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Kittiwake Business Aid

Accounting solutions for small businesses and self employed
Tel: 01536 741538
E-mail: info@kittiwake.org.uk

Accounting Services
- Accounts for Sole Trader, Partnership and Ltd
companies
- Bookkeeping
- VAT Returns
- Payroll management
- Management Financial Reports
- Annual Accounts
- Tax Returns/ Self Assessment
- Online Filing

Weekend and evening appointments with pleasure for coffee and free initial discussion
Kittiwake Business Aid has applied to HMRC to register as an ASP under the Money Laundering Regulations 2007

About Us

We would like to introduce ourselves, and offer you our sincere greetings.

Kittiwake Business Aid is a new venture based in Corby, Northamptonshire, to help a small business (such as a driving school, child minder, handyman, plumber, gardener, decorator, caterer, antiques dealer, mobile mechanic, manicurist etc) to promote awareness of its presence on the internet for customers then run the business profitably and legally. Almost everybody with internet access will make it their first choice when looking for a service or product

We offer help in bookkeeping, VAT and payroll. Would you like 1 or 2 hours help a week to attend to your statutory obligation to keep accounts and submit them? If you trade competitively might you be interested in help with local market research, or technical copy writing to support your product or service?

We know you are a busy person getting many invitations to spend money on things that you don�t need, but please think about the benefit of trading profitably and lawfully. We can help you do that and sleep soundly each night. We believe that your relationship with firms like Kittiwake should be friendly, discreet, adapted to your needs and fairly priced. Our reputation will depend on how you rate our services.

Our charges are low, reflecting our own tight control of overhead costs, and we operate a loyalty discount up to 40% to clients who stay with us over one year. We will always discount our charges to charities and non-profit organisations.

We show you our personal profiles below, and we look forward to the opportunity of an informal discussion with you.

With regards and best wishes John Killow and Olga Pogorerlova

Contact Us
Tel: 01536 741538
E-mail:info@kittiwake.org.uk
Corby
Northamptonshire
NN18 9EL

We can help you with Bookkeeping

We work with small businesses or sole traders, helping them with their accounts while they get on with the job of trading. Especially for a very young business, an hour or two each week will set your accounts on the right road, and you can take them over whenever you are ready � no expensive third party software is required.

We provide accounts for a Sole Trader, Partnership or a Limited Company , and we value a close, geographically local relationship; that way we can help the most. Bookkeeping - VAT returns - Payroll - Annual accounts - Tax returns / self assessment (all obligatory) Interim accounts and Management Reports are optional

Kittiwake sets up and maintains computerised accounting, flexible to fit your needs but no more complex than necessary. Our charges are based upon time spent posting transactions to your accounts, so while your business is small are our charges are minimal

Manual entries using pen and paper are the traditional way of recording money transactions, and for a one person business is the lowest level of organised record keeping, in a single book satisfying statutory obligations and providing the key indicators about the financial state of health of the business. An account book such as Simplex D is laid out ready to receive manual entries, organised into 52 weekly periods with a summary report for each period but excluding VAT or wages. But time moves on and the number of firms using such simple methods is dwindling. Kittiwake only works with computerized accounts and personal computers, and will set up an accounting system on your PC or one of theirs, and your accounts are always accessible .

In these days of tight governmental regulation, any person wanting to become self employed either part or full time must register with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), who will require him to declare his earnings and his profit to them each year, and pay tax accordingly. But unlike former times, we now calculate our own tax liability and HMRC will normally take our word for the correctness of our self assessment process. But they do insist that a full set of trading accounts is kept for six years even though they will often never see them

The laws governing how we all run our businesses change all the time but Kittiwake will watch for changes relevant to you, and tell you about them

Here is how we might be able to help you, in the commonest situations:-

Sole proprietor, not VAT registered, no employees

Your position as owner of the business, personally responsible for its success or failure, puts you in the tax category of self employed, and you must pay tax on profit from the business as well as NI contributions

On day One of a brand new business entries are made of the opening capital, or on day One of a new financial year of an existing business the assets and liabilities are carried forward from last year. Thereafter, all money spent and received is written into the computer files which form the separate ledgers, to analyse where the money is going to or coming from. A double entry system checks for errors as items are typed in. A Profit or Loss account for the business, and a balance sheet setting out assets and liabilities is kept up to date as data is typed in. Probably you will prefer to simply gather all incoming and outgoing invoices and receipts into a box awaiting K ittiwake to collect and promptly return them say once a fortnight after which you will file them in a safe place.

If you ask us to we will check the actual balance from your monthly bank statement and post direct credits, standing orders, direct debits and bank charges to the proper accounts. We will produce a bank reconciliation statement to explain any reason for disagreement, like a delay in presenting a cheque for payment until a later time.

Quarterly or half yearly, some profit-conscious traders may wish to produce Interim Final accounts so that they can get an indication of their likely profit for the whole year, perhaps to discuss with the bank manager. We can do this for you, following the same guidelines as for the annual Final Accounts.

Annually, a sole trader must produce a set of accounts which show his profit or loss for the year. These accounts comprise the Trading Account, the Profit and Loss Account and the Balance Sheet of the business. Then he must complete the statutory Self-Assessment Tax Return by the due date, copying the figures asked for by HMRC from your accounts. We will do this for you.

Sole Proprietor, registered for VAT, with or without employees

Registration for VAT is optional if you are sure that your annual turnover will reach the minimum required and that the VAT you will reclaim on purchases justifies the extra cost of accounting for it. All VAT transactions must be recorded in a separate account, and the total of VAT you have collected must be remitted to HMRC quarterly without fail. There are several alternative VAT schemes to suit different types of business. We can help you choose the right one, then operate within its rules and avoid penalties for being late

Partnership

A partnership has the benefit that each partner can cover for the other to keep the business running at all times.

Being in partnership changes nothing except for the legal requirement of a written agreement about how the profits and liabilities are to be divided.

Sole Proprietor with one or more employees

If you employ someone, either part time or full time, either temporarily or permanently, tax and NI contributions must be deducted from their wages, and remitted to HMRC together with your employer�s NI contributions. Your legal position as self employed owner liable to tax remains, and you must pay both Class 2 and Class 4 National Insurance contributions for yourself. So employing workers increases the accounting burden considerably and this is where many small businesses decide to seek help because of the work involved of managing payroll and PAYE.

Sole Director of a Limited Company and its only employee

Under this arrangement, very popular when a worker�s stock in trade is personal skill to sell, he sets up a limited company called a Personal Service Company or PSC which legally employs him. The PSC invoices each client for the worker�s services to them, the client pays the gross amount due to the PSC which then pays the worker a salary within his personal allowance and so there is no tax or NIC to deduct. If the PSC has enough profit after Corporation Tax at the year end, the PSC is allowed to pay a tax-paid dividend to the worker because he is the sole shareholder. It offers some valuable tax advantages and is legal provided that he trades with a diverse clientele, not critically dependent on one client, because in that case HMRC may rule that he is, for tax purposes, employed by that client and must pay tax on what they pay his PSC.

A business should not be set up this way without taking advice about restrictions on its operations and the extra bureaucratic burden it imposes to ensure compliance. The Personal Service Company must operate a proper PAYE tax structure even for one employee, and must self-assess itself for Corporation Tax annually, without fail

And finally ........
All your records must be accurate, in balance, and submitted in the correct way
and ON TIME. We will nag you to accomplish this, for your real benefit

We can help you with Payroll

Payroll accounting is quite different from general financial accounting and VAT because of all the HMRC rules for PAYE and the weekly or monthly deadline to get the wages paid. So accounting systems for payroll have developed separately from other products, for example Simplex publish a separate wages book for manual entry, but the complexity of income tax accounting requires something better. Outsourced payroll services are often specialists in that branch alone, because some rather specialised knowledge is needed to manage payroll quickly and accurately.

We can install the necessary accounting arrangements for your small business. Employees wages and tax deductions are accounted for and wage slips issued on the due date, but we would not be responsible for handling your cash.

Any new employee must have his personal tax record and his NI number integrated into your payroll records after he hands over a P45 issued by a previous employer so that when his gross pay for the week or month is calculated the amount of taxable pay is worked out by consulting the PAYE tax tables, taking into account the employee�s tax code defining his tax free allowance.

Then the tax due for this pay period, summed with any other deductions such as NI is subtracted from gross pay to determine nett pay. Now a wage slip must be printed, possibly a BACS bank transfer arranged, and all pay records stored so that at the close of the tax year on 5th April a P60 can be issued to show the employee�s pay and tax for the year. If an employee leaves, his tax record must be conveyed to his next employer by a P45 which you must prepare. The total tax and NI deducted must be accounted for and remitted to HMRC with more forms� and Statutory Sick Pay and maternity pay issues may arise. You must also take responsibility for any employee's and/or director's expenses and benefits which must go through the payroll account. It is a lot of work to do for each employee and you may wish you could get on with making the business prosper.

We will make sure you get any HMRC bonus payment for submitting payroll returns early. This is better than incurring late penalties which knock a hole in your hard-earned profiits.

But we can manage your payroll for you.