We act for builders, electricians, plumbers, decorators and the other trades working out of Finchley and the streets off the High Road. If you have been searching for an accountant for trades near you, the useful questions are about how you are paid and what you can claim.

If you work under CIS

Contractors take 20% off your labour if you are registered with HMRC, 30% if you are not, and nothing if you hold gross payment status. That deduction is a payment on account of your tax, not the tax itself — for many subcontractors it is more than they owe, and the difference comes back through the tax return or, for a limited company, through the monthly payroll submissions. Registering properly and keeping every payment and deduction statement is what gets it back.

If you take on subcontractors yourself

You become a contractor under CIS: you verify each subcontractor with HMRC, deduct at the right rate, file a monthly return by the 19th, and pay what you deducted by the 22nd if paying electronically. Late returns bring penalties even when nothing was owed.

What you can claim

Tools, materials, protective clothing, van running costs, phone, insurance and training are all normal claims when they are for the work. A van bought for the business goes through capital allowances rather than straight into expenses. The mistake we see most is not an overclaim — it is receipts that never make it off the dashboard.

• CIS returns and refunds
• Self-assessment tax returns in Finchley
• Payroll services

Whether you are a shop in Finchley Central, a restaurant in North Finchley or a freelancer in East Finchley, a first conversation with us works the same way: you tell us what you do and what you have, we tell you what we would do and what the fee would be, and you decide. Nothing starts until the fee is agreed in writing.

The work we agree with you is meant to cover the year, not just one form. For a typical small business it includes:

• Year-end accounts and the corporation tax or self-assessment return
• Filing with Companies House and HMRC, and the reminders before each deadline
• Your questions by phone and email through the year
• Dealing with routine HMRC letters on your behalf
• An agreed extra for anything not listed, quoted before we start

As your local Finchley accountants we offer the full range of services a growing business or individual needs:

• Annual accounts and corporation tax for limited companies
• Self-assessment tax returns for sole traders, directors and landlords
• Bookkeeping on Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent
• PAYE payroll, auto-enrolment pensions and CIS
• VAT registration, returns and Making Tax Digital
• Company formation and start-up support

We work with the independent shops, cafés, tradespeople, consultants and professionals that make up Finchley and Barnet. That local knowledge — and a proactive, plain-English approach — means fewer surprises and better decisions for your business.

Searching for an "accountant near me" in Finchley? Our office on Regents Park Road (N3) is easy to reach from East Finchley, North Finchley, Church End and the wider Barnet area. Get in touch for a free, no-obligation chat about how we can help.

Finchley is our home ground and the work here is a fair cross-section: self-assessment for employees and directors, accounts for small companies, and the trades operating along the high roads. These go into more detail:

• Self-assessment tax returns in Finchley
• Small business accountant, North London
• Limited company accountant, North London
• CIS accountant for subcontractors

Finchley sits between several areas we also work in, each with a page of its own:

• Accountants in Whetstone
• Accountants in Barnet
• Accountants in Muswell Hill
• Accountants in Hendon
• Accountants in Golders Green

Finchley covers three distinct centres and people rarely mean all of them. Our office is on Regents Park Road in N3, which puts us in Finchley Central — a few minutes from the station on the Northern line, and walkable from Church End.

North Finchley, around the High Road and Tally Ho corner in N12, is the busier commercial stretch: independent shops, restaurants, and the trades working out of the surrounding streets. East Finchley in N2 is more residential, and the work there leans towards personal tax, landlords and directors of companies based elsewhere.

For what we actually do the distinction rarely matters — none of it depends on which end of Finchley you are in. It matters if you would rather hand paperwork over than scan it, in which case N3 is the one to aim for.

Anyone can call themselves an accountant in the UK. The title is not protected, and no qualification is needed to prepare accounts or file a tax return for someone else.

Chartered is different. It means membership of a professional body — ACCA or ICAEW — which brings mandatory continuing education, professional indemnity insurance, a complaints process you can actually use, and rules about client money. We are ACCA and ACA qualified.

This is not a reason to pay more than the work is worth. It is a reason to ask the question before you hand over your records, because the answer tells you what happens if something goes wrong.

Finchley is three places that share a name, and people searching for an accountant here usually mean one of them specifically.

N3, Finchley Central

The commercial middle: Ballards Lane and Regent's Park Road, a long parade of independent shops, professional practices, restaurants and salons, most of them owner-run and most of them limited companies or sole traders rather than anything larger. Our office is on Regent's Park Road, so this is the part we know street by street rather than from a map.

N2, East Finchley

Quieter and more residential, with a High Road of small independents and a noticeable population of people who work for themselves — media, design, therapy, consultancy. A lot of first self-assessment returns start here, often from somebody who has just gone freelance and has been told they need to register but not when or how.

N12, North Finchley

The busiest retail stretch of the three, along the High Road towards Tally Ho, with more food businesses and more premises that come with a rateable value worth arguing about. Whetstone runs on from it, and the boundary between the two is more a matter of habit than geography.

All three are Barnet

Whichever of the three you are in, your business rates, your licensing and your planning are London Borough of Barnet. That is the practical thing to hold on to, and it is also why the Finchley and Barnet pages are two ways into the same council rather than two different answers.

• Accountants in Barnet
• Accountants in Whetstone
• Self-assessment accountant in Finchley

Most of what we do could be done from anywhere, and honesty requires saying so. Records arrive electronically, filings go to HMRC electronically, and a video call is usually the faster way to talk something through. Being in Finchley is not a technical advantage.

What it does change is the awkward cases. Somebody arrives with a carrier bag of receipts and no idea where to start. A letter from HMRC has landed and it needs reading together rather than describing over email. A business is being bought or sold and the paperwork needs going through page by page with both sides in the room. Those are better in person, and being able to say "come in on Thursday" is worth more than any amount of software.

Self-assessment is the return that sole traders, directors and landlords in Finchley all have in common. The dates are fixed and HMRC does not move them:

• Register by 5 October after the end of the tax year in which you started
• Paper returns by 31 October
• Online returns, and the balance of tax, by 31 January
• Payments on account on 31 January and 31 July
• A £100 penalty the day after a missed filing deadline, even if no tax is owed

• Self-assessment accountant in Finchley
• Accountants in North London

We are at 235 Regents Park Road, N3 3LF, a short walk from Finchley Central station on the High Barnet branch of the Northern line. East Finchley and West Finchley are each one stop away, and Mill Hill East one stop on the other side.

Buses 13 and 460 stop at Mountfield Road on Regents Park Road, close to the office; both run between North Finchley and Golders Green, the 13 on to Victoria and the 460 to Willesden. The 125, 143, 326 and 382 all call at Finchley Central.

You do not have to come in: you can work with us entirely by phone, email and video call, and we respond within one working day.

All of Finchley — Finchley Central, North Finchley and East Finchley — is in the London Borough of Barnet, so Barnet Council sends your business rates bill and deals with premises licences, street trading and planning. None of that goes on a tax return, but rates are a fixed cost that can be relieved or appealed, and licence fees and timings belong in any plan for opening or changing premises.

Small business rate relief is set nationally and applied by the council: a business with one property whose rateable value is below £15,000 can get relief, and below £12,000 the relief is 100%. Taking on a second property can take it away from the first, so it is worth checking before you sign a lease rather than after the bill arrives.

• Barnet Council: business rates
• Barnet Council: business rates discounts, exemptions and relief
• Barnet Council: licences, permits and registrations

The services we provide in Finchley include personal tax and self-assessment, bookkeeping, VAT returns and registration, year-end accounts and corporation tax and property tax. Each has its own page with what is included and how we work.