Gordons Knight | Chartered Accountants

Compliance Services | Added Value Services

Financial performance review

Bookkeeping

We can relieve you and your business of a significant burden by taking care of all your bookkeeping and accounting needs. This ranges from making use of our inhouse bookkeeping bureau to the preparation of your annual accounts. We will treat every business individually so that we can tailor our approach to your requirements.

Besides the core bookkeeping, we can also maintain your VAT records, prepare your payroll and take on ad hoc projects to free up valuable time for your staff.

We believe that our high level of IT literacy can help improve our efficiency and help our clients to set-up their accounting systems to be efficient and effective. We are Sage Accountants Club Members and can supply software and hardware.

Business planning

Every business must plan ahead in order to ensure success, but it is too easy to succumb to the daily pressures of work and delay or ignore strategic planning. The result of poor planning is often rushed and misinformed decisions, over/under capacity, inefficiency and missed opportunities.

Every business owner needs to invest time in developing a long-term plan, starting with what you want to achieve from your investment and what your reasons for being in business are, and then developing a plan to help achieve these objectives.

We are well placed to help you develop these plans and have a considerable pool of experience and expertise to draw on. The financial aspects are usually the backbone to any business plan and you need to ensure that this aspect has been adequately dealt with in your plan.

Business start-up

Most people who start up in business do so because they have a good business proposition, not because they are experts in the financial aspects of running a business. These factors can often be quite daunting to the entrepreneur and this is where we can help by evaluating your ideas and helping you develop them into a feasible business.

We can also help you:

decide on the most suitable structure for your business (i.e. sole trader, partnership or limited company)
prepare a business plan, cashflow projections, budgets and trading forecasts to prove the financial viability of your ideas and demonstrate this to the bank / potential investors

assess your finance requirements and access the most appropriate source of finance
help you establish relationships with banks, solicitors, etc via our well established network of contacts
carry out registration procedures with Companies House, Inland Revenue or Customs and Excise
set up an internal accounting system which complies with statutory requirements

Call us for a free initial consultation to find out how we can help your ideas become reality.

Business valuation

One of our key objectives is to help our clients increase the value of their business. Each year we can carry out a valuation of your business using software developed by the Added Value Network.

We will produce a detailed report showing the current value of the business and ideas on how you can maximise its worth.

Company secretarial

When running a hectic business you cannot afford to use valuable time making sure you are complying with the Companies Act. However you do need to be aware how this legislation affects your company and its directors. We can help by carrying out the company secretarial duties for you. Our services include:

company formations
preparation and filing of statutory returns
preparation of all documentation (such as minutes and resolutions)
maintenance of statutory books (share register, minute book, etc)
general advice on company law

Financial performance review

We will carry out a financial performance review of your business. This will be in the form of a detailed report which includes:

graphs and charts illustrating how your business has performed this year
ratio analysis to highlight areas of strength and weakness
detailed commentary advising you which areas of the business can be improved

Management accounts

The most important part of our compliance services is the preparation of periodic management accounts. Monitoring and controlling the financial performance of your business is of paramount importance and regular management information is vital to the continued success of your business. We can either carry out this function for you or help you set-up internal systems to generate the information.

We will also take this service one step further by interpreting these figures for you and making suggestions to help you improve your profits or to help your business grow.

Payroll

Running your own payroll can be time consuming and complicated, particularly with the ever increasing complexity of taxation and employment legislation. There is an increasing burden on business to comply with these issues and non-compliance can lead to substantial penalties.
We can prepare payrolls for businesses with 2 to 200 staff.

Our service is comprehensive and confidential and includes:

computer generated payslips
administration of PAYE, national insurance, statutory sick pay, statutory maternity pay, etc
completion of statutory forms (including year end returns)
summaries and analysis of staff costs
administration of incentive schemes, bonuses and ex-gratia termination payments.

Even if you only have a few employees, you will make savings by engaging us to administer your payroll.

Statutory Accounts

If you are a limited company then you are required to prepare accounts that must be filed with Companies House in a statutory format. We can help you by preparing your statutory accounts and filing them with Companies House for you.

We have made a conscious decision not to carry out regulatory audit work because we think this will distract our attention from the service that we want to provide. In order to provide an audit we would have to prove ourselves to be independent from our client……. This is the last thing that we want to be as we want to be an integral part of your business. If you are required to have an audit then we can help you get your records and accounts in to a condition that will make your annual audit a short, cheap and painless process. Please contact us to find out how we can help you with this.

Corporation Tax

Corporation tax will represent a substantial cost to any profitable business, not only in terms of the tax itself but also in compliance with reporting obligations, investigations with tax authorities and penalties for non-compliance.

We can help you minimise your corporation tax payments and relieve you of any administrative burden of complying with tax legislation. We will deal with all business tax matters, including preparing income and /or corporation tax computations and preparing and submitting your partnership tax return or corporation tax self-assessment return.

All the Things you Need to do Every Year!

We offer a full range of compliance services........ all the things you need to do every year. These are our traditional accountancy services.

All the Things you REALLY Need to do Every Year!

We also have a range of new consultancy services designed to help small and medium sized firms grow and become more profitable, click here

OnTrack Review

We will gladly carry out an OnTrack review for you at no extra charge. The OnTrack review process contains 6 mini-reviews designed to make sure you and your business are on track to achieve everything you have set out to do. The 6 mini-reviews are:

a growth review
a taxability review
a wealthbuilder review
an accounting systems review
a finance options review
an exit planning review

Accounting Records Quality Report

We want to help you get the most out of your accounting systems. So, we will prepare a report setting out any weaknesses, the consequences and our suggestions on how to improve them. And, the better your accounting systems - the lower your accountancy fees!

Benchmarking Report

One of the most powerful management tools is bench- marking - this is where we compare the performance of your business against other businesses within your industry sector.

This will tell you how you are performing, in which areas you excel and those areas where there is room for improvement.

I.T. Services

I.T. has become an integral part of the business world and GKC is no exception to this. Our business is totally computerised.

We are members of the Sage Accountants Club and provide software, training and support to Sage Instant Accounting, Sage Line 50 and Sage Payroll.

Company Car Tax Planning

Whether to have a company car or not is the most common question that we get asked. The next most common question is how to finance the purchase of the car. It is an area for confusion, particularly with the recent changes in the basis of taxation of company cars.

We will gladly carry out a planning exercise each time you consider buying a new vehicle to ensure you are aware of the most appropriate method of finance and the minimisation of tax liabilities.

Flexibility

This list of services is not exhaustive. We are pleased to offer advice and assistance on any matters you wish to refer to us and offer considerable flexibility in our function.