: Northern Ireland

Related

Other services in bookkeeping, vat & payroll

Get bookkeeping for a fixed fee

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

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