As a company director you have certain responsibilities - we list them below along with other helpful information.
We would suggest saving this link as it's very useful to refer back to.
Important
You’ll need to set up a company bank account if you don’t already have one. You’ll need your certificate of incorporation to do this.
You’ll need to save money in the company bank account to pay for the company’s liabilities (e.g. corporation tax, VAT, PAYE/CIS). If you take out more money than you should, the company is technically insolvent which isn’t a good place to be!
There are personal taxes due on dividends and so you’ll need to save for these. For a breakdown of personal tax due on dividends, click here.
If you are doing your own PAYE, VAT or CIS you’ll need to register for the relevant taxes - see below for more information.
If you’re not VAT registered, you’ll need to keep an eye on your sales at the end of every month to make sure that they remain below the VAT threshold which is currently £85,000 (some businesses are exempt). Click here for more details.
Your bookkeeping needs to be kept to a good standard. If you leave things, its so much harder to work out issues that happened weeks, months or years ago! If you have any questions/issues we implore you to get in touch early on so that we can offer a free of charge meeting.
Get in contact with us if you have any issues - we're here to help! please feel free use the following email addresses:
• support@millwardmay.co.uk - general bookkeeping, accounts & tax return queries
• payroll@millwardmay.co.uk - payroll queries
Self-Assessment
If you’re a shareholder of a company and receive dividends, you’ll need to be registered for annual self-assessment tax returns.
If you're not signed up, you can register here.
Company Code
You should receive a letter from Companies House with a 6 digit alphanumeric code on it (e.g. 123ABC) - this allows us to submit your company accounts to Companies House. This is sent out within a few months of registering your company to the company’s registered office address. If you haven’t received a code or you have misplaced it, you can request that another one be sent to your registered office address here.
We would be grateful if you could send the code to admin@millwardmay.co.uk.
Taxes
If you are doing your own PAYE, VAT or CIS you’ll need to register for the relevant taxes here. If you’d like help setting up your taxes you can set up a meeting with us - we’d recommend that we help you register for VAT as its quite a complicated one to set up.
Remember to add dates to your diary so you never miss a deadline:
PAYE is due to be submitted by the day you pay wages to you or your employees - the tax due is usually payable every quarter but larger businesses may have to pay on the 19th of every month.
VAT returns are due to be submitted and paid a month and seven days after the end of your VAT quarter end (e.g. if your VAT Return is for the period from 1 January to 31 March, the VAT return is due by 7 May).
CIS is due to be submitted and paid on the 19th of every month.
We would suggest setting up a direct debit for the taxes above - you can do this through your business government gateway account.
Becoming Your Agent
If you do sign up for the following taxes, we’d be grateful to receive the following details once you receive them:
Self-assessment tax:
UTR = Unique taxpayer reference (10 digit number)
Corporation tax:
Corporation tax reference (“123/1234567890” or “1234567890”)
VAT:
VAT registration number (9 digit number)
Principal place of business postcode
Date of registration for VAT
Final month of last VAT return submitted (if you’ve submitted a VAT Return)
Box 5 figure on last VAT return submitted (if you’ve submitted a VAT Return)
CIS/PAYE
Employers reference
Accounts office reference
We’ll then request to become your agent which will enable us to talk to HMRC on your behalf in relation to your taxes. You will therefore receive a letter for each of the following taxes (if applicable): self-assessment tax (SA12345678), corporation tax (CT12345678), VAT (VT12345678), CIS (CS12345678), PAYE (PE12345678).
Each letter will contain a code that we would be grateful if you could send to admin@millwardmay.co.uk.
Accounts & Confirmation Statement
A company must submit accounts and a confirmation statement on a yearly basis to Companies House. To find out when they are due for your specific company, click here and search for your company name.
Accounts are due to Companies House nine months after its period end date. For example, if your company year end was 31 March 2000, your accounts would be due by 31 December 2000. If your company is trading, you'll also need to submit a corporation tax return to HMRC.
Your confirmation statement is due a year and two weeks after the previous confirmation statement date (or the incorporation date if the company has not yet filed a confirmation statement).
If we are responsible for your accounts, corporation tax return and/or confirmation statement we'll add your company details to our system so you don't miss the deadline.
Good Records
You'll need to keep good records. Tutorials can be found here:
Also, feel free to contact us to arrange a free of charge lesson on bookkeeping.
Expenses
Discover expenses that you may not be claiming for here - commonly missed expenses are given below:
Put your mobile phone in company name so you can claim for the cost 100%
Track business mileage
You may be able to claim for food and drink when out and about for your business
Company Changes
You must tell Companies House about changes to your limited company, including:
new director appointments, resignations or changes to their personal details
changing your company name
changing your registered office address
changes to your ‘people with significant control’ (PSC) information
changes to your company’s share structure, for example if you issue new shares
Misc
Auto enrolment - if you have staff members other than directors, you may need to enrol your staff into a pension scheme - more details can be found here.
Insurance - public liability, professional indemnity and/or employers insurance may be required.
Dividends & minutes - click here for a tutorial on how to pay yourself a dividend.
FAQs - check out our frequently asked questions here.
Set up a shareholders agreement - what happens when the two owners of the company disagree? Its best to have the rules in place from the start of the business.
Set up social media - Website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc
We have teamed up with Partners Financial Services to offer you a great solution to getting or renewing your mortgage. We would normally charge a fee for a mortgage reference but we won’t charge you anything when you use PFS! Click here for more details.
We suggest having a meeting with an IFA (independent financial adviser) if you’re a higher rate taxpayer. Click here for more details.
Contact us for more information on any of the above.