You do not need an accountant to prepare your accounts, ever, unless you want to.
While you qualify as a small company, you do not need to have your accounts audited by an accountant.

http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/about/gbhtml/gba3.shtml defines a small company.

You will have to submit accounts to Companies House (see the above link for details of dates), and if you aren't going to do them yourself, it might be advisable to contact a few accountants asap.

You should also be able to get tax advice from them, and they should prepare your Corporation Tax return (even if you are not in profit, you need to fill in the return. Once again, you can do this yourself, if you feel competent).

They will also give you personal and Corporation tax advice. In my experience, this is of varying quality, and if your tax affairs are complicated, I would ask about their experience in the areas you are concerned about.

If you need assistance with running a payroll, we at Salix Payroll Services can help you. See http://www.salixpayrollservices.co.uk for more information.

Ahh, thanks for all that advice. I feel better now.

I would suggest you appoint someone upfront. It certainly doesn’t cost any more, and you will avoid making a mess of running the company. Whether or not you need a statutory audit is not really the issue to my mind. As with any supplier check for relevant experience and qualifications. Anyone can set up as an accountant, check they are either "chartered" or "certified" and so have been properly trained and are accountable to their professional bodies.

As I have mentioned a number of times on this board, I frequently have people come to me at the last minute when they realise they don’t have the skills to complete their own stat accounts, and then it is a damage limitation exercise in terms of digging them out of whatever hole they have gotten themselves in during the year, rather than a planning exercise of what to do/not to do. This inevitably costs far more in fees for the client to sort out a mess than to do something right the first time, and almost always carries a higher tax cost as it is very hard to undo things once a transaction has occurred.

Trying to pick up piecemeal comments from the internet as is the equivalent of taking a pile of spare parts for a car and expecting to drive away, without knowing what parts are even required and what are surplus to requirements, let alone how they all fit together. On my desk this week is a reader of this board who has a £6k higher tax bill for the sake of 5 minutes advice not taken last year (that I wouldn’t even have charged for), and is understandably kicking themselves quite hard.

Regards,

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James Smith
Chartered Accountant
www.jamesesmith.co.uk

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Your indispensable guide to Small Business Bookkeeping, Self-Assessment & VAT