The plumbers accountant who knows the trade.

If you do construction work for a contractor, they must deduct money from your labour and pay it to HMRC as advance tax. Registered subcontractors have 20% deducted; if you have not registered for CIS it is 30%. Deductions are taken from labour, not from materials you have paid for, provided you have evidence. We reconcile these against your tax bill so you are not taxed twice and any overpayment is refunded.

Yes, if you qualify for gross payment status. To get it HMRC look at your turnover, your tax compliance history and whether your business is run through a bank account in the UK. With gross status contractors pay you in full and you settle your own tax later. We assess whether you qualify and apply on your behalf.

Only once your taxable turnover passes the £90,000 registration threshold over a rolling 12 months (or you can register voluntarily). Once registered, if you work for another VAT-registered contractor the domestic reverse charge usually applies, meaning you do not add VAT to labour, the customer accounts for it instead. For work for a private homeowner end user, you charge VAT as normal.

For now, yes, on qualifying installations. The installation of certain energy-saving materials, including air and ground source heat pumps, solar panels and insulation, is zero-rated for VAT until 31 March 2027, after which it is due to revert to the 5% reduced rate. Getting the rate right matters, so we check each job against the qualifying list.

Yes. Tools, test equipment and most plant can be claimed under the Annual Investment Allowance, which lets you deduct the full cost (up to £1 million a year) in the year you buy. A van bought for the business can also be written off in full under the AIA, which is different from how a car is treated. We make sure your van is claimed correctly.

If you use simplified mileage, you can claim 55p per business mile for the first 10,000 miles in the year and 25p after that, covering fuel, insurance, servicing and repairs. Tolls and parking on a business journey are claimable on top. Travel from home to a regular workplace does not count, so we keep a proper business mileage record to back the claim.

Yes. If you work 25 hours or more a month from home you can use HMRC's flat-rate home-working allowance, or we can calculate an actual proportion of your household costs if that gives a better result. For most plumbers running the books and quotes from a home office, this is a small but worthwhile claim we set up once and apply every year.

Yes, and it is where accountants for plumbers earn their fee. We plan ahead rather than just filing what already happened: picking the right structure for your level of profit, timing van and equipment purchases to use your Annual Investment Allowance, setting a sensible salary and dividend mix if you run a limited company, and making sure every allowable cost is claimed. You get a forward view of your bill, with time to act on it.

Very. You give us your previous accountant's details and we handle the professional clearance and the handover of your records, so there is nothing awkward for you to do. It takes a short form and a few minutes of your time, there is no gap in your filings, and you can switch at any point in your financial year. Most plumbers are fully moved across within a week or two.

Keep your sales invoices, materials and expense receipts, bank and card statements, mileage records and any CIS deduction statements from contractors. HMRC asks you to hold them for at least five years after the Self Assessment deadline (six years for a limited company). We set you up with simple digital record-keeping so it is captured as you go and ready for Making Tax Digital, rather than boxed up at year end.

Yes. The accounting software for plumbers we set up is included at no extra cost, and we work with all the major platforms, Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, Sage and Pandle, plus receipt-capture tools like Dext, so you can raise an invoice and snap a receipt on your phone at the job. The software subscription is an allowable expense, it is Making Tax Digital compatible, and we handle the setup and show you the few things you need to know.