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Limited Company, annual accounts and accountancy fees


PeterF
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We formed our club into a limited company a few years back so that we could take on a formal lease for our flying field. We have used a local accountant to audit the annual accounts our treasurer creates and then submit the necessary forms in the correct manner to Companies House and HMRC.

The trouble is, that the accountancy bill is now our largest outgoing and is significant in terms of our annual turnover and a significant portion of each members membership fee goes towards this.

I would be interested if there are any other clubs that are limited companies and if they have other means of submitting the information to Companies House / HMRC that avoids having to work through an accountant to reduce costs.

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When our club bought its flying field nearly 40 years ago, two trustees were nominated to hold the title in trust. This allowed us to avoid the limited company route.

However, you do need to keep on top of the situation. A few years ago, after digging out the deeds it was realised that one of the trustees had departed to flying fields above the clouds and the other was no longer a member. He was tracked down and signed a deed of transfer to the four new trustees who were nominated by the committee. We now hold a trustee's meeting each year to confirm that the trustees are still active members of the club, confirm the whereabouts of the deeds (and certified copies), nominate an auditor for the club accounts (this doesn't need to be a professional and can be a suitable ordinary member) and that there are no issues affecting the club. They then report their findings as a standing agenda item at the AGM.

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I would suggest that you change the requirement to an 'audit' to 'an independent examiner's report'. If an auditor is required, the work a suitably qualified auditor needs to do is more than an independent report. That should satisfy Companies House, and should reduce your accountancy fees.

I believe that people misuse the term 'audit', and you should only require an independent examiner's report. But make sure the articles of association (the document creating the company and defines its powers) shows that an audit is not required.

If you'd like to pm me Peter, I'd be happy to clarify. (it's my day job!)

Regards
Ade

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Thanks for the replies, this has started me looking into this in more detail, I am not the treasurer. We do not have an audit in the legal sense for company accounts. The accountant is only submitting micro entity accounts with a simple balance sheet. I have now looked at some of the on line services and yes, they are much cheaper. We were set up with model company articles of association and I do not believe that we need to have an audit, but I will check. I will probably pm those of you who have offered later in the day when I have checked over some things.

As an aside, we chose not to go the Trustee route because our field is sat on top of an old landfill site hence we were concerned about liabilities at a personal level although we have in the lease agreement that these remain with the landlord but the limited company route gives more liability separation.

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