Startup Accountants Verified

We are pleased to accept the appointment as your accountants and tax consultants. The purpose of this letter is to set out the basis on which we are going to act and our respective responsibilities. Please note, only the relevant terms will be applicable to you.

1. Accounting

• 1.1 You have instructed us to prepare your financial statements each year from the record provided by you.
• 1.2 You have agreed that you or your staff will:
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  • (a) Keep the records of receipts and payments;
  • (b) Keep the records of sales invoices and expense invoices;
  • (c) Keep all bank and credit card;
  • (d) Any other relevant information.

2. Corporation tax

• 2.1 This engagement will commence with the next company's tax return we work on.
  
• 2.2 We will prepare, from the accounts and other information and explanations provided by you, the company’s corporation tax return and computations, together with all supporting schedules and, where necessary, amended returns.
• 2.3 We will send you the tax return and supporting schedules for you to approve and sign. We will then submit it, with the accounts and computations, to H M Revenue & Customs.
• 2.4 We will advise you of the amounts of corporation tax to be paid and the dates by which the company should make the payments. Where appropriate we will initiate repayment claims when tax has been overpaid.
• 2.5 We will deal with all communications relating to the company’s tax return addressed to us by H M Revenue & Customs or passed to us by the company, and subject to the nature of the communication, may need to be the subject of a separate assignment in which case we will seek further instructions from you. However, if H M Revenue & Customs choose your return for enquiry this work will need to be the subject of a separate assignment in which case we will seek further instructions from you
• 2.6 We will prepare the tax provisions and disclosures to be included in the company’s statutory accounts.

3. Payroll and year end returns

• 3.1 We will maintain your payroll records, supply you with completed weekly/monthly payslips for you( on request) to pass to employees, supply you with details of the PAYE and National Insurance Contributions for you to send to the Collector of Taxes with a cheque which you will draw, complete your year-end return form P35 with forms P14 and P60 and supply you with the completed form P35 for signature and submission by you to HM Revenue & Customs with forms P14 and the forms P60 that you will pass to each employee.
• 3.2 In order to do this we need to comply with the Employer’s Guide to PAYE: We will consider with you the detailed information that is required and the form in which it is to be provided.
• 3.3 Sections 11 and 12 of the Data Protection Act 1998 place express obligations on you as a data controller where we as a data processor undertake the processing of personal data on your behalf. We, therefore, confirm that we will at all times comply with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 when processing data on your behalf. In particular, we confirm that we have adequate security measures in place and that we will comply with any obligations equivalent to those placed on you as a data controller.

4. Value Added Tax (VAT)

• 4.1 If at the time of this letter you are not VAT registered and registration becomes necessary, we will endeavor to ensure that you register in time provided that:
  • (a) you notify us in writing within 10 days of the end of each month of the total value of supplies you have made in that month.
  • (b) you notify us immediately in writing if the value of taxable supplies that you will make in the next 30 days is likely to exceed the annual registration limit then in force.

5. Company Secretarial

• 5.1 You have agreed to complete all the returns required by law, for example, the annual return and the notification of changes in directors. We shall, of course, be pleased to advise you on these and any other company secretarial matters if requested at a fixed cost.

6. Other Services

• 6.1 However, there are many other areas where we can be of assistance and we shall be pleased to discuss any matters with you. These other services include:
  • (a) business growth strategies, management accounting, including such matters as cash flow statements, costing systems, etc., and advice on management.
  • (e) Reduction of tax bills.

7. Fees

• 7.1 The subject of accounting fees is obviously of interest both to us and to yourselves. You as a client want to feel you are getting your money’s worth for the fee you pay, and we must have fees that are adequate to enable us to give a good service. FEE Schedule Given Above ( or with the quotation) covers our fixed fee for the items we have agreed to assist you with. You will be charged for any other service that is not included above. 
• 7.2 Our fees are based on the time necessarily spent on your affairs by the partners and staff involved. Some clients are billed at agreed intervals, and our settlement terms are as follow:
  • a)Our fee notes must be settled within 7 days of the invoice date. If the 7 day period is exceeded they are deemed overdue. If you are paying on a monthly basis, you will be invoiced on the 1st of each month and you will be paying one month in advance.
  • b)If fees are not settled within 7 days from the fee note date, on the 8th-day services charges will be charged at 1.5% per month from the date they became overdue.
  • c)All fee notes shall be deemed conclusive of the sums due and payable to you under them and may not be challenged other than in writing within 21 days of your receiving the disputed fee note concerned.
  • d) Where you are unable to pay the invoice on the due date, we have authority to refer your case to debt collectors or legal team, you will be responsible to pay service charges, administration fee, debt collectors fee and any legal fee that may incur.
  • e) Our fee is calculated as per the accounting year of the company (for limited companies). Say your company is set up in January and your year end is in December, and we have agreed with a fee of £500 plus VAT. The fee will cover the period from January to December.
• 7.3 We enter into a trusting relationship. The directors instruct us knowing their ability to meet our fees. If the Company is unable to pay our fees incurred from time to time for whatever reason, the director personally accepts the liability for our charges.
• 7.4 Should you leave during the year, you will be charged £75.00 plus VAT per hour for all the services carried out during our engagement.
• 7.5 This Letter of engagement will be renewed automatically after a year. If you want to leave the firm for some reason, Kindly inform us 28 days before leaving. All the outstanding invoice must be clear before you leave.

8. Retention of and access to records

• 8.1 During the course of our work we will collect information from you and others acting on your behalf and will return any original documents to you following the preparation of your accounts.
• 8.2 All Original documents will be returned to you or must be collected within 3 months of us completing your accounts. Original documents left at our premises after this time are archived at your cost £2 per box per week. Sending us copies or electronic versions is cheaper, safer and quicker. Faxes, emails, scan documents are all acceptable.
• 8.3 Whilst certain documents may legally belong to you, we intend to destroy correspondence and other papers that we store which are more than seven years old, other than documents which we consider to be of continuing significance. If you require retention of any document you must notify us of that fact in writing.

9. Quality control & Confidentiality

• 9.1 To ensure a rapid response and cost-effective service to you, we, on occasions, employ sub-contractors, who may work from home because of child minding requirements, or disability issues. They are appropriately qualified and provide a valuable resource to the firm.
• 9.2 All our staff and sub-contractors are professional and appropriately qualified. They are under a confidentiality agreement.
• 9.3 As part of our ongoing commitment to provide a quality service, our files are periodically subject to an independent quality review. Our reviewers are highly experienced and professional people and are, of course, bound by the same requirements of confidentiality as our principals and staff.

10. Help us to give you the right service

• 10.1 If at any time you would like to discuss with us how our service to you could be improved, or if you are dissatisfied with the service you are receiving, please let us know, by calling us.
• 10.2 We undertake to look into any complaint carefully and promptly and to do all we can to explain the position to you. If you feel that we have given you a less than satisfactory service, we undertake to do everything reasonable to address your concerns.

11. Electronic communication

• 11.1 Internet communications are capable of data corruption and therefore we do not accept any responsibility for changes made to such communications after their despatch. It may therefore be inappropriate to rely on advice contained in an e-mail without obtaining written confirmation of it. We do not accept responsibility for any errors or problems that may arise through the use of internet communication and all risks connected with sending commercially sensitive information relating to your business are borne by you. If you do not agree to accept this risk, you should notify us in writing that e-mail is not an acceptable means of communication.
• 11.2 If correspondence is requested in paper format, disbursements charge of £50 per year is payable to cover the handling and postage of the correspondence.
• 11.3 It is the responsibility of the recipient to carry out a virus check on any attachments received.

12. Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999

• 12.1 Persons who are not a party to this agreement shall have no rights under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce any term of this agreement. This clause does not affect any right or remedy of any person which exists or is available otherwise than pursuant to that Act.

13. Limitation of liability

• 13.1 We will provide our professional services with reasonable care and skill. However, we will not be held responsible for any losses arising from the supply by you or others of incorrect or incomplete information, or your or others' failure to supply any appropriate information or your failure to act on our advice or respond promptly to communications from us or other relevant authorities.

14. Late filing penalties

• 14.1 There are a number of penalties for late filing of returns, etc. To ensure that we are able to meet these deadlines on your behalf, we must identify when information has to be submitted to our offices. We list below the most common requirements.

• Item	Due to Authorities	Due to us
  Accounts	Up to 9 months from Year-end (Tax)	12 weeks from the period end
  VAT Returns	By the end of the month following relevant	10 Days after the end of the period
  SA Tax Returns	By 31st October (Paper filing only)	By 30th June after Year-end
  PAYE Returns	By 19th May	By 1st May

• We will not be held responsible for any penalties arising where the information is not with us by the due date. If you are in any doubt, you should contact us to check. Further, you are requested to reply to our queries by return of post (within 3 working days). This is essential where we are close to the deadline (within 30 days).
• However, be in no doubt that we will always do our utmost to ensure that you are not subjected to penalties.

15. Client monies

• 15.1 We choose not to hold client monies.