Accountants Leeds

If you are just starting out in business, or thinking about starting your own business, its vital to appoint an accountant in Leeds as soon as possible. You will need to obtain professional advice right from the outset. Should you set up your business as a Sole Trader; as a partnership; as an LLP; or a Limited Company?

The answer will depend on your personal and business circumstances and perhaps on your aims and goals for your business.

It’s vital to get advice on this and other questions at the outset so that:

• The business is set up in the right trading format. Your accountant will advise you of the commercial pros and cons of each of the potential structures for your business. Also, there are differing tax implications for each of the business structures and your Accountant should be able to advise you on them. Also, they will advise you on any tax planning which may be appropriate.

• The business is registered as appropriate with the HMRC (you may be liable to interest and penalties if the registration is not within the right timescale). In particular you may need to register for Tax, PAYE, National Insurance and VAT.

• If you are going to set up a limited company then the company will need to be set up appropriately including of course with Companies House.

• You can receive advice on setting up a good bookkeeping/accounting system. You can of course do your own ‘books’ but if needed you can employ a bookkeeper to keep your accounting records up to date. Bookkeepers can be employed on a part-time or full-time basis. Or indeed your Accountant will probably be able to provide you with a bookkeeping service. You will appreciate that there are all sorts of requirements for keeping proper accounting records and falling foul of these requirements can be very expensive, not only because of the penalties you may incur, but also from not knowing how your business is performing financially. Without proper records you can lose track of how much your customers owe you and how much you owe your suppliers. Proper accounting records must be maintained from the time you start incurring business expenses.

• Your bookkeeping accounting systems can be manual (e.g. a handwritten cash book) or computerised. Again your Accountant can advise.

• Are you looking to raise any finance for your new business venture? If yes, seek the advice of an Accountant experienced in helping businesses raise funding, including in drawing up Business Plans. Your Accountant should also be able to advise you on The Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme, which a source of funding from banks.