It sits inside one fixed monthly fee agreed in writing before any work starts, alongside your accounts, corporation tax and self assessment. There is no separate charge for the planning conversation, and calls, meetings and emails are never billed. We quote after the introductory chat, once we know your turnover, payroll and how tidy the records are.

You do not have to have it. We send the professional clearance letter to your current accountant and they hand the records over to us directly. We also handle HMRC and Companies House agent authorisation. The handover is free, the first month is free, and migration to Xero is free if you want to move software.

You send us the letter and we deal with HMRC. Tax investigation cover is included free for every client, where many firms sell it as an add-on. Every HMRC investigation we have handled, we have won. Bring us in early, because the sooner we see the correspondence the more we can do about it.

No. We work with what you already use. If you do want to move to Xero we migrate you at no charge and set the bookkeeping up properly. Plenty of clients stay where they are for a year and move later, once the compliance work is settled and there is a quiet month to do it in.

For most owner-managed companies it is a mix, and the right mix depends on your profit, your other income and who else holds shares. We look at the figures for your year rather than apply a rule of thumb, then tell you what to draw monthly. We review it again when profits move.

At least once a year, and again whenever something changes: a second shop, a new shareholder, a large one-off profit or a drop in trade. We build the review into the year so it happens before decisions are made rather than nine months afterwards, when the dividends have already gone out.