Please find below our bookkeeping support plans and pricing, followed by our general services and pricing. For more detail about each service, please head to the very bottom of the page.
Our bookkeeping support pricing plans
Ongoing support packages for your bookkeeping, from full time bookkeeping to monthly checking.
Pro-active support
£75 per month
Telephone/email/virtual meetings plus month-end checks as required.
With this level of support, you process all the bookkeeping and an experienced member of our team will typically check the following:-
We would advise if anything needs attention and/or correcting. This helps to give you confidence in the results produced by the software.
12-month contract.
Our Services
Our services in detail
Bookkeeping
Tailored to You
Our bookkeeping service can be tailored to suit your business needs. From as little as one hour a month to full time, we can provide a bookkeeper who can adapt as your business grows. We are based in Manchester but our practice has a large coverage and can facilitate many of the surrounding areas too.
Professional Assessments
Before any work is undertaken we carry a full assessment to formulate the most cost effective solution for your business. Our professionals range from junior bookkeepers to Management Accountants which enables us to provide a range of price bands as well as experience. For instance, if your business requires a junior level then we will provide just that. We will only facilitate you with what you require rather than supply you with a service you may not need.
Costings
Our prices vary dependent upon your requirements and range from £38-£85 per hour. In most cases, we are able to provide a fixed monthly price. One of our consultants will be happy to chat with you either on the phone or face to face, to establish how we can help whilst keeping within your budget.
Accounts Software Training
With a huge variety of software packages available it can be difficult to choose the best one for your business. An app that works for your friend might not necessarily be suited to your business needs.
Testing and Trials
We trial and test a variety of accounting systems so that you can use, what we consider, the best in the industry for bookkeeping. This is why we partner with numerous software companies and not just one. Many of the packages are designed with ease of use as a priority. This enables many business owners to easily understand much of a package without necessarily being a Bookkeeper or Accountant. We’re always open to testing new packages so that we can find the right one for you. We take time to get to know our clients, their industry and their processes before we make a no obligation software recommendation. We can then offer free trials and training sessions so that you can understand, thoroughly, the recommended product.
Affordability
Packages can be much cheaper than you would expect a month meaning you can have a quality product at a reasonable price. With cloud systems such as Xero and Quickbooks Online, you can purchase something that is efficient, reliable, and innovative without the hefty price tag.
Choose your favourite
To see a full list of software and apps we specialise in and recommend, please visit our software and apps page here.
Training and Consultancy
We offer 1-2-1 customised training. Our training and consultancy includes good bookkeeping practice, software setup and full training.
We support:-
- Xero accounts and payroll
- Sage 50 accounts and payroll
- Quickbooks Online accounts and payroll
- Many third party apps
For more information about the scope of training we can provide and our specialisms please visit our training page here.
Onsite training – £245 per half day (approximately 3 hours) at your premises. Our first half hour of travel is free and £25 per hour or nearest thereafter. 24 hours’ notice must be given for cancellation/rescheduling of onsite visits, otherwise, a cancellation fee will be charged.
Your initial session will be charged at the time of booking, thereafter terms of 7 days may be given.
Virtual online training or at our offices in Manchester – £45 per half hour or nearest. A little and often is a great way to learn. Virtual meetings, or meetings at our office can be cancelled/rescheduled without charge up to 1 hour before the meeting is due to take place.
We recommend that training be a little and often to prevent information overload, which is why we generally offer 3 hour sessions rather than full days. It gives you chance to absorb what you’ve learnt, go away and practice it, and then come back when you’re ready for the next step.
To book a virtual training or consultancy session follow the link below. You can also use this link for an initial chat to plan and discuss your requirements.
Payroll
Take a look at our pricing table below for our payroll pricing tiers
| Number of staff paid | Cost per pay period |
|---|---|
| Director only, no changes, no autoenrollment (includes 3 Directors) | £25 |
| 1-5 | £47 |
| 6-10 | £57 |
| 11-15 | £67 |
| 16-20 | £77 |
| 21-25 | £87 |
| 26-30 | £97 |
| 31-40 | £107 |
| 41-50 | £117 |
| 51-60 | £127 |
| 61-70 | £137 |
| 71-80 | £147 |
| 81-90 | £157 |
| 91-100 | £167 |
| 101-120 | £187 |
| 121-150 | £257 |
| 151-200 | £357 |
Other discretionary charges may apply from time to time including:-
- Rerun of payroll due to changes made – £30 per return
- Late submission of payroll information to our Payroll Team £40 – we try to mitigate this surcharge by sending reminders when payroll is due.
Payable by direct debit.
Payroll Scheme Set Up
There will be an additional charge for transferring your payroll from one system to another or if you need a new PAYE setting up.
Debt Collection
There is little point in raising an invoice if it remains unpaid. Receiving money into your business, on time, is critical to your business.
We act on your behalf
We communicate with your clients as COS Bookkeeping, working on your behalf. This alone produces results.
Up to date information
We predominantly work with Xero and QuickBooks. We link your data to Satago providing
useful functionality and a central place to store conversations and history. You will have full access to Satago.
Before chasing a debt, we check the bank in your accounts package to ensure customer payments are up to date, and/or log into your Invoice Discounting/ Factoring account if you have one.
Friendly approach
Our Credit Control team are nice people. We won’t bully or harass your clients. They
may owe you money, but they are still your clients. We start by sending statements. If this doesn’t yield results, we send a personal email. The next stage is a friendly phone call.
Results
We find most debtors respond and soon get used to our process. None payments are a result of common issues:-
| Issue | Solution |
|---|---|
| Original invoice not received, or lost | We send a copy |
| Incorrect allocations. Payments have been matched to the wrong invoices resulting in the wrong invoices being chased or the client saying they’ve already paid. | We talk to your client and agree on the correct allocations and make any necessary corrections to your accounting system. |
| Your client has an issue with the service or products delivered. | We pass the query to you and suspend chasing the debt until you tell us otherwise. |
| They do not pay unless chased or they stall | We will be chasing them consistently. |
| Unable to pay | With your approval, we will offer a payment plan. It’s better to receive a little and often than nothing at all. |
| No intention of paying without good reason. Ignore all reminders and phone calls. | We would recommend escalation to our Debt Collection Service with threats of court and bailiffs. (further charges will apply) |
P11D’s
It is essential that P11D’s are submitted to HMRC accurately and in a timely manner to avoid hefty fines from HMRC. We can advise, complete and submit P11D submissions, details of cost are detailed in our table below.
| Amount of employees | Cost |
|---|---|
| 1 | £75 |
| 2 | £105 |
| 3 | £140 |
| 4 | £175 |
| 5 | £205 |
| Per additional employee | £30 |
Accounts software advice
If you’re unsure the best systems to use to streamline your accounts, or have a specific issue and need a software solution, then we can help. At COS we aren’t committed to just one software, we believe in choosing the software that best solves the client’s problem. From receipt capture software to debt collection aids, we have experience with a wide range of systems to support you.
For a full list of the software we recommend and use, and a bit about how they all work, please visit our Software and Apps page here.
Prices exclude VAT
Our terms are 7 days
Related FAQ’s
It’s highly recommended that you keep 7 years’ worth of bookkeeping record (6 years plus the current financial year). A HMRC investigation could happen at any time so it’s always best to keep everything. 7 years is an awful lot of boxes of paperwork so we recommend using a software to store things electronically. Apps like Dext Prepare/Commerce, Apron, Hubdoc, Pleo, Quickbooks, and Xero all store documents. Then there’s Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive for the bits that your accounting apps may not store.
We don’t recommend this. It can be quite overwhelming when learning a new software and our brains can only take in so much new information at a time before we start to switch off. We used to run day courses, so we’ve seen this first hand. We recommend that training be a little and often. This also gives you chance to go away and use the skills you’ve learnt practically, before going on to the next bit of training. To learn more about our training click here.
We offer a wide range of services, many of them tailored to meet our clients needs. Please visit our services and pricing page to find out more details on this.
There are a few key things to check when outsourcing a bookkeeper:
- Are they insured?
- Are they regulated? By law they must have a supervising body. See here for more info on this.
- Do they have a privacy policy?
- Are they registered with the ICO (information commissioner’s office)
Bookkeepers are required by law to be supervised for anti-money laundering by an awarding body. Awarding bodies include (but are not limited to):
- HMRC
- ICB
- IAB
- AAT
If they suspect money laundering is taking place within a firm they are required by law to report it.
When we take on a new client we perform identification checks, anti-money laundering checks, and risk assessments before undertaking any work.
Accountants and bookkeepers perform different functions. In order for an accountant to do their job they need accurate, organised data in the correct format and at the right time. This is where a bookkeeper comes in. Bookkeepers’ are expert in managing day-to-day finances. To find out the difference between a bookkeeper and accountant read our blog or watch our video here.
Bookkeeping takes time, patience, training, and experience to get it right. It’s also important to have someone to check your work as we’re only human and can make mistakes. We provide training in all elements of bookkeeping so we can train you up, to a point. There are certain advanced elements that will take experience and time to learn. We have support options which give you access to an experienced bookkeeper to run questions by, check your work, and do the more advanced work. You can find out about our training and support options here.
Bookkeeping brings together all of your financials in an organised manner which helps a business for an array of reasons.
These include but are not limited to:
- Having accurate records to submit to your accountant and HMRC
- Make accurate financial projections for company growth
- Debt management
This isn’t a straightforward question, different software packages have different capabilities. This is why we don’t use just one software provider, it would be doing our clients and bookkeepers an injustice. We assess the individual requirements of each client before making recommendations. If you would like a software review please book a meeting with us here. You can also check out our post here on what to look out for when choosing a software package.
Often people have the misconception that bookkeepers and accountants are the same role when in fact they are two different job roles. Yes, they can cross over but it’s important to know they are generally expected to do different things. We have a blog all about the differences here and a TikTok video on it here.
There are misconceptions about what a bookkeeper does. We’ve created a short TikTok video you can view here that will clear this up.
