Accounted For are pleased to confirm that the company has began the process of Investors in People award and has now been given a certificate of commitment while the company prepares for the work involved in achieving this award.

 

This is in addition to the recently awarded AAT accredited employer status already gained by Accounted For and we hope to achieve many more awards and accreditations in the future.

 

We hope preparing and achieving the Investors in People award will allow the company to make improvements which will benefit the team and clients it serves.

 

 

SELF-EMPLOYED workers could be hit with £150million of fines for late tax returns as the Government's systems go into deadline day meltdown.

Around 600,000 businesses are expected to file their tax assessment forms to HMRC on January 31, sparking fears the website will grind to a halt during peak hours.

Some 90,000 people expected to be baffled by their form on the day will find the helpline jammed as thousands of public sector call centre workers go on STRIKE.

And, under stringent new rules for 2011-2012, businesses will be fined £100 for filing late, even if they have NO tax to pay.

Around nine million Brits are required to submit self-assessment returns every year, with almost four in five now doing it online.

However, a spokesman for HMRC admitted to Cashflow that the website would struggle with the numbers logging on.

He said: "With tens of thousands an hour, the website does not move as fast as we would like.

"Historically about 15 per cent of those filing on deadline day call us with a question about their tax return.

"There was about one million late last year so people are going to have to get their skates on and file now.

"Previously, if their return was late and there was no tax to pay, there would be no penalty. Now, even if there is no tax outstanding, they have to pay a £100 fine.

"People have had almost nine months to file the returns. If someone has a reasonable excuse for being late, we will look at it on a case by case basis."

HMRC received a record 572,455 returns online on deadline day last year, with web traffic peaking between 4pm and 5pm.

The mess will be made worse this year by strike action spearheaded by the Public and Commercial Services union.

It is unhappy with Government plans to farm out public posts to the private sector to improve customer service.

But despite the industrial action, those missing next Tuesday's cut-off for completing their online tax self assessment still face hefty new penalties as the HMRC plays hardball.

As well as the enforced fine of £100, a further £10 per day charge will be levied for every additional day up to a maximum of £900.

Those that do not file their tax return for three months will get an additional £300 fine or a fine of five per cent of the amount of tax owed, whichever is higher.

Leanne Eustace from Cardiff-based accounting firm, Accounted For, that handle tax forms for individuals said: "Unfortunately, hundreds of people who have turned to self-employment as a reliable source of income at a time when unemployment is at its highest in years could find themselves with fines of up to £1,500 – even if they don't owe any tax.

"As an accountant, it's shocking to see how many people leave their tax returns to the last minute.

"Sometimes clients don't understand how to do it or feel intimidated by it all, so they stick their head in the sand or put it at the bottom of their 'to-do' pile and forget about it.

"Sometimes it's just because clients prioritise other business decisions and it never gets done.

"Whatever the reason, now is the time that workers should be getting it done."

The Insider’s panel of entrepreneurs and experts came up with some fresh ideas on how to encourage young people, students and graduates to start companies.

 

Is enterprise visible as a career choice for young people, graduates and students?

 

James Taylor: It’s more visible now than it was. When I was in school and university, I did not come across entrepreneurship. I did not realise I was an entrepreneur myself until I was on the awards circuit.

Anna Bastek: Most students don’t even consider it. They just talk about getting a job. I don’t think there is enough in the curriculum about entrepreneurship. It should be an option because somebody has to create those jobs.

Rhiannon Llewellyn: Its not usually included. Whatever degree you do is just about that subject. We don’t give students transferable skills.

Helen McAvoy: When I was at school it was: “Do you want to be an accountant, a lawyer, a doctor or teacher?” At university, it was assumed you would go and work for one of the big accountancy firms or a big company. But now, although Dragon’s Den and The Apprentice get flak, kids what those programmes.

Taylor: There is a culture problem. 99% of the population go with the norm. Not enough people are prepared to step up.

 

How can enterprise be encouraged?

 

Gary Packham: We need to look at entrepreneurship as a profession in its own right. It needs to link into different sectors. Not enough students coming into university see entrepreneurship as an immediate and viable career option. But graduate unemployment is going up – there have to be other options.

David Russ:  The culture change needs to start much earlier. We had the Entrepreneurship Action Plan, which was abandoned after 4 years. It went from primary to secondary, colleges and universities. We need to get  back to that kind of thinking. Entrepreneurial countries such as New Zeland and Finland start much earlier.

Crocker: Entrepreneurship is a badge of honour in the US. Here, the image is of Del Boy. Programmes like The Apprentice are the reason I don’t define myself as an entrepreneur.

Bastek: I started five businesses, four failed. One of them is massive. You have to keep trying. Peter Jones’s Enterprise Academy is brilliant because it is run by people who have done it. The Welsh Government should add people who have been successful to courses at universities and schools.

Llewellyn: Its not being taught in schools, for example in the Rhondda. The mindset is just to get the grades up.

Ed Barnett: If school had a course about entrepreneurship, I don’t know if I would of picked it. It took me until I was 24 and involved in a business as an employee before I thought I could do it.

Cocker: Nobody tells you running a company is the hardest thing you will ever do. There may be a benefit in getting that message out.

McAvoy: You don’t need to have a defined class in it. Teachers and lecturers just need to bring it in a bit more to every subject. Like in sociology, you could have a social experiment and sell the results.

Leanne Eustace: Having the knowledge means that when you decide whether you can or can’t work for somebody else, you can make that decision. If you come from a less wealthy family, the risk of spending all your money and having nothing at the end of it can be hard.

 

How do entrepreneurs get started?

 

McAvoy: I saw my mum and dad putting money away for Christmas or retirement. It made me want to make it work so that when I am 44, I can be set up for life.

Bastek: I got a job through GO Wales as a marketing executive in a small electronics company. I was thrilled because I had the opportunity to see how the company worked.

Eustace: Without my experience in employment, I wouldn’t have known that I wanted to do it for myself.

Taylor: For the first two years you are paying other people in the business more than yourself to get it going and working longer hours. In our society, people want to do little work and get a lot of money. But in reality, no one makes money without working bloody hard.

Bastek: We need distinction between creating a job for yourself and creating a business that will run without you. On Saturday, I am off to Thailand for a month. It will take you years to get to this stage, but you can have all the benefits in the world if you make it right.

Packham: Young people are the most creative. They think starting a business is something they would like to do. I wonder whether the education system forces them to conform.

 

Where is the inspiration?

 

Taylor: As a kid, you say you want to be an astronaut or a footballer or a business person. You get a pat on the head. Then you get to 15 or 16, if you say you want to be a millionaire you are told: “Come on, get real”.

Bastek: People told me to keep my job and not to be silly. It motivated me to the point that I aim to retire at 32.

McAvoy: It’s important to give kids access to people who have already started a business. Kids are surrounded by 99.9% of people who just have normal jobs.

Cocker: The Welsh Government has just set up a business champions scheme, a group of people that can do that.

Bastek: We went to a Camarthen school where the kids had so many ideas. I would like to be involved in something like this, identifying kids with good ideas and setting up a business with them.

Packham: You’ve got Peter Joneses and Deborah Meadens, who are celebrities. But you need to surround young people with real-life entrepreneurs to give them a more realistic view of what its about.

 

Who should organise that?

 

Llewellyn: The schools and government; a lot of parents and governors are entrepreneurs themselves.

McAvoy: The Partent Teacher Association should talk to local businesses. Or the school: instead of a day trip to the park, why not take them on a trip around Treforest Industrial Estate?

Packham: In higher education, enterprise is seen as an option. Perhaps we need to see it as core.

Russ: The key is grabbing them earlier. Coming to the end of your degree is too late.

Packham: Our young people are going to tell us what skills business needs in the future. We have to embrace that. To get out of where we are now, we need to give young people then skills and confidence to create their own future.

Cocker: Our environment is set up for the skills bases we had in the past. We don’t know what the next business model is going to be, so we need flexible skills.

Barnett: How many entrepreneurs can the UK cope with? If we are all individual businesses, it’s not going to work.

Eustace: The proportion of entrepreneurs is low. Few people can take the pressure.

Packham: One view of entrepreneurship is wrong. It has been seen as a way of solving unemployment, rather than as an economic development policy. It’s a long-term commitment and we need to enable our young people to make a commitment.

Russ: We need long-term investment and a ten-year commitment. If you want to change the culture, you are not going to do it overnight.

 

Does the funding system work?

 

Llewellyn: Students have to pay so much in tuition fees, where are they going to get the start-up funding from? There is less funding for mature students aged 30 and over to go down the entrepreneurial route.

Eustace: When I started my business, I was told: “You’re an accountant, so you can’t have the funding. You’ll be fine.”

McAvoy: We had funding from The Welsh Government, but it was pretty much a full-time job to keep up with the changes that were happening. Access to funding needs to be a lot clearer. 

Leanne Eustace, director at Accounted For

"Next year will continue to be difficult for many businesses in Wales.

Many have remained cautious following instability in the economy and unease from the eurozone. 

Now there are hints that we're heading for a second 'recession too, companies will be increasingly looking for ways to work  their way out of debt and reducing fixed overheads where possible. 

Many of our clients have akready started favouring more flexible overheads and outsourcing instead of employing new staff of filling vacancies.

Although this is bad news for the dwindling number of job opportunities, we believe that this will open open new doors for the unemployed population via launching stat-up companies. 

Because of the increase in the number of people working for themselves, we believe that the accountancy industry will grow to cater for the increase in those needing help to complete tax returns and self-assessments.

We would urge people turning to self employment next year to be very wary of higher late fees from the HMRC, which are due to catch out many people who are new to accountancy and are unsure how or when to complete these documents using the new online system."

A young Cardiff accountancy firm has been shortlisted for a national accountancy award. 

 

The British Accountancy Awards are dedicated to the accountancy profession in practice, rewarding outstanding performances and innovation across the sector, from small local firms to the larger regional, national and global players. 

 

Accounted For, which provides a full range of financial services to more than 250 regular clients, is in the running to win the Welsh Independent Firm of the Year award after experiencing rapid growth since establishment five years ago. 

 

Leanne Eustace and her partner Lee, set up the business from the back bedroom of their house in Cardiff in 2006, when Leanne was just 23. Its growth meant that the business has tripled its initial forecasts by 2008 and it has since relocated to offices in Cardiff Bay. It now deals with many more regular clients and is hoping to have a 40% growth on the previous year, by the end of 2010 - 2011 financial year. 

 

This accolade is the first national award that the company has been shortlisted for, and Mrs Eustace hopes that recognition will put the business firmly in the  spotlight of a UK-wide market. 

 

Speaking of the monination, she said: "Since making the decision to strike out on our own and set up Accounted For, we've been overwhelmed with the successwe've experiences and we believe this is all down to our different approach to the accountancy industry. 

 

"We wanted to create complete transparency and understanding between the client and their accounts, and it's these values that our clients appreciate the most.

 

"Now we've been nominated for a national award, we feel like all our hard work and development is being recognised and we're thrilled and excited to see what doors this opportunity could open for us." 

 

The practice has just launched its online fee calculator which is the first of its kind in the industry.

 

the tool, which has 24/7 access, calculates a fixed accountancy fee after taking into account whether the client is a sole trader or the trading type of the client's bsuiness, the services required and the number of employees. 

 

After the three minute process, users are then given a quote broken down into annual, quarterly and monthly fees. 

 

Leanne added: "It's these kind of solutions that set us apart from other businesses in the industry and we're proud to be able to supply these services to clients, enhancing their experience of accountancy."

 

A Cardiff-based accountancy firm has launched a new online fixed-fee calculator as part of a drive to provide straight-forward accountancy services, and to boost its plans for 40% growth by the end of the fiscal year.

 

In a ground-breaking move for an accountancy practice, Accounted For has launched the new service on its website, which calculates potential clients’ accountancy fees after taking into account whether the client is a sole trader or the type of the client’s business, the services required and the number of employees.

 

Prospective clients are then given a quote broken down into annual, quarterly and monthly fees, and a reference number is provided so that a quote can be revisited at a later date.

 

The process, which can take as little as three minutes, provides 24/7 access to online fixed-fee accountancy quotes.

Leanne Eustace, founder and director at Accounted For, said: “When we established the company in 2006, we set out to provide clear and understandable accountancy services with an approachable and friendly attitude. The online calculator is very much a part of our strategy of providing innovative solutions in a straight forward, no-nonsense way.

 

“With this online calculator, we’re aiming to fill a gap in the accountancy services market for easy-access, 24 hour, fixed-fee quote system, similar to that of Go Compare or Confused.com.

 

“We hope that it will provide potential clients with a quick, easy and different way to get a quote for their accountancy needs at any time of the day or night.”

 

Cardiff Bay-based Accounted For was first established by Leanne and her partner Lee in 2006 and has already experienced rapid growth, tripling its initial forecasts by 2008.

 

Leanne added: “Although our new service provides a quick and easy mechanism to gain quotes anywhere in the world, we’re still happy to provide a quote by phone or through face-to-face meetings for those who prefer the more human touch!”

 

Accounted For is an accountancy firm in Cardiff that provides a full range of financial services, such as year end financial statements, self assessments, payroll, management accounts and bookkeeping, to clients of all sizes across the UK.

 

The firm serves more than 250 regular clients, including well-known established companies such as Dominos, and Welsh entrepreneur, Jahan Abedi, who has appeared on Channel 4 hit programme Secret Millionaire.