For sole traders, partnerships and small companies in the United Kingdom
The complete accounting package for small businesses and contractors
Mini Accounts is the books of one business, kept by the person who runs it. Invoices, cash, bills and the bank statement are entered as they happen, in everyday words, and the accounts your accountant needs build up underneath — with the VAT figures, and your payroll if you run one, in the same books.
✓ The first month is free, and there is nothing to cancel.
Want to see it on your own figures first?
What you get
What your business gets
Each card is a screen in the app’s menu, under the name you will find it by.
Expense or Receipt: cash, in plain words
Choose what the money was for from a list in everyday words — rent, wages, fuel, electricity, repairs, a payment to a supplier, a receipt from a customer, money you put in or took out, a loan — then type the amount and the date. Mini Accounts makes the entry an accountant would have made, and creates the account if your books do not have it yet. A business not registered for VAT enters its cash sales here as well. A VAT-registered business is offered the VAT rate on the line, and puts its cash sales on a VAT invoice or rings them up at Counter Sales, the till in the same menu, which posts each day’s takings with a record behind them. It takes cash and card; card takings go into the bank account you name, or are held until the bank statement shows the settlement, and the statement’s line is then matched to the day rather than entered twice.
VAT invoices and credit notes
Raise a VAT invoice to a customer from the Sales menu, on the phone or at the desk, and send it as a PDF. It carries what HMRC asks a VAT invoice to show: your VAT registration number, the date and the time of supply, the customer, each line’s net amount and VAT rate at 20%, 5%, zero or exempt, and the net and the VAT at each rate. A credit note is raised against the invoice it corrects. The entry is posted as the invoice is issued, so the output tax reaches the nine-box VAT return from your own invoices, with the transactions behind the box. Building work under CIS for a VAT-registered contractor is invoiced under the construction reverse charge: the invoice carries the contractor’s VAT number and says “Reverse charge: customer to pay the VAT to HMRC. VAT Act 1994 section 55A applies.”, the VAT is shown and not charged, and the net goes in box 6 with nothing in box 1. The CIS the contractor will deduct is shown under the total, and when the contractor pays the balance, the deduction is booked to CIS Deductions Suffered. A business not registered for VAT raises plain invoices, with no VAT on them, from the same screen. Invoicing is in the price.
Supplier Bills
Enter a supplier’s bill with its lines and its VAT, or upload the supplier’s PDF invoice and the figures come off the page, checked against its own arithmetic. A bill for goods, a bill for services, and a supplier’s credit or debit note against a bill already posted. The input tax reaches the VAT return from the entry each one posts. A VAT-registered business buying building work from a CIS subcontractor has the construction reverse charge worked out on the bill as it is entered: the subcontractor is paid no VAT, the bill puts the VAT in box 1 and, where it may be reclaimed, in box 4, with the net in box 7 and nothing in box 6, and the CIS deduction is worked on the net. The bill says why, and the answer is switched off only with a reason; a business that is the end user, and has told its subcontractors so in writing, records the notice and its bills follow it. VAT a subcontractor charged in error is posted as money they owe you back. The reverse charge is VAT law, not an extra, and is on both plans.
Process Bank Statement: coded in the same words
Load the statement as a PDF or CSV. Where a PDF statement prints a running balance, every row is checked against it. Choose what each line was from the same everyday list — a receipt from a customer, a payment to a supplier, cash withdrawn, bank charges, wages paid, PAYE paid to HMRC — and the entries are posted. A statement saved as Excel needs saving as CSV first.
Customers & Suppliers
Keep your customers and suppliers in one list. A receipt goes to that customer’s own account, and a payment to that supplier’s, so what each one owes is their own figure. The lists of who owes you and whom you owe export as CSV.
Projects: what each job made
A project is a job, a site or a contract, with its code, its customer and the site’s address. Name it on a supplier’s bill or note, a sale invoice or note, a journal line, an Expense or Receipt entry or a bank line, and the Project Report shows what it earned, what it cost by head, its gross profit and its CIS and reverse-charge figures, for the dates you choose, on screen, as CSV or printed. A project can hold its costs in work in progress, under stocks on the balance sheet, until a release moves them to cost of sales — at the period end or on completion — keeping back what you enter as the cost of the work still to come. Payroll runs and Counter Sales are not split by project, retentions and applications for payment are not kept, and contract assets and liabilities stay your accountant’s year-end entry. Projects are on the plan with payroll and CIS; on the other plan, whatever is already named to a project can still be read, reported and finished.
Payroll, if you have staff
Employees with their job titles, pay runs monthly, weekly, fortnightly or four-weekly — each employee on their own, so a weekly payroll and a monthly one run side by side — PAYE and National Insurance, student loans, pension contributions and statutory pay, with payslips, the P32 and the year-end forms. The run posts into your books as one entry. The figures for RTI go into HMRC’s Basic PAYE Tools or your accountant’s software; Mini Accounts does not submit to HMRC. The figures shown are an illustration.
Made for the phone
A journal entry typed on the phone as easily as at the desk, a search box that finds any screen by its name, and — where your phone’s browser offers it — an Install the app button on the dashboard that puts Mini Accounts on your home screen.
Your accountant, on the same books
Your accountant works on your books without anything being typed again. With a password set on your books, press Give access on the Data screen: your business appears in their client register, and they open the same live books, one of you working at a time. On any plan, the coded bank statement and the year-end accounts go to them in emails drafted for you, and Deadlines keeps every statutory date the business is carrying in view.
Dashboard and reports
Where you stand, whenever you look
The dashboard
Cash in hand, bank balance, receivables and payables first, each one a door to the list behind it; then how old each customer’s debt is, and your next deadline.
The reports
- Trial Balance
- P&L Account
- Balance Sheet
- Cash Book
- Cash Flow Statement
- Bank Reconciliation
- Notes to the Accounts
- Accounts Receivable
- Accounts Payable
- Stock (FIFO)
VAT and tax
The nine-box VAT return, filled from your invoices, bills and bank statement, with the transactions behind each box; P&L for tax purposes; capital allowances; and the corporation tax or self assessment computation, for you or your accountant to check and file.
Deadlines
Every statutory date the business is carrying — accounts, confirmation statement, corporation tax or self assessment, VAT, PAYE — worked out from its own details, with the rule beside each one.
You and your accountant
Your accountant, on the same books
With a password set on your books
Share the live books
Type your accountant’s sign-in email on the Data screen and press Give access. Your business appears in their client register; they open the same books and finish the year. While they work you can look, and your cash entries stay yours; when they release the books, or you take them back, you carry on where you left off.
On any plan
Send what they need
Email to accountant for review drafts an email with the coded bank statement attached for your accountant to check, and their file reads back in with every change shown first. At the year end, the accounts and the tax computation go in an email drafted with the files attached, for you to send.
Your accountant does not use Mini Accounts yet? A practice’s first month is free too — show them what a practice gets.
Your books
Your books
Where they are kept
On a computer, in a folder you choose — and, with cloud storage turned on, in your account as well, so a phone and a computer open the same books and a lost phone or a cleared browser loses nothing. On a phone they are kept in your account, encrypted on the phone before they leave.
Encrypted under your password
Set a password and your books are encrypted under it on your own device. Your sign-in password itself never reaches us.
What the cloud copy is
Cloud storage sends nothing until a password is set, and we hold no key that opens what it sends. We hold the ciphertext; we never hold the key.
Yours to take away
While your plan is active, download a full copy of your books from the Data screen whenever you like.
It prepares; you file
Mini Accounts is not connected with HMRC or Companies House, and is not recognised by HMRC for Making Tax Digital or RTI. It gives you the figures and the files; you or your accountant file them.
Questions
What a business asks first
Do I need to know accounting?
No. Expense or Receipt, the bank statement and the supplier bill all work from a list of everyday words, and the entry is made for you. The journal entry is there for your accountant, or for you when you want it.
Does it file my VAT return?
No. It prepares the nine-box figures from your books, with the transactions behind each box; you or your accountant file them through HMRC’s services. Mini Accounts is not recognised by HMRC for Making Tax Digital.
Can I raise VAT invoices in it?
Yes. A VAT-registered business raises VAT invoices and credit notes, and a business that is not registered raises plain invoices, from the same screen; the entry is posted as the invoice is issued and the output tax reaches the nine-box return. There is no charge for it beyond the plan. It is not connected with HMRC: the return is prepared from your invoices, not filed.
Can I run my payroll in it?
Yes. Employees, pay runs, payslips, the P32 and the year-end forms, posted into your books. It does not send the FPS or EPS to HMRC: the figures are given for HMRC’s Basic PAYE Tools or your accountant’s RTI software. What the payroll does, and does not do.
Does it work on my phone?
Yes. A business can register and work in the phone’s own browser. With cloud storage turned on, the phone and a computer open the same books.
What happens after the free month?
Nothing is charged automatically, and no card is ever taken. When the month ends, the app stops opening your books until you choose a plan, and your books are kept. There are two: one with payroll, CIS and projects and one without. To carry on, sign in on this website and choose a plan; payment is arranged by email. If you pay and change your mind, ask within 14 days of the payment for a full refund (Refund and Cancellation Policy).
Can my accountant work on the books with me?
Yes, with a password set on your books — see Your accountant, on the same books above. On any plan you can send them the coded statement and the accounts from inside the app.