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ACCA accountants for creative freelancers & agencies. 📍 London

17/08/2026

Trading loss relief in your first year of self-employment — how to carry the loss back against tax you already paid.

Go freelance and year one often runs at a loss. Kit, software, insurance, and a client list you are still building.

Most people assume that loss just sits there until they make a profit. It doesn't have to.

Relief for losses in the early years of trade lets you take a loss from any of your first four tax years of trading and set it against your total income for the three tax years before it. The earliest of those three years is relieved first.

Total income includes employment income. So if you left a salaried job, the PAYE already deducted is in scope, and that means a repayment rather than just a deduction.

A £9,000 loss relieved against income taxed at 40% is £3,600 of income tax back. Income tax only: carrying a loss back against PAYE earnings does not touch Class 4 National Insurance.

Two things to know. The trade has to be run on a commercial basis with a reasonable expectation of profit. And this is for sole traders and partners, so a limited company cannot use it. The year you incorporate matters more than most people realise.

Send this to whoever went freelance this year.

15/08/2026

New self assessment rules for close company directors in 2025/26, and what the four new boxes actually ask.

From the 2025/26 tax return, if you are a director of a close company (which covers most small UK limited companies), the SA102 employment pages carry four extra boxes: the company's name, its Companies House number, the dividends you received from it, and your highest shareholding during the year.

Two things catch people out.

Box 7.4 asks for the highest percentage you held at any point in the year, not the figure on 5 April. If shares moved mid-year, that is a different number.

And it applies even if you took no dividends, or hold no shares at all. You enter zero rather than skipping the box.

This is a disclosure change, not a new tax. There is nothing extra to pay, but HMRC can charge a £60 penalty for filing without the information.

First affected return is 2025/26, with an online deadline of 31 January 2027.

Send this to the co-director who assumes the accountant handles all of it.

14/08/2026

When to buy equipment before your company year end to get the tax relief this year.

A £24,000 kit order placed one day after your accounting period ends still gets full relief. Just twelve months later.

The Annual Investment Allowance gives 100% relief on plant and machinery, up to £1m an accounting period, but only in the period the cost is incurred.

And incurred is not paid. Under CAA 2001 s.5 you incur the cost the moment you are contractually committed, even if you settle the invoice later. The exception: if payment is not required until more than four months after that commitment, the relief moves to the later date.

So the date on the purchase order matters more than the date on the bank statement.

Send this to whoever signs off your kit budget.

13/08/2026

How to charge interest on a late invoice in the UK, and the fixed sum most freelancers never claim.

Your client is 60 days late on a £6,000 invoice. You don't just get the £6,000 back.

The Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives you three things automatically on any business-to-business contract. Nothing needs to be written into your terms.

1. Statutory interest at 11.75% a year. That is the Bank of England base rate of 3.75% plus 8%.
2. A fixed sum per invoice: £40 if the debt is under £1,000, £70 from £1,000 to £9,999.99, and £100 at £10,000 or more.
3. If chasing the debt cost you more than that fixed sum, you can claim the difference.

On that £6,000 invoice at 60 days late, the interest is £115.89. Add the £70 fixed sum and you were always owed £185.89 on top.

Two things worth knowing. If you never agreed payment terms, the default is 30 days. And both the interest and the fixed sum count as taxable income for your business.

Send this to the freelancer still writing polite chaser emails.

10/08/2026

Statutory Maternity Pay for limited company directors, and why dividends don't count towards it.

SMP is worked out from your PAYE salary alone. Dividends are invisible to the calculation, however large they are.

Draw less than £129 a week in salary and your company owes you no maternity pay at all. Clear that line and you get 39 weeks: the first six at 90% of your salary, then £194.32 a week.

And the company isn't out of pocket for it. A small employer, meaning Class 1 National Insurance under £45,000, reclaims 109% of every pound of SMP it pays out.

The part that catches people: payroll has to have been running for 26 weeks by the 15th week before the due date. It can't be fixed late.

Link in bio.

09/08/2026

Tax-free benefits a UK limited company can pay for without a P11D charge.

Five things where there's no benefit-in-kind, no P11D entry and no Class 1A National Insurance — and the company still gets the corporation tax deduction.

One mobile phone, as long as the contract is in the company's name. Reimbursing your own personal contract doesn't qualify.

An eye test, and glasses where you need a prescription specifically for screen work. Everyday specs don't count.

One health screening and one medical check-up a year, offered to all staff on the same terms.

£500 a year of pension advice, arranged or reimbursed by the company.

An annual party, up to £150 a head across the whole tax year.

The catch on all five: these are limits, not allowances. Go a pound over — £151 a head at the party — and the whole cost becomes taxable, not just the excess. And the £150 is per attendee, so a plus-one counts toward it.

Save this and check it before the company pays for anything.

Link in bio.

03/08/2026

When corporation tax is actually due for a UK limited company: nine months and one day after your year end.

An agency with £180,000 of taxable profit in the year to 31 March 2027 owes £43,950. That is £45,000 at the 25% main rate, less £1,050 of marginal relief.

The rate is not the problem. Profit counts every invoice you raised. The bank only counts the ones that were paid. A record year on paper can still leave you short on the day the bill is due.

Between £50,000 and £250,000 of profit, every extra pound costs 26.5p in corporation tax. And if you control another company, both of those thresholds get divided between them.

The fix is boring and it works. Move 25% of each month's profit into a separate account, the month you earn it.

Our free 12-month cash flow forecaster has VAT and corporation tax timing built in. Link in bio.

31/07/2026

Put one other person on the payroll doing real work above £5,000 a year and the £10,500 comes back. That is the whole test — HMRC needs a second person paid above the secondary threshold, not a director-only payroll.

Employment Allowance rules for UK limited company directors, explained.

Save this before your next payroll run.

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