Filing Annual Returns online for clients

Filing Annual Returns online for clients

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Have avoided this for some time but want to get it sorted.

How do others deal with the receipt of the £15 filing fee?

I am considering getting clients to BACS it to my client account then I will transfer to office account as this is where Co House takes the fees from. I will get clients to sign a rolling authority for this. Any problems?

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By carnmores
27th Apr 2010 15:10

bill em in advance

get rid of all the hassle of transferring from client account

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By User deleted
27th Apr 2010 15:31

VAT?

Is there vat or is it a disbursement?

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By carnmores
27th Apr 2010 16:06
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Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
27th Apr 2010 19:08

Ditto Carnmores

I include it in my annual up front bill as a disbursement as it's the client's liability not mine.

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By JulietW
27th Apr 2010 23:06

Just factor it into the fee.

I just bill the client for the service and tell them that the price includes the £15 filing fee.  I simply treat the filing fee as a cost of sale.

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By clegganator
28th Apr 2010 08:36

.

We bill seperately for it and insist that they pay up front before we file it. We have a credit account with Companies House so they just take it as and when and it's classed as cost of sale.

 

Adam

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Should Be Working ... not playing with the car
By should_be_working
28th Apr 2010 10:25

No biggie

Where we act as registered office, the AR is the prompt for billing them for the next year, and includes the £15 as disbursement. Otherwise, we just carry it forward to the next bill (usually the accounts) as it's not a significant amount and not worth fiddling about with a seperate bill.

We have a credit account with CH.

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By Johnday72
28th Apr 2010 13:10

An additional service

We too have a credit account with Companies House. When we first started to file annual returns online for clients we simply charged the filing fee in with an overall annual fee. However, the number of companies we now act for has risen to some 300 or so and we decided some time ago that a seperate and identifiable charge (on a seperate invoice) should be made to clients. We researched what other accountants were charging locally for this and settled on a figure of £50 which includes the £15 filing fee as a cost of that sale.

Clients have accepted and appreciate the transparency of this arrangement and it is also useful to us in terms of charging an acceptable amount (£35) for an identifiable piece of work.

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By Laurence52
29th Apr 2010 10:50

VAT on the Filing Fee

As a previous poster said, HMRC have strict rules as to when a disbursement such as a filing fee can be non-VATable. To qualify [***] the following 8 conditions have to be met:

1 you paid the supplier on your customer's behalf and acted as the agent of your customer2your customer received, used or had the benefit of the goods or services you paid for on their behalf3 It was your customer's responsibility to pay for the goods or services, not yours4 you had permission from your customer to make the payment5 your customer knew that the goods or services were from another supplier, not from you6 you show the costs separately on your invoice7 you pass on the exact amount of each cost to your customer when you invoice them8 the goods and services you paid for are additional to whatever you're billing your customer for doing yourself

It seems as if most of the conditions would automatically apply, but 4, 6 and 7 do need to be dealt with.

 

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By angusnicolson
29th Apr 2010 11:36

Cost of doing business

As with most of the others, we simply pay it for the clients and add it as a disbursement.  Yes, it has cash flow implications, but these are immaterial compared to the rest of WIP.  Paying the fee also ties the client to you, instead of having to harras them for a small cheque - and how much time cost is involved with that?

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By appacc
29th Apr 2010 13:37

Companies House fees

Pay the fees with a Companies House account which is taken by DD at the end of the month.

Treat as on overhead - it's only £15 each after all.

If you must, just add to your next invoice but why worry about this as a separate charge? It's just work in progress, 15 minutes of time? How much does it cost to collect?

Even if you add VAT when you re-charge, client can reclaim so no problem here.

 

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By pradeepsanghvi2
29th Apr 2010 15:04

Filing annual Companies House returns online

You can open an account with Companies HOuse. They will set a limit for you and every time you submit an annaul return for your client, they will charge you account with £15. At the end month they will give an e-bill with full details for the month's charge. Companies HOuse will then take the money by direct debit from you account which you had nomianted when you registered to open an account.

 

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