Affordable accountants that can manage multiple business under one LC?

[KevinGourd]

Hi all,

I've been using Crunch for my book keeping and accountancy for a while and have been very happy with their service. However I am planning to diversify into a second business which I would ideally like to run alongside my existing business within my current Ltd in order to keep things simple and cost-effective.

I'm aware that HMRC are happy for multiple businesses to be run out of a single Ltd, but unfortunately Crunch have advised me that their book-keeping software cannot currently cope with two unrelated businesses being run concurrently. I wondered if any forum users could recommend a web-based accountancy company at a similar price point to Crunch (around 80-90pcm) which uses book-keeping software that could handle multiple businesses within a single Ltd?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

[northernladuk]

Have a look at what tool you want first and then find an accountant that uses the tool you want?
Check Freeagent and Xero and see if they do what you want. I believe Xero does more than we normally need so maybe that will help?

[northernladuk]

On this page there is a link to a review of all the popular ones so that might give you an idea which ones you want to try.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/s...usinesses.html

[Chart Accountancy]

+1 for Xero. You can have the two businesses split under cost centres or locations. We are certified Xero accountants and we have clients using this facility, see more info in the link below

https://help.xero.com/uk/Settings_Tracking

[Maslins]

I think it's perhaps worth distinguishing between:
- having two businesses running under one company, and
- having two businesses running under one company with you readily being able to see how much income/expenditure each side has, so see the relative profits.

For the latter, you need a bookkeeping package that enables you to split things like Chart Accountancy suggests. So you'll have "Sales biz 1" and "Sales biz 2". You allocate things accordingly, then you can run a P&L for each part of the business. This can be very useful from a management accounting point of view (ie establishing what is/isn't doing well so you can tweak the business accordingly). From a statutory reporting point of view, it's all a bit irrelevant, as it'll just be bunged together into one pot anyway.

If you do want to be able to split things out, yes you'll need a package a bit more sophisticated than FreeAgent (and I would assume Crunch's offering).

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

From a statutory reporting point of view, it's all a bit irrelevant, as it'll just be bunged together into one pot anyway.

Unless you need to stream losses?

[Lance]

I would ideally like to run alongside my existing business within my current Ltd in order to keep things simple and cost-effective.

IMO that's a false economy.
What if one of the businesses fails?
What if you decide to get all your contracting cash out using an MVL?
What if you decide to sell the other business?
What if you find the software and accountants who can help but the cost more than doubles (which it probably will)?
.... and that's just 2 minutes of thoughts....