I do not involve myself in keeping your books but I will advise on how best for you to keep your books in order for me to prepare the accounts with the minimum of fuss. The quicker I can prepare the accounts the cheaper the bill for you so the more work you do on the book-keeping the cheaper the end result. If you are local to Chester then I am quite happy to call and see you on your premises - or if you don't have any premises we can always meet at a local hotel over a coffee or you can visit me at Stanley Place. You can park for one hour free of charge outside the office. A prior appointment is necessary - see contact details on the home page.
If you live further afield and prepare the books by computer then email the records to me and I will prepare the accounts. I recommend staright forward accounting programs such as Simply Books. Many people use Sage but this a very complicated program - maybe necessary if you are a multi national company but overkill for the man in the street. Simply Books is much easier and will cope with most, if not all, of the problems likely to be faced by the ordinary business man.
Any accounts that I prepare will always be submitted to you for your approval along with the self assessment return prior to submission to the authorities. I submit the self assessment returns over the Internet and I am required to provide you with a hard copy of the return prior to submission. Once you are happy then you pay the bill and I submit the self assessment return when payment has been received.
With having worked for the Inland Revenue for 39 years and I am aware of, for example, expected business profit rates. If you are falling short of expected figures then I will spot this and take it up with you before submission of the accounts. I do not want to involve myself in any Inland Revenue enquiries. Sometimes these are inevitable but I will not knowingly submit a set of accounts that "appear" wrong without having brought my concerns to your attention and cleared them to my/and your satisfaction. I aim to anticipate questions that HMRC may ask and provide the answers on submission of the self assessment return thus doing everything possible to avoid enquiries.