Outsourcing tax return preparation before 31 January
An Accounts seat gives your practice one preparer for the self assessment season. They prepare the returns in your tax software, our own UK practice reviews them, and you approve and submit each one under your agent credentials.
A seat for the season, month by month
The call
You tell us how many returns, which kinds and what software. You get a plan within two working days.
The seat starts
A named preparer, a login in your tax software and the first returns from your portal list.
Returns in volume
Each return arrives for your review with its query list and notes sheet.
The late records
The returns whose records arrive last. Give notice now if the seat ends after the season.
Back to normal
The seat ends, or moves to 40 hours for accounts and tax through the rest of the year.
The deadline for online returns is 31 January after the end of the tax year, and for paper returns 31 October (gov.uk).
What the preparer does on each return
The work is done in your tax software, TaxCalc, IRIS, CCH, BTCSoftware or Capium, under a named login you control.
- Self assessment returns for sole traders, landlords, directors and partnerships
- The sole trader or partnership accounts behind the return, done in the same sitting
- Rental income schedules, dividend and interest figures, and payments on account
- One query list per return, with the date each answer is needed by
- UK review by our own practice before the return reaches you
What a late return costs your client
HMRC's penalties for a late self assessment return (gov.uk).
What it costs
Accounts seat
One accounts preparer for year-end accounts, corporation tax, self assessment and management accounts, reviewed by our own UK practice.
Prices exclude VAT. Billing is rolling monthly, with one month's notice to change the hours or end the seat, and every seat after the first is 10% off. Our guide to year-end season capacity planning shows how to count the January hours.
Questions
Which returns can the seat prepare?
Self assessment returns for sole traders, landlords, directors and partnerships, with the accounts behind a sole trader's or partnership's return done in the same sitting.
How many returns does an 80-hour seat cover?
It depends on the returns. Our year-end planning guide uses an hour and a half for a simple return and four hours for one with rental income and a partnership share. At those figures, 80 hours covers about 50 simple returns or about 20 of the harder ones in a month.
Can we add a seat just for the season?
A practice already working with us can add a seat with five working days' notice and end it with one month's notice. A new practice should start by early November, because the first month takes about thirty days, with real work from week two.
Who submits the returns?
You do, under your agent credentials, once you have reviewed and approved each one. Our own UK practice reviews the tax work before it reaches you.
Who chases the clients for their records?
You choose. Queries come back to you as one list per return, or we email your clients from your firm's own domain, to your script.
Other situations we help with
Year-end accounts outsourcing
Year-ends stacking up against the Companies House deadline.
Outsourced bookkeeping for accountants
Your bookkeeper has handed in their notice.
Outsourced bookkeeping rates in the UK
Published hourly and monthly rates beside a UK hire.
Outsourced accounting from South Africa
The working day, the qualifications and the paperwork.
Offshore staffing for accounting firms
One named person on your work when a UK hire will not come.
Tell us how many returns you have this season
We reply within one working day with the hours they need, who would prepare them and the monthly fee.