Accounting desk
Books that are ready in March, not rebuilt in March.
Monthly close, IFRS statements and payroll run by people who know what the auditor and the FTA will ask for, because they sit on the same floor as both desks.
- Standard
- IFRS and IFRS for SMEs
- Close cycle
- Monthly
- Payroll
- WPS compliant
- Software
- Zoho, QuickBooks, Xero, SAP
Who this is for
If closing the year is an annual emergency.
Almost every penalty and every painful audit we see starts in the ledger, months before anyone was thinking about tax.
Ask for a books review- Businesses with no in-house finance team
- Companies whose bookkeeping is months behind
- Groups needing consolidated reporting
- Startups setting up a finance function for the first time
- Firms preparing for their first statutory audit
- Owners who want monthly numbers they can act on
How the engagement runs
Four stages, then a monthly rhythm
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Review
Where the books stand
We look at the last closed period and tell you plainly what needs correcting before anything new is posted.
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Set up
Chart of accounts and controls
A structure built so the tax return and the audit file can both be produced from it without rework.
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Close
Monthly close
Reconciliations, accruals and a short management pack by a fixed date each month.
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Report
Statements and handover
IFRS statements prepared for signature, with the working papers the auditor will ask for already attached.
Scope of work
What the engagement covers
Priced per month against an agreed transaction volume, so the fee does not move because one month was busy.
- Bookkeeping and monthly close
- IFRS financial statements
- Payroll and WPS processing
- Management reporting and dashboards
- Account reconciliation and back-log clean-up
- Budgets and cash flow forecasting
Inside this line
What sits under Accounting & Financial Advisory
8 services on this desk. Most engagements use two or three of them.
Accounting & Bookkeeping Services
Monthly close, not a year rebuilt in March
Ask about this
The monthly rhythm
Books that are closed, not caught up
A close that happens every month is a different thing from a year reconstructed in March. The first produces numbers management can use in the year they describe; the second produces a filing and nothing else.
We work to a fixed monthly cycle: data requested early, reconciliations done, management accounts issued, then the ledger locked. By the time the tax return is due the position is already known.
Close completed by Working day 10 of the following month
Audit-ready by default
The file an auditor asks for already exists
Every reconciliation we run is filed with the working papers behind it. When the audit request arrives, the answer is a folder rather than a project.
That is also what makes the tax computation cheap. Half the cost of a corporate tax engagement is normally spent proving the numbers; if the books already prove themselves, there is nothing to rebuild.
Before we start
What we need to take the books on
A handover done properly in week one is the difference between a clean close and three months of reconciliations.
- Last audited or filed financial statements
- Trial balance as at the handover date
- Bank statements for the open period
- Accounting software access, or the backup file
- Payroll register and WPS records
- Open sales and purchase ledgers
Where it goes wrong
Three things we are asked to fix most
Not theory. These are the ones that arrive as a problem rather than a question.
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01
Closing once a year
Books reconstructed in March cost more than books kept monthly, and they rarely survive an audit.
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02
Treating payroll as separate
WPS records and the ledger disagree more often than any other pair of numbers we see.
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03
No owner for the month-end
When the close belongs to everyone it happens late, and the tax position inherits the delay.
Questions we get weekly
Accounting, answered plainly.
No. We work in whatever you already use. We will say so if the system genuinely cannot produce what the auditor needs, but that is rarer than software vendors suggest.
Yes. It is quoted separately from the ongoing monthly work, because it is a project with an end date rather than a service.
No. Where we keep the books, an independent auditor signs them. We will introduce you to firms we work with regularly rather than take both roles.
Related
Usually engaged alongside
Talk to the accounting desk
Give us view-only access and we will tell you what state the books are in.
A written summary of what is missing, what is misposted and what it would take to bring the ledger current. No charge and no obligation.