The accountant for consultants who reads your contract first.

Most accountants treat a consultant like any other small business. They file last year and move on, missing the things that actually move your tax bill.

A misjudged IR35 call. The Flat Rate Scheme left running when it has turned against you. A subscription or a site trip never claimed. So you overpay, and you never quite know where.

A specialist accountant for consultants works the other way round. We read the contract first, plan the year ahead, and we do not just record your numbers. We improve them.

IR35, the off-payroll rules, asks a simple question with an expensive answer. Strip away your company, and would HMRC see an employee? If yes, you are "inside" and taxed close to one. If no, you are "outside" and your limited company stands.

Since April 2021, when you work for a medium or large client, they decide your status and the agency or client deducts the tax. Work for a small company, though, and the call, and the liability, come straight back to your own company.

It turns on three things: control over how you work, whether you must do the work personally, and whether there is genuine mutuality of obligation. A "right of substitution" in name only does not save you.

We review your contract against how you actually work on the ground, flag the clauses that weaken your position, and document a defensible status. A wrong "outside" call can mean back-tax, National Insurance and penalties, so we get it settled before HMRC asks.

Through your own company, how you pay yourself matters as much as what you bill. The usual route is a modest salary topped up with dividends, but the right mix shifts each year as allowances and thresholds change.

A salary is a deductible cost for the company and protects your state pension record. Dividends are taxed more lightly than salary but only come from profit after Corporation Tax. Push too far on either and the benefit unwinds.

Employer pension contributions are the quiet winner. Paid by the company, they are a deductible cost, free of National Insurance, and a clean way to move profit into your own pension instead of HMRC.

We run the numbers on your salary and dividend split every year, keep one eye on your Self Assessment so the personal side stays in step, and make sure you are extracting profit the efficient way, not the default way.

Most consultants register for VAT once turnover passes the £90,000 threshold, though many register voluntarily sooner because their clients are VAT-registered and reclaim it anyway.

The Flat Rate Scheme looks tempting: pay HMRC a single percentage of turnover instead of tracking every input. But there is a catch built for exactly your kind of business.

If you spend very little on physical goods, under 2% of turnover, or less than £1,000 a year, HMRC labels you a "limited cost trader" and forces you onto a punishing 16.5% rate. At that point the scheme almost always costs you more than standard VAT.

A consultant whose biggest costs are software, a laptop and their own time falls into this trap constantly. We test it every year, move you onto whichever scheme is cheaper, and keep you filing correctly under Making Tax Digital.

Most independent consultants and contract engineers pay between £99 and £199 a month. Set against a single day-rate, it pays for itself.

No hourly rates. No surprise bills. One fixed fee, a named, qualified accountant who knows contract work, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.