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Certified bookkeeper | Keeping your books balanced | VAT | Making Tax Digital

03/11/2026

Back in September, the tax return was a January job, something future you would deal with.

Then November turns up, everyone knows it’s due by 31 January and what starts nagging people is when on earth they’ll find a spare afternoon to actually sit down and do it.

I tend to hear from people about their Self Assessment at three points in the year.

The first lot get in touch in April or May, once the tax year has ended, or even earlier if they already know they won’t have time to do it themselves.

The second lot get in touch around now. Those messages are usually pretty calm because they know there’s still a bit of time. Something like “I need to get my tax return done, can we sort it before Christmas?” We make a plan, work through it, and by the new year it’s all done.

The third lot get in touch in the middle of January. Slight panic to their messages, knowing it is last minute but wanting to get it over the line in time.

They’re no less capable than anyone else. Often it’s the same kind of business with the same kind of paperwork, they just started a bit later.

If your books are behind, finding that out in November is a good thing. You’ve still got time to do something about it without it taking over your Christmas.

So which lot are you going in this year?

If it’s the November lot, book a call. I’m ready to get stuck in before the rush. And if you fancy being an April person next year, I’m happy to talk about that too.

30/10/2026

The second Making Tax Digital quarterly deadline is next Saturday, the 7th November.

That covers 6th July to 5th October quarter.

If you're a sole trader or landlord in scope for Making Tax Digital, your income and expenses for that quarter need to be submitted to HMRC through your compatible software by then.

If Q1 felt unfamiliar, Q2 should start to feel more routine.

The key is keeping your records updated as you go rather than trying to catch up at the end of the quarter.

Are you finding the quarterly rhythm manageable so far or is it still feeling like a lot?

Pic by the wonderful Sylvestris Studios

29/10/2026

You would be surprised how many invoices are missing the basics. A missing detail is often the reason one sits unpaid longer than it should, and could become a headache if ever an investigation took place.

A proper invoice needs a few things every time:

* The word invoice on it
* A unique number to differentiate it from other invoices issued
* Your business name and address
* Your customer's name and address
* A clear description of what you are charging for
* The date and the amount due with a payment date

If you are VAT-registered there is more to add, like your VAT number and the VAT breakdown.

It needs to be there consistently, because a clear invoice gets paid faster and keeps you on the right side of the rules.

When did you last review your invoice template? It might be worth a thirty-second glance before you send the next one.

27/10/2026

Can I tell you what happens on most first calls?

Someone apologises. Usually before we’ve even looked at a single number.

“I’m so sorry, it’s a bit of a state.” “Please don’t judge me.”

They anxiously laugh, like I’m about to gasp at the carrier bag of receipts or the eight months of bank lines nobody’s reconciled.

I never do. Honestly, that’s my favourite part. Working out what’s happened, untangling it, getting everything lined up and balancing again. I know it sounds odd, but I love it.

Running a business is hard! I know it is for me, doing all the things that are not in my skill set on top of doing the work and looking after customers. I get how hard it is wearing every hat. I understand why many end up with the bookkeeping sliding down the to do list.

This is what running a business looks like for a lot, if not the majority, of people.

So if there’s a pile you’ve been meaning to get to, no apology needed. It’s very fixable and you don’t have to be the one who fixes it. I am always open to having a chat.

Out of interest, what’s the admin job that always ends up at the bottom of your list?

22/10/2026

A misconception I hear from sole traders is treating the money you pay yourself as a business expense. It is not the same as pay from a limited business.

When you are a sole trader, you and the business are the same person in the eyes of HMRC. So money you take out for yourself, your drawings, is not a cost of running the business. It does not reduce your profit and it does not reduce your tax. It is simply you moving your own money around.

Recording it as an expense throws your figures off and makes your profit look smaller than it really is, which tends to unravel at exactly the wrong moment. Drawings belong in their own place in your books, kept away from your actual business costs.

Have you ever wondered where your own wages are supposed to sit?

20/10/2026

Ever have those days when your brain just won't brain.

I open the laptop, stare at my emails, open a web browser, start typing something, then click over to check whether my delivery's on its way instead. Pick up my phone and start doom scrolling.

When that happens, I don't force it because I've learnt it never works.

I find it is best to leave my office. Sometimes I grab the lead and head out with Willow, it doesn't have to be a power walk, just a wander round "squirrel alley" and back. By the time I get home, I'm clearer (if she behaves). Other times it's a Pilates class, if I can make it in time, half an hour on the exercise bike but most likely, a power nap or a Netflix episode. Currently working my way through The Parisian Agency.

I've stopped trying to push through it now. We don't talk enough about recovery time in business and working to our energy. It's so important to give yourself the time between doing and when the brain actually starts connecting the dots again.

If you need a walk, cup of tea, bit of background music or even a pause, then take it. I have found that's where the motivation comes back.

What do you do when your brain just won’t?

15/10/2026

This one is for the limited company directors. If you pay yourself in dividends, here is a detail that catches people out.

A dividend can only be paid out of profit left over after corp tax is calculated. Not turnover, not the balance sitting in the bank, not profit pre-tax but actual profit after your company has met its costs and its tax. If there is no profit, there is no dividend to take, however healthy the bank balance looks on the day.

Each dividend needs a paper trail. A dividend voucher and a record of the decision to pay it.

Also, if there is more than 1 director and they both have a 50/50 split of the business, they both have to take the same amount of dividends. That figure combined still needs to be paid out of the company profit after costs and tax.

Directors, are your dividends proportionate to your profit and properly documented or is it something that happens and gets tidied up later?

13/10/2026

Messy books cost you in ways that stay hidden until they really hurt.

Last week I posted about duplicated bills, but it isn’t just that. It could be tax figures built on numbers that aren't right, decisions made on numbers that aren’t true or hours lost at year-end untangling what could have been caught in an afternoon months earlier. All of it adds up to the stress of never quite trusting your own accounts.

Clean books do the opposite. You know what you owe and what's actually yours. No surprise shocks or questions from your accountant resulting in digging around for an hour to reply. You decide on real numbers instead of a hopeful guess and year-end becomes a formality rather than another dreaded thing.

Read more about this in my blog, link below.

Where does mess creep into your books? That's usually where the cost is hiding too.

https://lionheartva.co.uk/what-messy-books-really-cost-you-and-what-clean-ones-save/

08/10/2026

Here is a bookkeeping choice many sole traders don’t know they have.

When you fill in your tax return, if your self-employment income is over £1,000, you can usually choose to claim your actual business expenses or deduct a flat £1,000 instead. This is called the trading allowance and the best option depends entirely on your own figures.

It is often most useful for people with low costs: consultants, coaches, VAs, designers, anyone whose biggest outgoing is their own time rather than stock, equipment or materials. Often, exactly the people who assume they have nothing worth claiming.

Two things to note: the trading allowance cannot be used in certain situations, such as against income from a company you are connected to and it cannot be used to create or increase a loss.

I am not going to tell you which option applies to you, because that depends on your figures and your circumstances. But it is a five-minute question worth asking your accountant or bookkeeper, like me.

Do you know whether your expenses came in over or under £1,000 last year? It is usually a good starting point for working out which method may best for you.

06/10/2026

The devil really is in the detail.

A new client came to us with duplicated bills sitting in their Xero. Nothing malicious or intentional, just bills that had been entered twice, approved and left waiting to be paid. Then they were spotted to be duplicates and the pre-VAT-return panic kicked in so they contacted us.

It might seem like hassle to go back through the bills tab, especially if you have an auto-forward on out of your inbox for invoices and receipts, like the client did.

But those duplicates weren't harmless clutter, they overstated what the business owed and fed straight into the VAT figures, so the numbers being reported weren't the real ones. For a VAT-registered business, that is not something you can shrug off.

Before we could even look at any returns, I went through and untangled every one. I sorted the genuine bills from the duplicates and got the VAT position back to what it should have been all in time for the return.

It's slow, unglamorous work. But this is exactly what goes unnoticed for weeks when nobody's keeping an eye on it and then becomes a nasty surprise right when you're trying to close the year or submit the VAT return.

If you’re just keeping it ticking over and nobody's had a proper look at your books in a while, it's worth asking what might be hiding in them. When did you last check?

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