Business Accounting Services
Heighten’s business accounting services
We get it – running a business can feel like a constant uphill struggle. But, with the right equipment, you can be prepared for anything – and actually start enjoying the climb. At Heighten, our qualified team has decades of experience in the complex world of business accounting services to help you take back control of your business’s future, achieve happiness and maintain the work-life balance you deserve.
With the time spent on accounting responsibilities, it can understandably be frustrating for you as a sole trader, partnership, or company owner to handle business accounts and tax tasks. It is more likely that you are not an accounting and tax professional, and your role as a leader requires delegating your business accounts and tax to safe hands.
That’s where Heighten Accountants can help you. We can help in selecting the right accounting software and implementing an efficient accounting system with business advice to small, medium, and large businesses in the UK that requires professional assistance in processing accounting information seamlessly for important financial decisions and compliance.
Services we provide
You require accurate, timely and reliable financial information; therefore, we start working for your business long before we begin work on your statutory accounts so we can build a strong accounting foundation and the ideal basecamp for your business to reach new peaks.
Heighten provides a full range of business accounting services, personalised to the size and needs of your business on a pre-agreed fixed fee basis. We also deal with the tax accounting for the business.
Company Statutory Accounts
Heighten Accountants can help you produce your company’s Statutory yearend accounts to keep you compliant with business tax and statutory requirements.
Annual accounts requirements for Companies House and HMRC are not the same. Heighten expert team supports will help you at all times, to make you aware of your legal obligations and deadlines to avoid potential penalties.
It is really important for us helping you to keep good records, prompting you to provide exactly what we need from you by providing you with advice and checklists and conduct regular meetings throughout the year.
Whilst we prepare your statutory financial statements we will carry out some additional checks, such as:
- Analytical Review and a ratio analysis to minimise the risk of an enquiry from HMRC.
- Payments Review to ensure that you claim everything you are legally entitled to.
We will also review your fixed asset register including a check that the assets are still owned, disposed of or scrapped. This helps us to ensure your claim for capital allowances is maximised, which again will ensure that you pay the minimum legal amount of tax.
Before finalising a set of accounts for HMRC submission, we will arrange a tax minimisation review meeting with you to discuss the problems and opportunities and help you implement any agreed solutions.
Companies House Shortened Accounts
Heighten Accountants are experienced Companies House agents, and can cover preparing and submitting full or simplified, shortened, abridged or filleted accounts for your small or micro entity business. Companies House filing requirements vary for the different size bands companies, our expert advice will ensure that this important job is done properly.
Your business may qualify to submit simpler or abridged accounts to Companies House and not need to be audited. This depends on whether your company is dormant or qualifies as a small company or ‘micro-entity’. If your company is a micro-entity, you can prepare simpler accounts with only a balance sheet and less information to Companies House.
At Heighten Accounts your dedicated expert accountants are available to speak with you if you need any help or have any questions regarding Companies House filing, to ensure you are fully compliant and disclosing information publicly to meet the statutory minimum requirements
Our team of expert accountants can also help you with preparing Management and a full set of accounts for your lenders, potential partners or other stakeholder to help you raise finance and bring faster growth in your business.
Company Secretarial Services
Heighten Accountants company secretarial specialists will support your business at any point in its lifecycle from entrepreneurial start-up to medium sized to large corporates in the United Kingdom. We can cover any and all company secretarial tasks that you require.
You will benefit from bespoke solutions tailored to take the hassle away from company law. We will ease the administrative burden of running a limited company. We offer a flexible approach: we can take care of the whole job or just the more complex procedures.
We would be delighted to discuss how we can support and improve your company secretary. Complete request a free call form below to get in touch and we’ll get started.
Our company secretarial accounting services include the following:
- Maintenance of Statutory Registers
- Registered office address facility
- Appointment and resignation of directors
- Company name availability check and company name changes
- Change in Directors
- Maintenance of statutory books and registers
- Share transfers and allotments
- Changes to Accounting reference date
- Filings with Companies House on the occurrence of certain events
- Provision of service address to directors
- Annual confirmation statement submission
- Monitor filing deadlines for annual accounts and confirmation statements
- Drafting or amending of Articles of Association
Payroll and Auto Enrolment
At heighten, we are determined to remove the disruption and complexity of payroll tax, National Insurance regulations and the actual administrative task of paying your employees, so you can focus on achieving your business financial goals and happiness.
Heighten Accountants’ payroll and Auto Enrolment Pension services cover businesses of all sizes. Whether you are a sole director or contractor only for a small business or a larger organisation looking for an outsourced payroll solution, we can help you.
Heighten CIS Payroll team of experts can also handle all aspects of Construction Industry Scheme payroll, including sending out secure, personalised CIS payment slips, tax calculations, year end reporting and payments to subcontractors.
At Heighten, we are ambitious to bring together data, technology, and expert advisory services to support your wider business needs. We cover you from tax compliance to secure personal data exchange to making payments directly to your employee’s bank account.
By partnering with Heighten, you can be sure of a consistently exceptional payroll service complemented by the access to Employer and employee dashboards to access payroll information anywhere anytime. Our fixed monthly fee covers all aspects of payroll and pension admin including, P45, P60, Pension reporting, employee secure payslips distribution, employee and HMRC payments, calculating Statutory payroll deductions and additions.
Bookkeeping
At Heighten, we are passionate to turn your business data into sensible information through cloud based bookkeeping and use of automation. Our bookkeepers not just feed the numbers, they “read” them so you can make a better sense out of it.
Our bookkeeping service starts with Computerised Book-keeping systemisation. We can also work from your existing cloud platform and if necessary our team can clean up your computerised records to fix all of the previous issues. We can give you advice on how to tailor the ‘chart of accounts’ so that you can generate more personalised reports out of your accounting system.
Heighten Computerised Book-keeping telephonic support and training sessions are tailored to your existing level of experience to help you or your team get the basics right. You get a one-to-one session with our experienced book-keeping trainers to help you make the most of your QuickBooks, Xero, Sage Line 50 or any other accounting system of your choice.
Heighten Bookkeeping service is a flexible and cost-effective option to bring productivity in your business. Our bookkeeping service is designed for start-ups, growing and established businesses. you can delegate your bookkeeping completely, partially or only during your busy periods to Heighten expert bookkeepers with full peace of mind.
VAT Returns
We can complete your periodic VAT returns in an accurate and timely manner either at your premises or at our own, getting your team free to give their attention to grow your business. From VAT registration to choosing the right scheme to identifying the opportunities to improve cash flow, you are covered.
Our periodic VAT health checks provide you comfort in knowing that the business is VAT efficient. It also gives an early warning of exposure to VAT errors, if any. If you wish to keep the completion of returns in-house, we can provide a review service to validate their correct completion. This is our duty to ensure you pay the right amount of VAT.
There are a number of ways we can help to relieve the pressure if you have to deal with difficult HMRC VAT Inspections. We can discuss the situation with HMRC on your behalf to negotiate an acceptable solution and also carry out a risk assessment of the VAT position prior to their visit, if necessary.
Heighten VAT service ensures that you not only stay compliant but also help when you need it most. Our extensive experience and knowledge of the VAT ideally positions us to help your small businesses of any type and size to achieve VAT efficiency.
Far above and beyond the call of duty.
I have been using their Services for a few years now and I simply could not ask for more from them. From the outset Nadeem Iqbal has taken a personal intrest in my financial affairs and sees me as a friend as I do him. Nothing has been too much trouble. I would recomend them to ANYONE. Their service is without doubt first class
Frank Forte
We can also help you with:
- Company Formation Services
- Cloud Bookkeeping Solutions
- Financial forecasts, budgets and planning
- CIS accounting & payroll
- Acting as your agent with HMRC
- Personal tax returns & planning
- Landlord & property taxes
- Production of management accounts
- Corporate tax & planning
- Company car planning
- Directors’ Tax efficient remuneration package
- PAYE & VAT health check
- Tax minimisation service
- Professional fee protection against the investigation cost
How our business accounting services work
Heighten Accountants offer a full range of business accounting services to companies across the UK from our offices in Walthamstow, Winchmore Hill and Central London.
We offer total accounting solutions as well as select business accounting services, allowing you to pick and choose the best accounting services right for your business and personal needs.
We believe that as accountants we have skills, tools and resources to impact business owners’ life in a positive way. We bring all this under our three service packages, named as Base Camp, Elevation and Pinnacle service plan.
We encourage our clients to meet us regularly and we have encompassed regular meetings in our all service plans. The purpose of these meetings is to review your business and personal financial performance regularly, develop tools to measure it and keep it improving through continuous accountability. Our end goal is to make your business a happily successful venture and grow you rich as a business owner.
We believe in results and value we bring to our clients and our fee is personalised on these promises. We save you in tax, plan your finances and automate your accounting function to save you time. We operate under “No surprises value based fixed fee policy” and agree a fixed fee with you, in advance, for every piece of work so you never receive any surprise bills.
To be effective, we believe that professional relationships need to be based on mutual trust, support, respect and integrity. In practice that means that we will always do everything in our power to:
- Keep you fully informed about what’s happening on your affairs, and complete every task on or ahead of time – so that you never have to chase us.
- Operate on the principle that a problem isn’t solved, or a piece of work finished, until you are 100% delighted.
- Maintain the high standards of integrity, honesty, openness, professionalism and confidentiality that you rightly expect from us
You will have your own dedicated qualified accountants as a main point of contact who will look after all your accounting, tax and business growth needs.
However, you will also have unlimited access to our entire team for advice on ad-hoc matters. This means you can call on us at any time knowing that there will not be any charge for the time or advice.
Businesses we help
We always are on the lookout for new ideas that could help our clients to build an even more happily successful business and achieve business profitability goals. We help following businesses and individuals run their businesses more efficiently, with less effort and less stress:
- Limited Companies
- CIS Contractors & Subcontractors
- Small businesses
- Startup Businesses
- Landlords and Property investors
- Sole traders
- Partnerships
- Owner Managed Businesses
- Contractors
- Family Businesses
- Freelancers
- Locum Professionals
- Care Homes
- Marketing Agencies
- IT Service providers
- And Many More
The Best Start-up Accountants
I have pleasure meeting Heighten Team at their London office when I started my travel and cargo business. Their advice on company formation, payroll, VAT and tax was spot on. Their introduction to a local solicitor for company contracts was helpfull too. I found them the best in the town and recommend them without hesitation.
Khurram Farid
Why choose Heighten’s business accounting services?
At Heighten Accountants we work with business owners and treat their business as a vehicle to bring financial freedom to them.
We believe you need accounting services for your business that are specific to your requirements, and advice that is tailored to your financial goals. With decades of experience in helping businesses of all types and sizes, we understand the challenges you face.
You will work with a dedicated, qualified and experienced accountant who will not only be assisting you on day to day accounting but will also be proactive in helping you get the most out of your business.
Heighten is a modern practice combining accounting, AI, and automation to find a balance between human brain power and modern technology. We use AI & automation technologies to help streamlining data entry, extracting data from receipt images and classifying it automatically, analysis, improving bookkeeping accuracy, and real time accessibility thus freeing up human time to focus on business growth activities. This way we have added more regular meetings to our basic compliance services without affecting our prices.
We also have a team of professional associates within the Heighten family that can help our clients with Mortgage, Pensions, Financials advice, Leasing, Factoring, Lending, Wills, and legal matters – making Heighten as a one stop shop for all your business needs.
I am so glad that I chose Heighten as my accountant
I am so glad that I chose Heighten as my accountant when setting up my business and cannot recommend them highly enough. As a new business owner, I needed a lot of guidance and I have been fortunate to have the very knowledgeable team of accountants support me over the last few years. Without their advice, I would be truly lost! No question was ever too small or silly, they would respond quickly and with a high quality of advice. The prices are very competitive and the quality of service is excellent.
James L
MD & Entrepreneur
Do It With Love
Business accounting services FAQs
What is business accounting?
Accounting is a way all businesses keep track of their operations. Business accounting has four distinctive functions of systematically recording, analysing, interpreting and presenting of financial information. In a small business this job is mainly outsourced to an accounting practice by the business owner.
Financial information is ‘systematically recorded’ by an accounting process called bookkeeping. The software used to record this information such as QuickBooks, Xero and Zoho Books are called Cloud Bookkeeping software. Bookkeeping may be done by one person or accountant in a small business, or by different teams of bookkeepers in large organisations.
Financial information is ‘analysed’ and ‘interpreted’ by accountants so the business owner can make important decisions. ‘Presentation’ of financial information is organised into reports such as Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet and Cashflow. These financial reports are prepared by practice accountants for the small business and show the financial health of a business and help owners make smart decisions with their money.
Financial Reports are useful to different stakeholders including shareholders, potential partners, lenders, regulatory and tax authorities. Business accounting helps business owners meet their compliance obligations.
An accounting compliance in the UK means obligations of the director or owner of the business to comply with HMRC and Companies House with any demand or request or reporting disclosures such as Company Statutory Accounts, Companies House Shortened Accounts, Corporation Tax, Payroll, Auto Enrolment, and VAT Returns.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of filing shortened accounts?
A small company is only required to file unaudited abridged accounts consisting mainly of a balance sheet with a limited number of accompanying explanatory notes, generally without a profit & loss account and detailed notes. A micro-entity company enjoys the same exemptions.
The advantages of simplified, shortened, abridged or filleted accounts include that they are easier to prepare, and therefore reduce the administrative burden on small companies. There is also less information available on Companies House public domain, preventing competitors and the general public from learning much about your business.
The main disadvantage for filing shortened accounts with no Profit & Loss report are much less useful to banks or lenders if you are trying to raise funding. The abbreviated or abridged accounts are also only of limited use to trade creditors. If you are looking to bring a partner in the business, the shortened accounts do not help your potential partners to establish financial health of your business to risk a long-term association.
However, you can request a copy of the full set of accounts from your accountants if required to be presented to the lenders or other stakeholders. Please contact our specialists to learn more about Management or a full set of accounts.
How to set up a Digital Accounting KPI Dashboard?
A Digital Accounting KPI Dashboard is used by a small business owner or their Finance Director to maintain an overview of their company’s financial health and overall performance.
Your cloud bookkeeping software is the best place to start setting up your accounting dashboard to see a real-time view of where your business stands so you can make smart business decisions.
Once you have defined your accounting key performance indicators (KPIs), you should monitor them regularly. You can automate the data input process through receipt capturing software such as Dext, Zoho Expense and Expensify to your cloud bookkeeping software. The quality of data input into your accounting system is crucial to get the most up to date KPIs information in the most appropriate way to help you to run your business efficiently.
Some examples of the accounting and finance KPI may include; Total credit sales, Total cash sales, Debtor days, Creditor days, Return on Investment, Gross & Net Profit Ratios, Bank Balance, Break Even Point and Per Employee turnover.
At Heighten, we produce an Accounting Records Quality Report to ensure that you are getting the most from your system. This report helps analyse any weaknesses in your accounting systems, the consequences and our suggestions on how to improve them.
If you need help in setting up your accounting dashboard or getting training with ongoing telephone support, please contact us.
How Accounting Trusted Advisors are better than Accountants?
Accounting trusted advisors are more than just your accountants. Unlike typical accountants, your trusted accounting and tax advisors, guide you through challenging times in your businesses, and act proactively to demonstrate that they are on your side.
Being proactive trusted advisors at Heighten Accountants, instead of just writing an email, we would call you to make it more personal. We would always be ready to offer you help to reassure that we care about you and your business. And when we write, our email or letter looks like this:
“Cashflow is the key to ensuring businesses survive and prosper, and I’ve been thinking about how you can improve yours. As part of that I’ve been comparing your business to 99 others in your industry.
Since the only source of sustainable cash flow for any business is making profitable sales and getting paid for them, probably my two most interesting preliminary findings are these:
Firstly, the good news is that your gross margin is in the top 30% of your industry. So, given your success in this area already perhaps there is scope to push home your advantage even further by increasing your margins – adding a 10th to your margins for example, would add another £9,580.00 to your profits every year.
And secondly, if you could reduce your debtor days so that you collect the money you are owed from customers as quickly as those in the upper quartile in your industry, again even without making any more sales, you would have a further extra £892.04 in your bank account”.
To know more about how Heighten Accountants’ Trusted Advisor can help you during challenges, please schedule a call with us.
How can business accounting help scaling up your small business?
Business accounting practical ideas and tools help improve cash conversion cycles dramatically by generating sufficient cash internally to fuel your small and medium size business. Accounting system supports your KPI measures for revenue and profit.
Every business, no matter how successful, must continually focus on protecting and strengthening its cash flow. Your business accounting should support the following areas to help you shape a wealth-building business:
At Heighten, we believe that business accounting should be genuinely proactive in ways that really make a difference by improving your cash flow in your business. Book a free consultation with us to know more.
