is anyone using Osome accountants? I’m starting to lose my patience with them. I’ve been told that my service no longer includes a Xero subscription, and I’m being moved to their own accounting software. The other option is to keep Xero, but it will cost an additional £60 + VAT per month for them to manage it! I’m already paying over £200 per month for their services.
Their service is pretty poor with little to no upkeep of my accounts. Filing is always left until shortly before my deadline, and there’s no P&L forecasting. Basically, they just file my accounts once a year, and I have to go through my transactions, do the bookkeeping, and send them all the bank statements each month, along with Amazon/eBay statements.
To make matters worse, they’ve let my VAT registration process drag on for almost two years, and I’ve been fined for going over the VAT threshold. I know that’s partly my responsibility, but it could have been addressed at the time.
Xero doesn’t cost £60+ a month. I’m with QuickBooks and only pay £28 per month. You can use any accountant you want, but for a Ltd company with VAT, it’s typically around £160+ per month on average.
You don’t need an Amazon-specific accountant. I don’t know why people get sucked into using them, especially if you’re still doing the bookkeeping yourself. Here’s how I handle it:
I use Xero myself and have given my accountant access.
Any transactions are reconciled in Xero, and that’s where I add the receipts as files.
For any Amazon incoming payments, I use LinkMyBooks, which automatically inputs the data for me.
Then, my accountant submits the VAT returns and corporation tax as usual. I think the difficult part for accountants is understanding the Amazon disbursements breakdowns, but if you’re using LinkMyBooks, it automates that process.
I have a couple of businesses, and I think my end-of-year accountancy fee is around £600–£800. Xero is £18 a month, and LinkMyBooks is £40 a month (all rough prices).
I hope that helps! But yeah, being able to use a local accountant that you can visit in person, if needed, is a huge bonus for me.
They are ok. But not proactive. You have to basically be a back up accountant. Which I’ve always done anyway because I’ve never truly trusted accountants for an Amazon business. So for example I always put it on a platter for the regarding VAT and various things. I basically do half their job, I pull off all my transactions and detail exactly what every transaction is and the VaT is elements within those transactions. So basically it’s all there for them to consolidate. Otherwise no I wouldn’t use them.
This is exactly what I have to do. It leaves me scratching my head, wondering what I’m actually paying them all this money for. If you don’t mind me asking, who do you use?