Many people engage an accountant to support company incorporation, VAT registration, payroll or simply to handing over book-keeping to someone else. Here are the most common trigger points for starting to work with an accountant:

1. Incorporating a company (Novabook can help with this if it’s useful!). 

2. Offloading book-keeping to help you focus on the day to day of running your business. Novabook can take on 100% of your book-keeping from £22/month + VAT. 

3. Needing to file Accounts and Corporation Tax - usually 12 months after the company incorporation. 

4. Needing to run payroll for your employees. You need to provide a pension scheme, payslips, and payments. Novabook can do all of this for your from £15/month + VAT.

5. Registering for VAT or file VAT returns. 

Novabook specialises in providing startups across all industries with any accountancy support they need, whether they are a pre-revenue freshly incorporated company or needing support with book-keeping and limited company accounts. Novabook accountants, trained at the likes of PwC, work from their London office to get back to you as quickly as they can with a simple and informative answer to all of your ad hoc accounting questions, as well as offering the lowest admin way for a founder to track all of their accounting and finance needs using Novabook’s portal. 

The Novabook team will minimise the number of requests and the amount of work that they ask of you and will aim to take as much off your plate as possible. Novabook can support you with Payroll Services, US Federal Tax Filings, the Delaware Franchise Tax Filing, UK Accounts & Corporation Tax, VAT filings, Confirmation Statements, EMI Valuations, ERS annual filings and R&D Tax Credits.

FAQs

What can an accountant do that I can’t do myself?

• You can do your own bookkeeping, but as your business grows, the volume of transactions will take up more and more of your time and for just £22 per month, Novabook would be able to do all of this admin for you. 

• Payroll is harder to do yourself. HMRC has Basic PAYE tools, but they won’t sort out your pension obligations or your payslips. Novabook usually recommends setting up one payroll system that scales from the start, because migrating payroll systems can be tricky if it isn’t done by experts.

• Filing Annual Accounts and Corporation Tax feels simple, but is practically challenging as Tax and Accounting separate when filing documents with HMRC and Companies House, meaning that the numbers you read in your accounting software will differ from those filed in your Corporation Tax return. Having an accountant like Novabook help out with this makes a lot of sense. 

Can an accountant help if I need to pay employees?

• Most accountants will do payroll calculations, send payslips to your employees and submit pension contributions to your pension provider. However, they will most likely not make payments to your employees. Novabook offers a comprehensive payroll service from £15/month + VAT, including payroll calculations, pension contributions, sending payslips and making payment to your employees, so this is worth exploring. 

What happens if I make a mistake in my company’s accounts?

• Making a mistake in your annual accounts can lead to HMRC penalties, and missing the filing deadline can lead to late filing penalties as well. Novabook can support with this if you ever need any support. You can do this using the Novabook MCP or book a call with the Novabook sales team.