FAQs

What is the difference between an accountant and a bookkeeper?

In most cases, an accountant will help you with your year end and tax calculations, whereas a bookkeeper will help you with invoicing, payments and VAT returns during the year.  Bookkeeping is more of a support role.

How much should I put aside for my tax?

It is a great idea to put part of the money you get in from customers in a savings account to cover any taxes that become due. How much will depend on your level of income and whether you are VAT registered.  Talk this through with us so that you can start putting money aside as it makes paying the tax a lot less stressful.

Why should I spend money on Health and Safety?

Most business owners don't want to part with their hard earned profits, but if your staff have an accident at work it may change your mind.  As a business owner you must be seen to be providing a safe working environment, and your business insurance will not pay out if you are found to be negligent.  Some planning and costs now may help protect your staff and your bank account later down the line.

What does GDPR mean?

GDPR is short for General Data Protection Regulation - which really means making sure that any information you hold on customers, suppliers, staff etc is held correctly.  Is there a good reason why you need to have that information, and is it held in a secure way? Payroll details are an easy example of this - we used to email payslips to staff members with all their details on.  Now we invite staff to access their payslips on a secure portal so that the information can not be 'lost in space' or shared accidentally.

Why do you need to hold ID docoments?

As a professional services firm working in the finance sector, we are required by law to identify our clients for the purposes of the UK anti money laundering legislation.  We request and retain information and documentation as we are required to do so.  The information is password protected and not stored online.

As a small business, would I need a bookkeeper?

It is often tempting to use a family member or even try and do the work yourself to reduce costs, however this can sometimes cause issues.  Clients often come to us when they have asked their partner to do the invoicing one too many times or they are finding the monthly invoices are going out later and later causing cashflow issues.

It is important to remember that every business needs to keep accounting records - the benefit to having a bookkeeper is that we will help you understand what they mean for your business.

Why use a bookkeeping firm rather than a bookkeeper?

The benefit to using the team at BW is that we can offer a year round service.  When one member of staff is on leave, there are other members of the team to step in to provide cover.  We do not have a "pile them high" philosophy so we will not take on hundreds of clients. We work closely with businesses while still being able to cover periods of sickness or holiday seemlessly.