Accounts Fees for Small Ltd Company

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Lauren

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Hi all,

Is 5k a reasonable annual fee for a small limited company setup? IT Contractor situation including payroll fee, annual accounts etc.
 
Is the company audit-exempt? If so, €5k looks very expensive for an IT contractor, particularly if the fee covers only 1 year. Having said that, its difficult to comment definitively without knowing what exactly is involved.
 
I agree with UB.....for an IT Contractor you should be able to do your payroll yourself using something like www.payback.ie As long as you keep a decent record of payments and expenditure your auditor should have very little to do.

I had a one man contracting type ltd company, audit exempted, and the fee for year end accounts was €1,100 with free advice during the year if I needed (ie if I had a question about anything I just called him up and he didn't charge) - I was very happy with the service I got - eveything done on time, accurately and quickly.

€5,000 seems to be quite high - you should shop around and see what other quotes you get.

EDIT - actually does that €5,000 include setting up the company as well or is the company already in existence?
 
I should have mentioned above that if the company is not audit-exempt (for example if accounts have not been filed on time with the CRO either this year or last year) then I would not be surprised if the auditors are charging stiff fees for their auditing service.

I say this because the regulations on audit work have become ridiculously complicated, and risky for auditors. For example, the new Quality Audit Procedures introduced by on of the leading accountancy Institutes run to over 100 pages in length. This must be completed for all audit cases irrespective of size.

As a result, it is expected that many accountancy firms will take strategic decisions in the next 1-2 years to quit auditing altogether and to concentrate solely on non-audit work for audit-exempt clients.
 
Thanks guys. I thought it was a bit high myself. I've sent a note to the accountant asking him for a breakdown of this amount so that I can work out what I can actually do myself. It does not include setup fees as I paid that separately and there should not be audit fees as everything has been done on time so far.
 
Hi seems on the high side to me. Just done a quote yesterday for a company. i work in a chartered accountants office. They are a limited company, second year of trading, audit exempt. (turnover approximately €150,000 ex vat)

We will do their accounts, P35 (payroll total 3 people), Corporation Tax return, Abridged accounts and B1 annual return form for the Companies Registration office. The all in qoute we gave was €3,000 plus vat.

So all in all your accountant seems a little on the expensive side. Might be a number of variables that we don't know about but i would be interested to know how he arrived at that quote.
 
I queried it today and he came back quite quickly and said he was trying to give me an indication and rounding up (I should think so!) for 'budgeting' purposes. He suggested that it would be lower than that and has promised a formal quote by cob Monday.
 
interesting alright. Make sure you get it on paper and get a breakdown of what the work the quote will cover. Based on the information you have provided and the fact that its an IT Contractor situation i would estimate that it should be no more than €2,500 to €3,000. Thats roughly what we would quote.

Also was the original €5,000 vat inclusive or exclusive? Is your business vat registered?

The answers to these two questions may have a bearing on the quote.

Finally just of interest where is the location of the accountants "no need to be specify" but general area country or northside or southside dublin etc.

I just wonder if different accountants quote on the basis of where their business is based. BTW we are based in Dublin 1 so our costs would be quite high (ie rent etc)
 
Hi, yes I'm VAT registered and the quote was excluding VAT....Its probably a bit premature to say it was a quote but it was an indication rounded up...(apparently)...Naturally I have requested a formal quotation which I should have by cob Monday. Accountant is Southside based..
 
Hi Lauren,

5K seems very expensive.

I used to be an IT contractor, where I had set up a company etc.

I did my own VAT returns, Payroll, and Bank recs. My annual Audit/Accounting fees were about €1200. I thought that this was expensive given that I had done the donkey work

If you are only doing IT contracting then your VAT returns should be easy enough for you to do.

Also, the payroll should be easy to do if you use payroll software. You can get a number of packages that range from being free, to costing a couple of hundred euro per annum.

You should also look at doing your own bank reconcillations. If you only have the company just to cover the IT contracting then the chances are that you are drawing most/all of the money out of the company as wages.

This type of company is not as complicated as one where you have hundreds of suppliers and customers that have to be audited.
 
Hi Lauren,

5K is definitely too expensive no matter where in th county you are. Average fees are 1100 - 1800. There are a couple of threads already in AAM about this specific topic. I'm paying 1475 ex VAT this year for payroll, VAT, end of year accounts, but next year I'm hoping to bargain this down a bit as everything is set up by direct debit so I don't need to do monthly VAT or payroll returns.

Good luck with you what you decide,
 
Hehehe..yes the numbers have been 'rounded' down considerably...by about 3k to approx 2k with more to go if I do most of the 'admin' stuff myself. Thanks to everyone for help and advice...
 
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