Been working as a sole trader for 18 months and do my own books and HMRC self-assessment return no problem. Now business is just registered as a limited company for various reasons, and has grown a bit, I think I need to get someone proper to do the books and future returns for me, plus I haven’t got much time / bit daunted. Anyone out there tell us what a decent rate is to pay someone to do it? Not a huge turnover, still under VAT threshold at present. I wouldn’t have thought it would take that long for someone who knows what they are doing. Was going to ask about locally for recommendations but any experience/advice appreciated. Cheers

I pay about £1500ish, but that’s with me giving him a carrier bag full of bits of paper and him making it all go away. Though I do my own VAT returns.

I’ve paid nearly £2000 and then swapped to another company and now charged £800.

Do my own page and vat, and book work.

Wow! after all those threads about how much trades people charge, along comes a white collar rip off thread…..I’m “sitting in a welter of expectoration” as Rikki Fulton put it. 🙂
I also let my accountant do everything. It probably takes her 5 hours to lodge my income and expenditure and submit my accounts. So she probably charges me £50/hour for this. Looks like £150-200/hour is more common.
With a posh firm of accountants I would probably pay less tax: Well I’d rather pay (as tax)for services we all use then pay accountants vastly over the odds for the work they actually do.

I also let my accountant do everything. It probably takes her 5 hours to lodge my income and expenditure and submit my accounts. So she probably charges me £50/hour for this. Looks like £150-200/hour is more common

My accounts don’t take 5 hours, they take a month or so of “what was this for?” “I haven’t got the faintest idea”, pestering me weekly to find the rest of the bank statements that are definitely about somewhere, and probably sacrificing a goat.

I think it’s a bargain, to be honest.

£220.. It’s all quite organised when I hand it to her. Waving of wand and tadaaaaaa!

Crunch here – £78 per month for ltd co.

£200 although 95% is in order and all in one box file.

£1k-ish for a two-person Ltd company that doesn’t have a lot of stuff to keep track of.

Quite a variation above, I guess based on that I do keep paper receipts in order and all income/expenditure on excel database already I should expect a few hundred quid and not thousands, hopefully….

About £280 for me depending on how many receipts I’ve lost and how much work is needed. I still do most of the entering up, put receipts in week order etc.

I’m useless with accounts. I’m still trying to work out how I payed for the bike I bought last year. Can’t find the proper receipt anywhere…..

£120 for doing the end of year accounts tax return. I do the day to day logging of ins and outs with wave accounting (free)

£75+VAT pet month for a ltd company (2 person but the same for 1 person)
Includes Freeagent account which means we do most of the book keeping.
That was one of the more reasonable quotes we got, I assume some of the really low prices above are for sole trader who do not need to file accounts, aren’t VAT registered, no payroll.