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Case Studies
Below are just two examples of how people, possibly like yourself, have been helped out of a paperwork nest...
CASE STUDY 1
A small limited company in the construction trade. The Director had no work/life balance as his non-building time was all spent trying to keep up with paperwork.
I started working with him one morning a week in his own home office. His paperwork is now organised, quotes are professionally prepared and emailed to clients in a timely manner. Staged sales invoices are raised, and I ensure they are paid within the requested time. All paperwork for each job is in it’s own Job File, with a front sheet listing the client’s contact details, the stage the job is at (eg quoted, contract sent, invoices raised). He is now completely up to date with VAT returns and payments (instead of paying HMRC fines), his PAYE is up to date (instead of paying fines). He has a cash flow plan for all invoices and can see at a glance which suppliers need paying and the date they should be paid. I found him a new, proactive Accountant with whom I work to ensure his accounts system runs smoothly. I upload all his purchases into the accounts system and ensure they are allocated in the correct way. Sales invoices are raised from within the accounts system. Supplier statements are checked against the accounts system and any missing invoices are requested. I keep track of the business bank transactions and, in liaison with the Director, make the weekly supplier payments.
For the last tax year, I saved him a £22,000 tax bill as I queried brought forward
balances in the accounts and worked extra time to reallocate incorrect entries.
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CASE STUDY 2
A sole trader (A) who had registered for VAT, but didn’t know what that involved, so didn’t submit any VAT returns. Two and a half years on HMRC realised that no VAT returns had been received and were trying to investigate. The Sole Trader was at his wit’s end, immense stress and sleepless nights as he had no idea how to deal with HMRC, how to find and provide the information they required, or how to get up to date with his VAT returns. He brought me a large plastic box filled with paperwork – sales invoices, purchase invoices, till receipts, etc. The first job was to sort the paperwork into separate years. From there one year at a time, the paperwork was sorted into sales invoices and purchase invoices/receipts. Then into month and date order. There were missing sales invoices, so he provided me with the missing invoice numbers. Only basic book-keeping was required, so spreadsheets were created, January to December, sales and purchases for each month. The now organised paperwork was data entered into the spreadsheets, separating out the VAT elements. The totals were carried forward (by formula) onto a final sheet which gave all the information for each quarter’s VAT return. Using special bridging software the figures were entered into the digital returns on the HMRC website and all the VAT was brought up to date. I assisted him in providing the HMRC VAT Inspector with all the information requested and helped draft email replies to their enquiries.
Eventually, after approximately 12 months the HMRC Inspector was satisfied and the investigation was concluded with a much lower fine that the Sole Trader had anticipated.
I have continued to work with him, keeping him up to date with submitting VAT returns and payments. I also set him on CIS and submit those returns also on his behalf.​