• Home
• News
• Start-Up Guides
• Contractor FAQs
• Umbrella Company
• Limited Company
• Tax / Accounting
• IT Contractor Rates
• Contract Rate Checker
• IR35
• IT Contractor Insurance
• Money / Investing
• IT Contracts / Work
• Service Provider News
• Directory
• About Us

Free umbrella service for contractors Save over £1400 p.a on fees Click here or call 0845 602 7712.

Contractor accountant fees - how much should you expect to pay?

Published on Sep 21, 2009 |

• Print this article
• Email this article

When choosing a contractor accountant, we always suggest that the monthly cost is a significant, but not the only factor you should consider when selecting what is probably your most important advisor as a contractor.

Alongside the headline cost of hiring an accountant, it is very important that the company you choose has significant experience of the contracting world - particularly regarding tax legislation such as IR35.

You also need to find out exactly what the monthly fee includes. Our guide to typical contractor accountant duties points out that you should expect your fee to cover everything from taking care of VAT and corporation tax, to dividend planning, and conducting your company payroll.

Other important factors include how you personally get on with your accountant (an intangible element), and how good the overall levels of service and communication are.

At the time or writing, the stated monthly fees charged by various contractor accountants varied quite significantly, from around the £60 to the £130 mark. The largest firms seem to charge around the £100 mark currently.

We would suggest that you use price as a significant factor when choosing an accountant, but also ensure that you find out exactly what the monthly fee includes before signing up, and that the company is familiar with contractors and industry legislation.

And finally, as with many other things in life, you simply cannot beat personal recommendations from other contractors.

Further Information

As a starting point, try our growing list of IT contractor accountants

Find out what a contractor accountant does, and what their typical duties will be.

And possibly the most important thing you can do is to find out what to avoid when choosing a contractor accountant.