We are about 25 minutes from Birmingham, up the M6 from our office in Cannock. A large share of our clients work on Birmingham sites.
We work with construction limited companies turning over between £500,000 and £5 million. Construction is all we do, which means we are not learning how CIS works on your time.
Working under main contractors changes the tax position
Birmingham is where the tier one contractors are, and if you take packages from them your CIS exposure looks different to a firm doing domestic work. You are almost always a subcontractor, deductions come off every application, and the money sits with HMRC until your year end unless somebody reconciles it properly.
The reverse charge is on nearly everything you invoice
Invoice another VAT registered contractor for construction work in a chain and you do not charge VAT. They account for it. On Birmingham commercial work almost every invoice you raise falls under it, which means your VAT return stops being a bill and starts being a repayment. Firms that have not adjusted their cash flow assumptions get caught out by that in both directions.
Applications, valuations and retention
Commercial work in the city runs on applications and valuations rather than invoices, and the gap between what you have earned and what has landed can run to six figures on a decent sized package. Retention on top of that sits with somebody else for a year after practical completion. Neither shows up properly in a set of accounts unless it is built in from the start.
What we handle
The same work wherever you are, and all of it built around construction rather than adapted for it.
- CIS accounting and returns, from verification through to the year end reconciliation
- Construction VAT, including the domestic reverse charge and end user status
- Payroll, run alongside CIS rather than separately from it
- Job costing, so you know which contracts made money while there is still time to act
- Cash flow forecasting built around retentions and payment terms
- Year end accounts and Corporation Tax
Not sure whether your work is inside the scheme?
Around a third of the trades we cover sit outside CIS, and most of them have been having deductions taken for years without knowing. Have a look at the trades we work with and find yours, or book a call and we will tell you either way.
Areas we cover
We work across the whole of the UK. These are the areas closest to the office, where we do the most work and where you can come in if you would rather sit down with somebody.
Common questions
Do I need to come to Cannock to work with you?
No. We are about twenty five minutes up the M6 if you ever want to, but almost nothing needs a meeting. Records come in through cloud accounting, questions get answered the same day, and most of our Birmingham clients have never been to the office.
Does the reverse charge apply to all my Birmingham commercial work?
Usually, where your customer is VAT registered, registered under CIS and is not an end user. On main contractor work in a chain that is nearly always the case. Where the customer is an end user, a property owner having its own premises worked on, you charge VAT the normal way and they should tell you in writing.