For the grocers, bakeries and restaurants on Green Lanes the VAT question is decided at the till: most food is zero-rated, but confectionery, crisps, soft drinks and anything hot or eaten in are not. A till that does not separate them produces a VAT return that cannot be supported. The rules are on our restaurant page.

• Restaurant accountants in London

Taking a lot of cash is entirely normal and entirely legitimate. What causes trouble is records that cannot demonstrate it: takings written up weekly from memory, drawings taken from the till without being recorded, and suppliers paid in cash without an invoice.

Daily takings recorded from the till, a separate record of anything drawn out, and invoices kept for every purchase. That is the whole of it — and it is the difference between an ordinary compliance check and an assessment based on somebody else's assumptions about your margins.

• Turkish-speaking accountant
• Restaurants, cafés and takeaways
• Accountants in Wood Green
• Accountants in Palmers Green
• Accountants in Hornsey

Harringay’s commercial life is a street. Green Lanes runs the length of it — Grand Parade and on northwards — lined with Turkish and Kurdish restaurants, bakeries, greengrocers, supermarkets, barbers, jewellers and wholesalers, many of them family-run.

The pattern to watch for is a business that has done well, has staff and premises and sometimes a second site, and is still being run on records designed for one person and a cash box. Nothing is wrong exactly — but the VAT is being estimated, the payroll is handled by whoever has time, and nobody could answer quickly if HMRC asked how a figure was arrived at.

We work in Turkish as well as English, so the conversation about fixing that can happen in whichever language makes it easier to be precise. Türkçe konuşan bir muhasebeciyle çalışmak, özellikle vergi ve KDV gibi konularda, meseleyi baştan doğru anlatmanın en kolay yoludur.

• Turkish-speaking accountant in London
• Accountant for restaurants, cafés and takeaways
• Accountants in Wood Green

This is the area where well-run restaurants most often have a problem they do not know about, because the rules changed and the practice did not.

Tips have to reach the staff

Employers are required to pass tips on to workers in full and to allocate them fairly, with a written policy where tips are more than occasional. Deducting a percentage for breakages, card fees or administration is not the free choice it once was. If your house practice predates the change, it is worth revisiting before somebody else raises it.

How you distribute them changes the tax

Tips paid out through the payroll by the employer attract National Insurance as well as income tax. Tips distributed through an independent tronc, genuinely run by a troncmaster rather than by the owner, can be treated differently for National Insurance. The distinction turns on who actually decides the allocation — so a tronc that exists on paper while the owner decides the split is not a tronc, and treating it as one is an expensive mistake to make for several years at a time.

Family working in the business

Paying a spouse, a son or a daughter is entirely legitimate, and it is also one of the first things looked at in an enquiry. The test is whether the work is real and the pay is commercially reasonable for it. A wage that reflects genuine hours is fine. A round number paid to somebody who does not work in the business is not, and the fact that it is family makes it more visible rather than less.

Harringay with two r’s is the neighbourhood on Green Lanes. Haringey with one r is the London borough it sits in, which also includes Wood Green, Hornsey, Crouch End and Muswell Hill. As Haringey accountants for businesses on the Harringay stretch of Green Lanes, we find the practical point is that Haringey Council is who you deal with on business rates, premises licences, late-night refreshment for hot food, and any licensing scheme for rented homes.

Green Lanes does not stay in one borough. It runs north towards Palmers Green, which is Enfield, and south towards Hackney. A family business with branches along it can deal with different councils at each site: separate rates bills, separate licence renewals, and small business rate relief assessed on the whole group of properties. HMRC treats all of it as one business, so the accounts and VAT return do not split by borough, but the costs and renewal dates do.

For the rest of Haringey and the wider area, see our page for accountants in North London.

• Accountants in North London
• Accountants in Palmers Green
• Accountants in Crouch End

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.

• Haringey Council: business rates
• Haringey Council: small business rate relief
• Haringey Council: licensing

Harringay Green Lanes is on the Overground (Suffragette line), Harringay station on Great Northern, and Manor House and Turnpike Lane on the Piccadilly line. None of them connects directly with the High Barnet branch of the Northern line, so coming to the office means a change on the way.

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.

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