How Mini Accounts works

1. STEP 01

   Import the bank statement

   Drop in the client’s PDF or CSV statement. Dates, narration and amounts arrive separated on a posting screen, and where a PDF statement prints a running balance, every row is proved against it: a row that does not agree is marked in red, so a misread figure is caught rather than posted.

2. STEP 02

   Code it once

   Choose the ledger head for each line, with the VAT rate and the reverse charge on the line where the decision is made. A head is suggested from the words in the narration and in the client’s remarks; a suggestion is never posted without you. Not sure of a line? Email the coded statement to the client for remarks, and read their file back in.

3. STEP 03

   Take out the accounts

   The trial balance, then the profit and loss account and balance sheet in the format Companies House expects for a company, or as sole trader or partnership accounts, with the notes. Depreciation runs from the asset register on the basis FRS 102 asks for, and a run is refused until the register agrees with the opening ledger. PDF, and Excel with the formulas intact.

4. STEP 04

   VAT and tax from the same figures

   The nine-box VAT return with the transactions behind each box; capital allowances with the annual investment allowance and the pools beside the book depreciation; P&L for tax purposes; and the corporation tax or self assessment computation, with its payment dates.

5. STEP 05

   Run the payroll

   Employees on the client’s record, a pay run each period with PAYE, National Insurance, loans, pensions and statutory pay worked out, payslips as one PDF, and the P32 kept by tax month. Approving a run posts one journal into the client’s books. The FPS figures go into HMRC’s Basic PAYE Tools or your RTI software, which files them; Mini Accounts does not submit to HMRC. Payroll and CIS are on the plan that includes them.

6. STEP 06

   Run the practice around it

   A client register that works out each client’s statutory dates and shows the rule behind every one. Job stages from Chasing records to Filed, fees, staff, AML dates and dated notes on the client record. Engagement letters, accounts for approval and deadline reminders drafted from the record and the books, with the attachments rebuilt, and opened in your own mail program for you to send.

A practice runs in Chrome, Edge, Brave or Vivaldi on a computer, because each client’s books are kept in a folder on that computer. It prepares; you file, through HMRC’s services and Companies House.

1. STEP 01

   Set up once

   Register as a business on your phone or a computer. Enter the business’s name, its accounting year and whether it is VAT-registered, and add your bank accounts. On a computer, keep the books in a folder you choose — and, with cloud storage turned on, in your account as well. On a phone the books are kept in your account, encrypted on the phone before they leave, so a lost phone loses nothing: signing in brings them back.

2. STEP 02

   Spend, receive and buy

   Open Expense or Receipt, choose what the money was for, and type the amount and the date: rent, wages, fuel, electricity, a payment to a supplier, a receipt from a customer, money you put in or took out, a loan. A supplier’s bill is entered with its lines and its VAT, or read from the supplier’s PDF invoice, and the input tax reaches the VAT return; a subcontractor’s bill for building work under CIS is reverse-charged as it is entered, where the construction reverse charge applies.

3. STEP 03

   Invoice your customers

   Raise an invoice from the Sales menu, on the phone or at the desk, and send the PDF. A VAT-registered business raises a VAT invoice, with the VAT registration number, the time of supply and each line’s net, VAT rate and VAT on it, and a credit note against an invoice it corrects; a business that is not registered raises a plain invoice. The entry is posted as the invoice is issued, and the output tax reaches the VAT return.

4. STEP 04

   Bring in the bank statement

   Once a week or once a month, 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 plain-words list — a receipt from a customer, a payment to a supplier, cash withdrawn, bank charges, wages paid — and the entries are posted. A statement saved as Excel needs saving as CSV first.

5. STEP 05

   See where you stand

   The dashboard shows cash in hand, the bank balance, what customers owe you and what you owe, how old each customer’s debt is, and your next deadline. The trial balance, P&L account, balance sheet, cash book and bank reconciliation are there whenever you look, with the nine-box VAT figures from the same books — and your payroll, if you run one, posted into them.

6. STEP 06

   Hand over to your accountant

   With a password set on your books, give your accountant access and they open the same books from their own client register (where they meet, above). On any plan, Mini Accounts drafts the email for you: the coded bank statement for your accountant to check, or the accounts and the tax computation, with the files attached, for you to send.

A business works in the phone’s browser or on a computer. Giving your accountant access needs a password set on your books.