Do you Really Need Accountant Now Days to Be a Amazon Ecommerce Seller?
Hi,
last year I thought I learn how to use quickbooks to understand what exactly is it there charging me for £1200 for?
I found it only took me 1 day to do
because I come from a IT background, I understood quickbook automation software features very easily. Quickbooks and Xero even suggests right category for you!
99% book keeping. Everyday done for me automatically now!
In fact even had show accountants how they can to do this?
As they were pressing “add” on every transaction manual, and charging per hour for it Also they didn’t verify the feeds with my bank. transaction were not pulled every day to there system, They had to everything by imported spread sheets. Costing me more money for extra time
I even saved myself money on tax this year! because there were doing basic profit and loss to save themselves time
I done all the work for them, they would charge me less.
This year instead taking them 1 week, it took them 1 day!
But the same bill again £1200,
All they did was submit my tax return!
They won’t let me have look at what they did in quickbooks online even through it’s my own data?
As my accounts are updated every day automatically now.
Do I really need a accountant?
The only thing I haven’t done is submitted a tax form?
Tax goes digital next year, and most software already have automated quarterly tax return features built in now!
I know some might people say having accountant, saves you time?
If it’s nearly all automated, there hardly anything for them to do?
Apart from send my tax documentation to HMRC?
44 replies
Seller_z6B2L9xab6HlP
I do my tax return myself and use GNUCash to keep my books. When I’m due to register for VAT I’ll probably move across to Quickfile.
There’s not really any need to use an accountant unless your tax arrangements are quite complex.
Making tax digital applies to VAT only at the moment, not to regular tax returns just yet (although there is a pilot for it).
Seller_MKi6wqe68YZuu
A good accountant saves you more than he or she charges.
Seller_Eo4JrL2xpCeEr
Thanks for posting this Charles! I am keen to know more too.
Seller_u4N7CLUxByftJ
Sounds like you had a bad accountant. I’ve done my own tax and now VAT from the start. I have a spreadsheet that cost me £20 and has formula that adds up different cells when i input sales/ costs etc and give me a total at the end, all i need to do is copy the amazon sales reports into the spreadsheet and sorted.
As mentioned as long as you’re business isn’t very complicated then you can certainly do it all yourself.
Seller_s0Fyj0kEU4sRp
Think of it this way. How much does your time cost.
Let’s say you’re worth £100 per hour.
It took you 1 day. That means you’ve spent £2400. That’s twice the cost of an accountant.
I charge £150 per hour for my services. That’s why I use an accountant. And if you get a good accountant, they will know how to make your business more tax efficient.
Seller_IjUdXgfytlivr
I do all my own bookkeeping myself but submit my tax return through an accountant. It makes it about 10 time less likely that HMRC will feel the need to ordit your accounts if they think somebody qualified has gone over the return before it was submitted. My accountant also keeps me right by going over all the figures before they are submitted (there is always something not quite right).
They have also given me plenty of tips on maximising my business from a tax point of view (much more than they charge).
Plus you can put down the bill from an accountant as a business expess as well!
Seller_rQvQ81c4j1EhT
I pay £2400 per year for my accountant and he does everything, I can literately dump all my receipts in a carrier bag each quarter on his desk and he does my VAT, Accounts, Self Assessment files everything with HMRC, my registered address is his office and he shows me how to save money, I think thats worth £200 per month of anyone’s money
Seller_ga9j2Ur5v40yB
@Ray1
Actually no, that was their tax advisers. They are a totally different animal.although an accountant will still give tax advice (And can undoubtedly same you money from this) but they are more focused towards compliant record keeping, assessment and submissions. They work on what optimising things as they currently are rather than structural changes to your tax affairs.
That’s exactly like my accountant compliant record keeping, assessment and submissions.
All of it can be really automated
Seller_72Sy9T6sEfmjl
95% of the time if you take your books to the accountant for end of year tax the accountant will not even look at it. The books will be given to the practice bookkeeper to do.
If you have straightforward business find yourself a registered bookkeeper with level 4 qualifications. They tend to charge around £25 an hour and will do the same job as an accountant.
Accountants only come into their own when you need financial advice or analysis of your financial systems.
Seller_7Czw65zw81AlW
I am in a similar situation but found my account found tax efficiencies far exceeding their fee which more than paid for itself.
These tax efficiencies I would never have accounted for had I submitted the returns myself.