Our Virtual Finance Office service includes complete administrative support for your UK company and is designed especially for foreign businesses entering the UK market.
This service includes the following:
Bookkeeping and Management Accounting
EBS can provide a monthly bookkeeping and management accounting service, customised to your requirements, for a fixed fee. The fee will depend on the number and complexity of transactions, your reporting requirements, and any additional needs that you may have. We can provide you with direct access to the accounting system so that you can, for example, raise quotations or check on outstanding debts.
The service includes:
- Setting up the accounts format in our HMRC compliant accounting software
- Entering the transaction in the accounting records
- Reconciling the control accounts, intercompany balances and bank accounts monthly
- Production of monthly Management accounts and reporting to the Board
- Sending the accounts to you in a digital form
- Preparation and submission of the VAT declarations (every 3 months)
- Preparation and submission of Intrastat declarations
- Preparation and submission of EC Sales List
- The monthly license for the use of Xero software
As part of the service, and with the company consent, EBS will also register itself as the Tax Agents for the company with HMRC.
VAT Registration and Compliance
The Value Added Tax, or VAT, in the UK is a general, broadly based consumption tax assessed on the value added to goods and services. It applies more or less to all goods and services that are bought and sold for use or consumption in the UK. Goods which are sold for export or services which are sold to customers abroad are normally not subject to VAT.
VAT is:
- a general tax that applies, in principle, to all commercial activities involving the production and distribution of goods and the provision of services. However, if the annual turnover of a UK company is less than GBP 90,000 within a 12 month period, then the company does not have to register for VAT and charge VAT on their sales.
- a consumption tax because it is carried ultimately by the final consumer. It is not a charge on businesses.
- charged as a percentage of price, which means that the actual tax burden is visible at each stage in the production and distribution chain.
- collected fractionally, via a system of partial payments every three months, by which VAT-registered businesses deduct from the VAT they have collected the amount of tax they have
- paid to other taxable entities on purchases for their business activities.
paid to the tax authorities by the seller of the goods, who is the “taxable person”, but it is actually paid by the buyer to the seller as part of the price. Which means that it is an indirect tax.
Statutory Accounts and Tax
Main rate of Corporation tax in the UK is 25%, small profit rate at 19%. A marginal relief applies between the thresholds.
Your UK company will be automatically registered for Corporation Tax once it is incorporated in Companies House.
Your company’s annual accounts are called statutory accounts and prepared from the company’s financial records at the end of your company’s financial year. Your accounting period is normally the same 12 months as the financial year covered by your annual accounts.
You must always send copies of the statutory accounts to:
- Shareholders
- People who can go to the company’s general meetings
- Companies House
- Tax authorities (HMRC) as part of your Company Tax Return
If your company is small, a micro entity or dormant, you might be able to send simpler (‘abridged’) accounts.
Corporation Tax is generally payable nine months and one day after the end of the accounting period. Trading losses may be carried forward indefinitely to offset future profits, or carried back for up to one year to claim a tax refund. Companies with profits exceeding GBP 5 million can generally offset only 50% of profits above that threshold using carried-forward losses each year.
Audit
The Directors of the company are responsible for determining whether, in respect of each accounting period (year), the company meets the conditions for exemption from an audit. These are set out in s382 of the Companies Act 2006, and apply to companies satisfying two or more of the following requirements:
- Turnover in that year of not more than GBP 15 million.
- Balance sheet total in that year of not more than GBP 7.5 million.
- Average number of employees in that year is not more than 50.
The Directors are also responsible for determining whether, in respect of the year, the exemption is not available for any of the reasons set out in section 478 and 479 of the Companies Act 2006; namely that at no time during the year was the company:
- a public company;
- an authorised insurance company, a banking company, an e-money issuer, an investment firm subject to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) or an Undertaking for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) management company;
- carrying out an insurance market activity;
- a special register body as defined in section 117(1) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 or an employers’ association as defined in section 122 of that Act;
- a member of a group that exceeded the group exemption limits; or
- a member of an ineligible group
The exemption is available only if the Directors sign a declaration as required by section 475(3) of the Companies Act 2006 on the balance sheet stating that:
- for the year in question, the company is eligible to take advantage of the audit exemptions;
- the shareholders (called Members) have not required the company to obtain an audit of its financial statements for the year in accordance with section 476 of the Companies Act 2006; and
- the Directors acknowledge their obligations for complying with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 with respect to accounting records and preparation of accounts.
Payroll and Pension
EBS can register and operate a monthly payroll for your UK employees.
The service includes:
- Calculation of the monthly salary, income tax deductions and Social costs
- Informing you of the net pay for each person and the total amount to be paid to HMRC
- Sending payslips to employees electronically.
- Preparing and submitting the monthly RTI (Real Time Information) monthly debit data to HMRC
- Preparing and submitting the Electronic Payment Summary (EPS) to HMRC
- Preparing and submitting the pension calculations to the pension provider
- Informing you of the amount to be paid.
- Managing any Zero declarations
- Processing the bank payments
- Preparing and submitting the claim for the Employment Allowance.
- Processing the tri-annual review and dealing with questions from the Pension Regulator.
- Responding to general consulting questions about the payroll, PAYE and pension processes from you and your employees without additional charge.
We can also take care of making payments to employees, the tax office and the pension scheme on your behalf.
