This document contains the terms of service, that are to be agreed upon between Debitam
(hereinafter referred as We/Us/Accountant) and the Customer (hereinafter referred as You/Client).
We strive to offer the best-in-class services to our customers. To ensure the same, we stick to strict
service
standards and time scales. This also requires both parties to adhere to certain agreed terms. This document
lays
down the whole policy framework to standardise the provision of our services, to avoid any confusion. By
accepting
the quote, you agree to these terms before availing of our services at a quoted price.
Please note that the terms of all services are mentioned here but only the ones you have availed and
invoiced, will
be relevant for you.
Age restriction:
You must be at least 18 (eighteen) years of age before you sign-up for our services. We accept no
responsibility for
liabilities/refunds related to any age misrepresentation.
Electronic Communication
We at Debitam communicate with you via email or by other electronic means. We will
accept your
written response by electronic means as legally binding (such as the approval of a tax return for submission
to HM
Revenue & Customs).
With electronic communication, there is a risk of non-receipt, delayed receipt, inadvertent misdirection,
data
corruption, unauthorised amendment, tampering, and interception by third parties. It is the responsibility
of the
recipient to carry out a virus check on any attachments received. We use virus-scanning software to reduce
the risk
of viruses and similar damaging items being transmitted through emails or electronic storage devices.
However,
electronic communication is not totally secure and we cannot be held responsible for damage or loss caused
by
viruses nor for communications that are corrupted, tampered with, or altered after despatch. Nor can we
accept any
liability for problems or accidental errors relating to this means of communication especially in relation
to
commercially sensitive material relating to you.
If you intend to reply to the information contained in an email, you should verify the contents of the email
with the
author. These are risks you must bear in return for greater efficiency and lower costs. To counter the
threats posed
by emails as a mode of sharing sensitive information, we also offer a secure service to share information
including
attachments, this will be done on specific requests as it compromises speed and efficiency for the want of
higher
security.
Data protection (GDPR)
We may obtain, use, possess, and disclose personal data about you in order that we may discharge the services
agreed under
this engagement letter, and for other related purposes including updating and enhancing client records,
analysis for
management purposes and statutory returns, crime prevention, and legal and regulatory compliance. You have a
right
of access, under data protection legislation, to the personal data that we hold about you. For the purposes
of the
General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the Data Controller in relation to personal data supplied
about
you is Debitam.
Ownership of records
In the event of non-payment of our fees for services rendered, we may exercise a particular right of lien
over the
books and records in our possession and withhold the documents until such time as payment of our invoice is
received in full.
Anti-money laundering legislation
All accountants must comply with onerous duties imposed by UK legislation to prevent, recognise and report
money
laundering, which is intended to inhibit the activities of terrorists and other criminals by denying them
access to technical expertise. If we fail to perform these duties, we risk imprisonment.
Before we accept to provide services, we may need to obtain ‘satisfactory evidence’ to confirm
your
identity as per the ‘Customer Due Diligence’ procedure prescribed by HMRC under the UK AML
regime for
Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (MLTF).
Wherever applicable you will disclose the source of any funds or other property, the purpose of any
instructions,
or any other matter. We may also need to obtain such evidence after we have begun to act on your
instructions.
We assume that our clients are honest and law-abiding. However, if at any time, there appear to be grounds to
suspect (even
if we do not actually suspect) that your instructions relate to ‘criminal property’, we are
obliged to
make a report to the National Crime Agency (“NCA”), but we are prohibited from telling you that
we
have done so.
In such circumstances, we must not act on your instructions without consent from NCA. If NCA does not refuse
consent within
7 working days we may continue to act. If NCA issue a refusal within that time, we must not act for a
further 31 days
from the date of the refusal for you or your company.
‘Criminal property or Act’ is property or Act in any legal form, whether money, real property,
rights or
any benefit derived from criminal activity. It does not matter who carried out the criminal activity or how
removed the property is from the original crime. Even if you are honest in your dealings, if your property
represents a benefit from someone else’s crime, we must still make a report.
Activity is considered ‘criminal’ if it is a crime under UK law, no matter how trivial for
example, tax
evasion is a criminal offense but an honest mistake is not. We will assume that all discrepancies are
mistakes
unless there is contrary evidence.
Customer Due Diligence:
All the accountants registered with HMRC are required to comply with the guidelines prescribed for Customer
Due
Diligence under the AML regime. To ensure compliance, we obtain the following personal information about
‘Person
with Significant Control’:
- Full name of person with significant control
- A scanned copy of valid drivers’ license
- A scanned copy of valid passport
- Proof of residential address
- Date of birth
We will comply with GDPR guidelines issued by the ‘Information Commissioner’s Office’ to
store and
use the above information. You can refer to HMRC
Refund Policy:
We thrive to provide exceptional services to our customers there may be certain circumstances where a refund may be requested by you:
- If the requested services are out of the scope of professional conduct in the eyes of HMRC and the professional body. We will initiate a refund after making the necessary deductions.
- If the refund is a result of incorrect or incomplete information supplied by the client, we will deduct a charge to cover the costs.
- If you accept to share financial information and work has been done or drafts reports are ready to send or have already been sent, we will deduct up to 100% of the invoice value as a fee to cover the costs.
The refund will be issued by way of vouchers or credit to the original mode of payment or a settlement for the next service. This will be informed in advance before initiating such refund and we may deduct an additional fee to process such refund by the mode chosen by you.
Customer Feedback
We are committed to providing a high standard of customer service. If you have any ideas as to how our
service to you could
be improved, or if you are dissatisfied with the service you are receiving, please let us know in writing at
info@debitam.com. In the event that you
have
a complaint, we will look into this carefully and promptly and do all we can to explain the position to you
or address
your concerns.
List of services:
- Bookkeeping
- VAT Returns - Monthly/ Quarterly/ Annually
- Payroll
- Annual Accounts and Corporation Tax return (CT600) for Limited Companies
- LLP Annual Accounts and Tax Return SA800
- Personal Tax Return (SA100)
- Bookkeeping: Bookkeeping services may be offered on a
periodic basis as per specifically agreed
terms:
- Generally, we will be liable to maintain the bookkeeping within 7 working days from receipt of
the
information from your end, by way of bank statements. There may be certain situations where more
time is
needed, which will be informed to you in advance.
- If not agreed otherwise, the standard periodic interval for bookkeeping shall be quarterly (3
months at
a time).
- In no circumstances shall we be doing the transaction entry/bookkeeping on a daily or real time
basis.
- Customer will be responsible for the safe keeping of the physical proof of all expenses, incomes
and
other transactions;
- We may request further details such as physical evidence etc to authenticate a few/all
transactions
which shall be provided upon request.
- If there is no option but to send physical documents for doing the bookkeeping, then the
additional
costs for the handling, scanning and processing of such information shall be borne by the
customer.
- The ultimate responsibility for sharing the information on time lies with the customer.
You/your management are responsible for the detection of irregularities and fraud. We
would emphasise that we cannot
undertake to discover any shortcomings in your systems or any irregularities on the part of your
employees or
others, although we will advise you of any such circumstances that we encounter.
- VAT Returns: VAT return preparation and filing services
will be offered depending upon the VAT
return period (monthly/ quarterly/ annually) while agreeing to the following terms:
- Customer will share the summary of VAT records and other relevant information essential during
the
process within 7 working days after the VAT period end date;
- Customer agrees to provide a time period of 7working days to the accountant to prepare and
finalise the
return once all the information is received;
- Customer will inform the accountant about the invoices related to personal OR non-business-
consumption/
purchase, in order to exclude such amounts from the VAT reclaim;
- Customer will maintain proper record of all the invoices and relevant information safe for a
minimum of
6 years (or any other period specified by law);
- You will issue the VAT charged invoices to your customers/ clients and keep records of the
same;
- Although we send regular reminders to our clients for their due filings, however, it may fail
due to
technical or any other glitch. Therefore, customers are recommended to sign-up for HMRC’s
free
reminder services to avoid late filing penalties;
- Directors of the company understand the responsibilities prescribed by HMRC regarding all the
statutory
actions required if the company is registered for VAT (including all of the above).
- Payroll: To maintain records under HMRC’s registered
PAYE scheme on a periodic basis
weekly/ two weekly/ monthly, either you or your management will provide us with the following
information:
- Personal details of all employees (i.e. name, NI number, home address, and the details as
required by
HMRC to file payroll returns online which is known as Real Time Information (RTI)).
- Hours worked, rates of pay, bonuses, the amount of any pension deductions (Automatic Enrolment)
etc.
- Details of any money or benefits made available to employees by you or by a third party through
you.
- Any notice of tax code received by you during the year must be shared with us at the earliest.
- All P45s, or equivalent, received by you from any of your new joined employee.
- Starter checklist (which replaced the P46 form) if the form P45 is not available.
- All the details related to the auto-enrolment of the pension scheme.
- Notification within one week of any employee who is ill for four or more calendar days,
including
weekends, bank holidays etc. This will enable us to operate Statutory Sick Pay on your behalf.
- Notification of any employee who adopts, becomes pregnant or whose partner adopts or becomes
pregnant.
This will enable us to operate Statutory Adoption, Maternity and Paternity Pay.
- Notification of employees engaged by you or leaving your employment to ensure proper
documentation of
P45.
- All necessary documentation to support Statutory sick pay, maternity pay or other such payments
shall be
duly maintained at your end.
- The details shall be shared by you before the end of the week or month or the pay date whichever
is
earlier.
- It will be your responsibility to actual pay salary to the employees for whom the payroll has
been
processed.
- Preparation of annual accounts and
corporation tax return (CT600) for submission to
Companies House and HMRC:
As per the Companies Act, 2006, all companies are required to prepare &submit annual accounts
prepared in
accordance with applicable framework prescribed in the Act or by the Financial Conduct
Authority.
Further, as per Corporation Tax Act 2010 and Income Tax Act 2007 the companies registered with the
registrar are
required to submit a corporation tax return.
As a director of the company you understand your following responsibilities regarding the annual
accounts and the
corporation tax return:
- You must maintain the proper accounting records and keep them safe either in the electronic form
or the physical
form for the period prescribed by HMRC and forward the accounting records (if bookkeeping is
maintained) or the
bank statements for the relevant accounting period to us for the purpose of accounts preparation
and filing.
- You must keep records of sales invoices, purchase invoices, receipts, and payments, together
with any other
documents relating to the company’s transactions and activities. It will also be necessary
for you to
provide a record of closing stock at the company’s year-end.
- You must inform the accountant of any expenditure which is disallowed as per your knowledge or
is incurred for
personal use of director/ shareholder. You are also liable to inform us about any expenditure
incurred by the
director for the business purpose and you must keep the records such as the invoice, as an
evidence to your
claim.
- You must disclose all facts related to the sources of income, charges, allowances, disallowed
expenses, capital
expenditure or any other information which may be necessary for dealing with the company’s
affairs.
- You must disclose all details of communication with HMRC and Companies House for better
understanding of company’s
affairs.
- You must make payment for the tax liability before due date to HMRC. We are not liable for any
interest charged
by HMRC for late payment.
- To prepare and submit the annual accounts to Companies House before deadline, you are
responsible to share the
financial information (requested by the accountant) before the due date and provide us with at
least 3-5
business days to finalise the reports.
- The turnaround time of 3-5 business days shall start only after we receive the complete
information required for
the provision of a specific service. Complete information shall include additional information
(as may be
requested) apart from the information initially requested in the quote email.
- The turnaround time limit is not applicable if you (customer)have opted for the ‘Express
Filing
Service’ which provides same day or before the deadline filings if the
financial information is
supplied within the timescale prescribed by the accountant.
- HM Revenue & Customs audits a number of tax returns each year, many of these audits are the
result of a
random selection. Assistance in respect of such an audit beyond the answering of straightforward
queries
regarding entries on the tax return is additional work and will result in separate charges. We
will keep you
fully informed before undertaking any extra work in respect of such an audit.
- You agree that we can approach such third parties as may be appropriate for information that we
consider
necessary to deal with your affairs.
- If the financial information turns out to be significantly complex or it doesn’t fall
under the Micro
entity category, then, we may have to charge additional fee. A few examples of such cases are:
- The number of transactions in the bank statement (or multiple bank statements all put
together) is more
than 1,000
- The number of bank accounts, including credit card statements, paypal or other similar
accounts is 3 or
more.
- The financial information is not available in excel/CSV format.
- In case we are required to prepare the accounts based on the bank statements (where bookkeeping
is not
maintained), its your responsibility to provide us additional details regarding any receivables/
payables due,
accrued / prepaid expenses or incomes.
We have agreed to the following terms:
- We will prepare the annual accounts report and corporation tax return (CT600) for the accounting
period agreed
on email, provided the above terms have been accepted by the customer
- You will be provided with the draft version of accounts to review before the submission and can
ask for the
amendments based on the above conditions.
- Once you approve the draft reports and tax return, we shall submit the ‘Annual Accounts’
to the
Registrar of Companies and ‘Corporation Tax return (CT600)’ to HMRC on your behalf.
Note: It should be recognised that in law, a taxpayer cannot contract out of his fiscal
responsibilities and that
computation and return forms are prepared by us on your behalf. You are legally responsible for
making correct
returns and for payment of tax on time. If we ask you for information to complete the tax return and
it is not
provided within a reasonable time-scale, causing a delay in preparation and submission of the
return, we accept no
responsibility for any penalty or interest that may arise.
- LLP Annual Accounts and Tax Return SA800:
The annual accounts for Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) are required to be submitted to the
Registrar of
Companies at Companies House, the terms under annual accounts and corporation tax return shall be
applicable
(other than the CT600) where LLPs are required to submit a different tax return SA800 as per the
Income Tax Act,
2007. You agree to share the information and deal in accordance with the terms specified there. The
Designated
partners of the firm shall be responsible for all the affairs of the LLP.
The charges for the LLP accounts may differ from the charges for Limited Companies because of
additional
responsibilities.
- Personal Tax Return (SA100):
As per the Income Tax Act, 2007, all the individuals having income from the UK sources are required
to prepare and
submit the income tax return to HMRC. To help you out with the preparation and filings, as an
individual you must
agree to the following terms:
- We will forward to you your tax return form & computations and supporting schedules for your
approval and signature.
Once the return has been approved by you and returned to us, we will submit it electronically to
the HM
Revenue & Customs.
- HM Revenue & Customs has powers to charge both interest and penalties if there is a delay in
submitting a
tax return. Such charges are automatic if the tax return is submitted after the submission
deadline i.e.
(currently) 31st January following the end of the tax year, or if any payments are made after
the
respective due dates.
- It is therefore important that all details required for the preparation of your tax return are
forwarded to us
as soon as possible after 5th April each year and by 31st October at the latest. If
the
information is received after that date, we will not accept responsibility for any penalties or
surcharges
charged by HM Revenue & Customs.
- HM Revenue & Customs audits a number of tax returns each year, many of these audits are the
result of a random
selection. Assistance in respect of such an audit beyond the answering of straightforward
queries regarding
entries on the tax return is additional work and will result in separate charges. We will keep
you fully
informed before undertaking any extra work in respect of such an audit.
- We will not be responsible for any losses, penalties, surcharges, interest or additional tax
liabilities
arising from the information supplied by you or others are incorrect or incomplete information,
or your or
others’ failure to supply any appropriate information or your failure to act on our advice
or respond
promptly to communications from us or the tax authorities.
- You agree that we can approach such third parties as may be appropriate for information that we
consider necessary
to deal with your affairs.
- You agree that this service include only the self-assessment tax return preparation and filing,
however, if you
want the annual accounts report under the Self-Employed income a total charge of £399+vat
will be
applicable under the annual accounts package.
