Accountants for Limited Companies

Total Books is a regulated practice of limited company accountants and tax advisers for the directors who run UK companies. We handle the whole finance picture in one team, so you keep control of cash, file on time, and pay no more tax than the law asks for. Bookkeeping, payroll, VAT, year-end accounts, your corporation tax return and your own director tax are planned together rather than as separate jobs. We are AAT licensed, an HMRC registered tax agent, a Companies House authorised agent and a Xero Certified Advisor, founded and led by Buhir Rafiq with more than 30 years in accounting and finance.

What directors actually want from that is clarity. Knowing what tax is due, what the profit really is, where the cash sits, and what to change next to grow. We give owners those figures in real time, so decisions get made on numbers rather than hope, and the year ends without a nasty surprise.

Directors do not come to us for a once-a-year filing. They come for a year-round relationship that turns the numbers into decisions. That is the difference this page sets out, and the rest of it answers the questions directors ask us most: how to pay yourself, what Companies House now demands, how corporation tax actually lands, and when a part-time finance director really earns its keep.

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Why limited company directors use a dedicated accountant

A director carries two tax lives at once: the company's and their own. Get them planned in isolation and money leaks between the two. We plan them together. The company files statutory accounts and a corporation tax return, the CT600, runs payroll and VAT returns, and meets its Companies House deadlines. You, as a shareholding director, draw income through salary, dividends and sometimes pension or a loan account, each taxed in a different way. Our job is to set those moving parts so the total bill across the company and the household is as low as the rules legitimately allow.

Tax and business finance planning matter far more than they used to. HMRC reports the dividend allowance has fallen from £2,000 in 2022/23 to £500 today, and the Autumn 2025 Budget raised the basic and higher dividend rates by two percentage points from April 2026. Income tax thresholds are frozen until April 2031, so pay rises quietly push directors into higher bands. None of that is a reason to panic. It is a reason to plan with someone who watches the thresholds for you, because without that, a large tax bill can bite hard.

A good deal of our new work arrives as a rescue. Companies come to us with years of muddled records, or filings a previous accountant could not finish, and the first job is untangling the history and getting the backlog filed accurately.

What our limited company accounting service covers

Our service spans every recurring finance task a UK company has, and we scale it to your stage. A first-year company needs the basics set up cleanly. An established one needs forecasting and a tighter tax plan. The core building blocks are below, each a service you can read about in full.

Sitting across all of it is the reporting. Once the bookkeeping is current we turn it into monthly or quarterly management accounts, a short set of figures that tells you what the profit really is, where the cash is going and how the year is tracking against the plan. It is the difference between finding out in the year-end accounts twelve months later and knowing now, while there is still time to do something about it.

None of it is sold as a fixed box. We evaluate what your company actually needs and price against that, which is why a nursery, an e-commerce brand and a contracting business all get a different shape of service from the same team.

How directors pay themselves: salary and dividends

Most director-shareholders take a modest salary and top it up with dividends, because dividends carry no National Insurance and sit at lower headline rates than salary. The salary is usually set at the £12,570 personal allowance, which uses the allowance in full and still counts towards the state pension. Above the £5,000 secondary threshold the company pays employer National Insurance at 15%, but the corporation tax relief on the salary normally outweighs that cost. We work through the whole decision in our guide to salary versus dividends for UK directors.

Dividends then sit on top. The first £500 falls inside the dividend allowance. After that, basic rate dividends are taxed at 10.75% and higher rate dividends at 35.75% for 2026/27, both two points higher than the year before. A director on a £12,570 salary who draws £37,700 of dividends keeps total income at the £50,270 higher-rate threshold and pays close to £4,000 of dividend tax, since the first £500 is free and the rest is charged at 10.75%. Draw more than that and the excess crosses into the higher band, where every extra £1,000 of dividends now costs £357.50 rather than the £337.50 it cost the year before.

Two warnings we give every new director. A dividend can only be paid from distributable profit after corporation tax, so declaring one the company cannot afford creates a loan, not a dividend. And once total income passes £100,000 the personal allowance tapers away, producing a 60% effective rate on the slice up to £125,140. The right mix is personal, which is why we model it for each client rather than copying a template.

Director's loan accounts and the s455 charge

Money you take from the company that is not salary, a dividend or expenses sits in your director's loan account, and an overdrawn balance has a cost. If it is not cleared within nine months and one day of the year end, the company pays a section 455 charge to HMRC. For loans made on or after 6 April 2026 that rate is 35.75%, following the dividend rate rise, while loans made between April 2022 and April 2026 stay at 33.75%. The charge is refundable once the loan is repaid, but it ties up cash in the meantime.

There is a second cost too. An overdrawn loan above £10,000 at any point in the year is a benefit in kind unless you pay interest at HMRC's official rate, currently 3.75%. We keep your loan account under review through the year so a casual withdrawal does not turn into a tax charge you never intended.

Companies House obligations and director compliance

Every UK company has filing duties that sit alongside its tax, and Companies House has tightened the rules further. Identity verification became compulsory for new appointments from 18 November 2025, with existing directors and people with significant control moving onto the regime through a transition period running to November 2026. As a Companies House authorised agent we are set up to handle the work that keeps you compliant.

Year-end accounts and your corporation tax return

Year-end is where planning pays off, because once the period closes most options have gone. We prepare statutory accounts for Companies House and a CT600 for HMRC, and we plan the tax before we file. Corporation tax runs at 19% on profits up to £50,000 and 25% above £250,000, with an effective 26.5% marginal rate on profits in between. Those limits are shared across associated companies, so a group structure can quietly raise the rate if it is not managed.

The planning happens in regular meetings through the year, monthly or quarterly, and again either side of the year end. Before the period closes we look at the timing of equipment purchases and capital allowances, the director remuneration mix, and any qualifying research and development under the merged R&D scheme, which for creative sector companies runs through the CT600P and its expenditure credits. Small decisions made in time, such as bringing forward an asset purchase or topping up a company pension, change the final number. Pensions in particular are an efficient route for many directors, which we cover in our guide on how to use pensions in a business tax plan.

New directors often arrive convinced the accounts and tax are due the moment the year ends. They are not, and one of the more useful things we do early on is simply map out the real dates so the panic goes away and the planning window can be used properly.

Where a plan is put to you by someone else and it looks aggressive, we will say so. Directors regularly come to us anxious after being pitched an elaborate property or profit extraction structure, and our answer is always the same: transparent fees, plain explanations, and a check against HMRC's published Spotlight guidance on avoidance schemes before anything is signed. Legitimate tax planning does not need to be complicated to be effective.

Growing the company with proper financial control

Compliance keeps you safe; control helps you grow. Directors who track the right numbers each month make faster, calmer decisions, and they spot a cash squeeze before it becomes a crisis. We set up monthly management figures and the handful of measures that actually predict the health of an owner-managed business.

Two of our most-read guides for directors cover exactly this: the KPIs every UK director should track monthly, and how to build a 13-week cash flow that actually holds when money is tight.

Systems matter as much as reports. An online retailer selling across several channels can arrive with months of unmapped transactions and no reliable margin figure, and the fix is usually a proper data connector feeding Xero rather than more manual entry. Contracting, electrical and CIS-heavy businesses have their own quirks, and we set those up once, correctly, instead of patching them every quarter.

Beyond the numbers, we run regular goal planning and mentoring sessions with our limited company directors. Marketing, staffing, finances, digital processes: whatever is holding growth back that quarter. Actions get agreed, written down and followed up at the next meeting, so plans turn into decisions instead of good intentions. Directors tell us the accountability is the part they value most.

When to add a Virtual Finance Director

Once a company passes the point where the founder cannot hold the whole finance picture in their head, a part-time finance director becomes the next sensible step. You get board-level steering, forecasting and funding support without a full-time salary. Our Virtual Finance Director service suits growth-stage companies that need a plan, while the Virtual Finance Office runs the entire finance function for owners who would rather not build an in-house team. Both report to you in plain figures, on a fixed cadence.

The service comes in three levels, and most directors start at the first and move up as the company grows.

One thing every level has in common is that you talk to a person. Directors come to us worn down by portals, chatbots and evenings lost to video tutorials, and what they want is someone who will sit down, in the office or on a call, and answer the question properly.

Working with specialists as you scale

We are honest about where our own remit ends. Total Books is AAT licensed and HMRC registered, and for work that calls for a different qualification we bring in vetted partners rather than stretching: chartered accountants and bookkeepers from ACCA and ICAEW practices, chartered tax advisers, and specialist corporate lawyers where a restructure needs documenting properly. You keep one point of contact and we coordinate the rest, so the paperwork behind a plan is enacted correctly and stands up if HMRC ever asks.

The same applies to structure. Moving between a limited company and sole trader status, or unwinding a company you no longer need, carries a real tax cost on both sides, which we set out in our guide on moving company assets to shareholders. And where a UK company contracts with overseas clients, the cross-border position needs checking before the invoices start, not after.

Limited company accountants in Cardiff, Newport, Bristol and UK-wide

We work face to face from three offices and remotely across the country. Directors in South Wales and the South West visit us in person; everyone else works with the same team through secure digital onboarding. The work in this guide applies the same way whether you are round the corner or three hundred miles off.

A real result, not a promise

You can read more of what our clients say on our reviews page.

Frequently asked questions

From the Total Books blog

Deeper reading on the decisions in this guide, written for UK limited company directors.

Work with a regulated team that plans ahead

Total Books Accountants Ltd (Companies House 13693978) is a regulated, founder-led practice of limited company accountants and tax advisers, led by Buhir Rafiq with more than 30 years in accounting and finance. We are AAT licensed, an HMRC registered tax agent, a Companies House authorised agent and a Xero Certified Advisor. We work from offices in Cardiff, Newport and Bristol, and UK-wide through our Virtual Finance Office, with secure digital onboarding so distance is never a barrier.

This page is general information, not advice for your specific situation. Tax rules change and the right approach depends on your circumstances. Completing your accounts and returns remains the responsibility of the taxpayer; please take professional advice before acting.