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Industries We Work In

Every industry has its own accounting problems. These are the sectors we work in regularly, and the issues we deal with in each. These are the sectors we act in regularly, not a list of everything we would accept.

Jump to a sector
Care Homes, Healthcare & Supported LivingConstruction, Trades & Property ServicesProperty Investors, Landlords & DevelopersEcommerce, Online Retail & MarketplacesTechnology, SaaS & AIManufacturing, Installation & Fit-OutWholesale, Distribution, Import & ExportProfessional Services, Creative & EventsFinancial Services, Trading & Asset Leasing
9Industries we act in regularly
Named workEvery sector links to the exact service section
Recent engagementOn each one, not a generic promise
A carer smiling with an elderly resident in a care home lounge
Sector 01

Care Homes, Healthcare & Supported Living

Care groups grow by acquisition, so the accounts carry freeholds, leases and goodwill across several entities that all have to agree with each other. Payroll is large and shift-based, so statutory maternity and sick pay drift out of line without anyone noticing. The apprenticeship levy is often worked out company by company when the group shares a single allowance. Fee income is mostly exempt from VAT, which leaves input tax on refurbishment and head office costs only partly recoverable.

How we help

The group structure comes first, then we work entity by entity: acquisition entries, a single levy allowance calculation, statutory pay checked against payroll records and a partial exemption method that matches how the sites actually operate.

A site manager in a hard hat reading a drawing against a clear sky
Sector 02

Construction, Trades & Property Services

On site the money moves faster than the paperwork: subcontractors are paid before they are verified, CIS deductions are taken at the wrong rate or not at all, and the monthly return is filed from memory. The domestic reverse charge turns a routine invoice into a VAT question on both sides of the contract chain. Whether a regular subcontractor is really self-employed is rarely tested until HMRC asks. Because costs are coded to the company rather than the job, nobody can say which contracts made money.

How we help

The CIS cycle goes onto a monthly footing first. Then we look at the reverse charge on both sales and purchase invoices, subcontractor status and a job-costed ledger, usually in QuickBooks with the field-service system feeding it.

A terrace of London houses with brightly painted front doors
Sector 03

Property Investors, Landlords & Developers

Mortgage interest on residential lets is relieved as a tax reduction rather than a deduction from profit, and the reduction is routinely worked out on the wrong figure. That drives the incorporation question, where stamp duty, capital gains and lending matter as much as income tax. A sale of UK residential property starts a 60-day CGT clock that nobody mentions until it has run out. Commercial property brings the option to tax, and overseas property brings foreign pages, foreign tax credits and residence questions that rarely reach the return.

How we help

We rebuild the property pages from the rental accounts up, run the incorporation numbers both ways before anyone forms a company, and diarise the 60-day reporting on every disposal, including for owners who are not UK resident.

A warehouse worker taping a cardboard box at a packing bench
Sector 04

Ecommerce, Online Retail & Marketplaces

An online shop sells in three currencies, is paid through four gateways and receives the money net of fees, refunds and reserves days after the sale. Book the settlement as the sale and revenue, VAT and margin are all wrong at once. Quarter-end cut-off then depends on which date the software picked, not the tax point. Add a marketplace that accounts for the VAT on some orders but not others, and EU customers under OSS or IOSS, and the return stops matching the bank.

How we help

Every gateway and marketplace settlement gets reconciled back to orders. We hold each currency in its own ledger at HMRC rates and settle the VAT cut-off and OSS or IOSS position before the software is touched.

A small software team in a meeting around a whiteboard
Sector 05

Technology, SaaS & AI

Most spend in a software company is people and compute, and HMRC now expects both to be apportioned to specific technical uncertainties rather than claimed wholesale. Under the merged scheme, a claim written from the product roadmap rather than the engineering record is the one HMRC opens. Share options granted to early staff carry tax consequences that surface at exit, long after the paperwork should have existed. Licence income from abroad arrives net of withholding tax that is recoverable only if the treaty claim is made.

How we help

The claim is built from timesheets, cloud invoices and the engineering record, and we review claims other advisers have drafted before they are filed. Share options and cross-border royalties are handled alongside, not referred out.

An engineer carrying a fabricated steel part across a factory floor
Sector 06

Manufacturing, Installation & Fit-Out

The sales system knows which division sold the job. The purchase ledger only knows which supplier was paid. So the divisional P&L shows revenue against a blended cost line, gross margin is a guess until the year-end stock count, and stock consumption is never booked month by month. Imported components arrive with duty and import VAT that are posted to whatever code the bookkeeper used last time, and postponed VAT accounting is either not used or not reconciled to the monthly statement.

How we help

We design the department codes, the monthly stock consumption journal and the purchase export so cost lands in the same division as revenue, then reconcile import VAT to the postponed accounting statement each month.

A forklift moving stock down a warehouse aisle of racked pallets
Sector 07

Wholesale, Distribution, Import & Export

A distributor's margin lives in the landed cost: purchase price, freight, duty and currency, arriving on separate invoices at separate times. When only the supplier invoice reaches the ledger, the margin in the management accounts is higher than the margin in the bank. Import VAT under postponed accounting must agree to the monthly statement, and zero-rated exports need shipping evidence that is rarely filed with the invoice. At year end the stock figure carries those errors into the accounts and the tax computation.

How we help

A landed cost per product line comes before any margin analysis. We reconcile the postponed VAT statement monthly and set up an export evidence file that sits with each zero-rated invoice.

Two creatives reviewing printed photographs across a studio table
Sector 08

Professional Services, Creative & Events

Fees are earned over months and invoiced in lumps, so the P&L swings with the billing cycle rather than the work done, and work in progress is either ignored or guessed. Freelancers are engaged on contracts nobody has tested for status, on either side. Cash arrives in bursts around a launch or an event and has to last the quiet months. Many of these companies are set up for a single project and then need closing down properly, with the tax cleared first.

How we help

Project codes go into the ledger so margin can be read per job, work in progress goes into the monthly numbers, and contractor status is reviewed on both sides. When a company has served its purpose, we close it cleanly.

An analyst making notes beside a monitor showing price charts
Sector 09

Financial Services, Trading & Asset Leasing

A company dealing in CFDs or forex must establish whether it is trading or investing, which changes how gains and losses are taxed. Broker statements arrive in dollars and euros, and inconsistent conversion turns part of the profit into exchange noise. Interest paid on a director's loan to the company carries tax to withhold and report on a CT61, and a loan running the other way builds towards a s.455 charge. Leased assets sit on or off the balance sheet on a classification nobody wrote down.

How we help

The trial balance is rebuilt on one conversion basis. We settle the trading or investment question with the reasons written down, and we monitor the director's loan account for s.455 and CT61 every quarter, not just at year end.

Your industry not listed?

Most of the work above, from group reporting to VAT positions to payroll, applies to businesses well outside these nine. Tell us what you run and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right practice for it.

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