Hi Ray,

Do you mind me asking around how much they are charging you, just so I can gauge the value of them doing it versus the savings by doing it yourself?

If you have access to your business's Gov.UK online business account you can file there using the web interface in some cases, depending on the business specifics.
You would also need to file with Companies House if you are a Limited Company.
Obviously if your business falls into the requirements of having audited accounts this would not be an option.

Ray,

Depending on your level of turnover you do not need an accountant to file your annual accounts. Are you a limited company and have to submit a corporation tax return? If so then you need a piece of software that can submit them in a particular format (iXBRL). 

The benefit of having an accountant is that they can give you advice on your accounts and on your tax that may be beneficial to you and/or your business. If you are seeing an accountant purely as a means of filing a set of accounts then you are missing the full benefit of having an accountant support you.

Regards

Nick

Hi Ray,

I'm an accountant myself so I can help you with this query!

If you're confident that you can prepare the end of year accounts yourself there is nothing to stop you filing them on your own.  

However, if you decided to prepare your own accounts you would need to make sure that you kept up to date with changes in the reporting and tax legislation to keep yourself compliant, which is something that qualified accountants will be doing on their clients behalf on a regular basis.  

You should also be confident that you know how to prepare the accounts properly, making sure that you disallow any expenses not eligible for tax relief, making sure that you treat the addition of new assets and disposal of old assets into and out of your business correctly, providing for any accruals and prepayments accurately (unless you're using the cash basis), reconciling all items on your balance sheet and making the correct disclosures in the accounts (if you are preparing statutory financial statements).

Preparing accurate accounts isn't just about recording transactions on Sage properly, there is a lot more to it than that, and a good accountant can make sure that your accounts are accurate and complete.  

I hope this helps!