Most directors do not leave over one dramatic failure. They leave after two or three years of quietly getting less than they paid for.

The year end arrives and so does the bill

If the first time you hear a corporation tax figure is when the accounts are signed, you have had no chance to do anything about it. The planning window closes at the year end. Everything after that is reporting, not advice.

Nobody has ever questioned your VAT scheme

Plenty of consultants sit on the standard scheme because that is what the registration form defaulted to. One of our clients, a procurement consultant, had almost nothing in box 4 because his costs were overseas software and reverse charge services. Moving him to the flat rate scheme brought his VAT bill down every quarter with no change to his turnover. Nobody had looked in years.

You explain your business to a new person each year

Larger practices rotate work between account managers. Each rotation costs you a conversation you have already had. I spent years as an account manager at a firm where clients kept asking to be moved back to me after a reassignment. That pattern is the reason Nexus takes three new clients a month.

Emails go unanswered for a week

A director making a hiring or pricing decision needs an answer that week, not at the next year end. If your questions routinely sit unanswered, the relationship has already failed, whatever the accounts look like when they arrive.

Fees rise and the service does not

An increase is fair when scope grows. It is worth asking what you got this year that you did not get last year. If the honest answer is nothing, that is data.

Do this part before you contact anyone. It takes an hour and it prevents almost every unpleasant surprise later.

Your engagement letter

Find it and read the termination clause. Look for the notice period, whether fees are payable to the end of a period, and what happens to work in progress. Some firms charge for work started but not finished. Knowing that in advance turns a shock into a line item.

Who owns the bookkeeping file

If your books sit in a subscription paid for by the accountant, the subscription may not be yours to move. Check whose name is on the billing. If it is theirs, plan either to take over the subscription or to export everything before access ends.

Your filing dates

Write down four dates: accounts due at Companies House, corporation tax payment date, confirmation statement date, and your next VAT return period end. Add your payroll run date. The handover plan is built around those.

What is genuinely outstanding

Ask yourself honestly whether anything is late or unreconciled. A director who moves firms in the hope that the new accountant will not notice an unreconciled director’s loan account is buying a worse conversation later. Say it up front. It is a normal problem with a normal fix.

What you want that you are not getting

Be specific. Is it a corporation tax number before the year end? A VAT scheme decision made on your actual costs? Someone who replies? Write it down, because that list is what you use to interview the next firm.

The outgoing firm passes most of this across once the formalities are done. Keeping your own copy matters, because you remain responsible for the company’s records whoever holds them.

Accounts and tax

• Statutory accounts for the last three years, as filed
• Corporation tax computations and submitted CT600s
• Trial balance and nominal ledger at the last year end
• Fixed asset register, with capital allowances claimed to date
• Any capital allowance pools carried forward

VAT

• Submitted VAT returns and the workings behind them
• Which scheme you are on, and the date you joined it
• Any partial exemption or reverse charge treatment being applied

Payroll and pensions

• Year to date figures for every employee in the current tax year
• P11Ds and P60s already issued
• Pension scheme details and the assessment dates

Company records

• Share register and any share allotments
• Dividend vouchers and board minutes for dividends declared
• Director’s loan account position at the last year end and now

HMRC correspondence

Anything open. Enquiries, penalty notices, time to pay arrangements, coding notices. These are the items that go missing in a handover and reappear as a problem eighteen months later.

HMRC’s guidance on how long a company must keep its records is on gov.uk. Tax records generally need keeping for six years from the end of the accounting period.

Most accountants will tell you they are proactive. The word costs nothing to say. These questions cost something to answer.

What will you review in my first month?

A firm that only asks for last year’s accounts is planning to file, not to advise. At Nexus, every new client gets a set-up review: structure, VAT scheme, salary and dividends, and the software and bookkeeping routine. You get told why each is right or what should change, including when the honest answer is that nothing needs changing.

When will I know my corporation tax figure?

The useful answer is a point before the year end, when you can still act on it. Ours is a forecast of corporation tax and dividend headroom a month ahead of the bill, so the money is there and the decision about what to do is yours.

Who actually does my work, and who replies to my email?

Ask for a name. Then ask what happens if that person leaves or the firm reallocates the portfolio. If the answer is vague, assume rotation.

Is advice included or billed separately?

This is the question that catches people out. A fee that covers filing only means every useful conversation starts with a meter running, so you stop asking. At Nexus advice is in the monthly fee on a fair use basis, because an owner who hesitates before picking up the phone ends up making decisions without numbers.

What do you need from me, and when?

A firm that cannot answer this has not thought about your year. A firm that can will give you a timetable in the first fortnight.

The move itself has a shape. Knowing it stops you worrying about the quiet weeks.

Formalities first

The incoming firm writes to the outgoing firm to confirm there is no professional reason not to act, and to request the records. This runs in parallel with everything else, so it does not need to hold you up. Meanwhile you sign the new engagement letter and complete identity checks.

HMRC authorisations

Your new accountant needs agent authorisation for each tax: corporation tax, VAT, PAYE, and self assessment for the director. These are separate authorisations, not one. Codes arrive by post for some of them, so start this early. Removing the old agent is also worth doing rather than leaving two firms with access.

Software and bank feeds

Transfer ownership of the accounting subscription, or set up a fresh one and migrate the data. Bank feeds usually need reauthorising by you, since they are tied to your banking login. Expect to spend twenty minutes on this yourself.

Timing around live obligations

If a VAT return is about to be filed, agree in writing who is filing it. Same with the next payroll run. The common failure is not a refusal to help, it is both firms assuming the other has it.

Then the real work

Once access is in place, the first job is checking what you have actually got: whether the books reconcile, whether the VAT scheme fits your cost profile, and where the corporation tax number is heading. That is where a switch starts earning its keep.