Accountancy & business advice · Birmingham
Weldenbrook looks after 240 owner-managed businesses across the West Midlands. Nine of us, one named contact each, and a monthly figure written down before any work starts.
No charge for the first call, and no obligation to change accountant afterwards.
We tell you what a piece of work costs before we do it. There is no hourly rate on your file and no invoice you did not expect.
Accounts are drafted within six weeks of your year end. You will know your tax bill nine months before it is payable.
The same accountant does your work every year. You will not be reintroduced to a new manager each January.
Six pieces of work cover almost every client on our books. Nearly all of it sits inside the monthly fee.
i
Annually
Statutory accounts prepared and filed at Companies House, with a draft in your hands to read before anything is submitted. Most sets are finished within six weeks of the year end, and we will tell you the date in advance.
ii
Annually
The company return, the self assessment for each director, and the salary-and-dividend decision that determines how much of either you pay. Filed early enough that the January bill is a figure you already knew.
iii
Weekly or monthly
Runs, payslips, pension submissions, starters and leavers, and the statutory pay calculations nobody enjoys. We process payroll for around 1,100 people across the client base.
iv
Quarterly
Returns prepared and filed under Making Tax Digital, with the review that catches what bookkeeping software does not: the wrong rate on a supplier invoice, the reclaim on a car, the entertaining that is not allowable.
v
Monthly or quarterly
Figures with a page of plain commentary attached: what moved, why it moved, and what it means for the next quarter. Written by the person who does your work, not exported from a template.
vi
As needed
Company structure, taking on the first employee, borrowing, buying or selling a business, and the awkward conversation about drawings. Included in the fixed fee up to a point, and we tell you plainly where that point is.
We have deliberately stayed narrow. It is why the fee can be fixed: we have seen your situation before.
Two to sixty staff, usually turning over between £250,000 and £6m, with the owner still in the building.
One person, one company, and a set of decisions that are worth more than the accounts themselves.
Partnerships and incorporated practices where the money belongs to somebody else until it does not.
What we are not. We are not registered auditors, and we do not act for charities or for groups with overseas subsidiaries. If your company grows into an audit requirement we will tell you a full year ahead, introduce you to a firm that does them, and carry on doing everything else.
Saying this at the first call is cheaper for both of us than saying it in month four.
Most of it happens without you. The part people dread — telling the current accountant — is a letter we send, not a call you make.
1
Day one
On the phone or in the office, whichever suits. You describe the business; we ask about your year end, the state of your records, and what has annoyed you about the last arrangement. There is no charge and no follow-up sequence.
2
Within two working days
A fixed monthly figure, what it covers, what it does not, and the date your first set of accounts would be filed. If we think the figure will move once we see a year of records, we say so on that page rather than later.
3
Week one
We write to your current accountant for professional clearance and take the identity documents the money laundering rules require. You do not need to have the awkward conversation yourself, and it does not delay anything if they are slow to reply.
4
Week two
Your bookkeeping records come across and we take access to whatever software you already use. If you keep the books in a spreadsheet, we will keep going with the spreadsheet and price for it honestly rather than insisting you change.
5
Weeks four to six
A short written summary of anything left open by the previous arrangement — unfiled returns, an unclaimed allowance, a director's loan nobody mentioned — and the fixed dates for your year. After that you get the same dates every year.
Companies with a year end within eight weeks are taken on as a priority. Tell us the date on the first call.
Everything below is quoted before any work begins and collected by direct debit over twelve months. Figures exclude VAT.
One director, no staff, records already in a cloud system.
£95per month
Payroll for up to four people, quarterly VAT, one planning meeting a year.
£185per month
Payroll to twenty-five, monthly management accounts, a quarterly review meeting.
from £340per month
Enquiry work is charged at £145 an hour and quoted before it starts. Fee protection cover, which pays for our time in an enquiry, is £96 a year.
Fees are reviewed once a year, in writing, at least a month before they change, and only when the work itself has changed. Going from four staff to fourteen changes the payroll; inflation on its own has never been a reason we have used.
Every client is assigned one of them by name on the day the engagement letter is signed.
Founding partner
Started the practice above a print shop on Thurstan Street in 2009. Takes the harder corporation tax work, and every complaint.
ruth@weldenbrook.examplePartner · Tax
Twenty-two years in personal tax, eleven of them at a national firm. Joined in 2013 and supplied the second half of the practice name.
michael@weldenbrook.examplePayroll manager
Runs payroll for about 1,100 people across the client base and has not missed a submission deadline since joining in 2016.
payroll@weldenbrook.exampleClient manager
The voice on the phone most weeks. VAT returns, bookkeeping queries, and the person who chases your records so you do not have to remember.
callum@weldenbrook.exampleTwo floors of a Victorian terrace, five minutes' walk from Ashvale station. Reception is staffed by a person rather than a tablet, and there are two meeting rooms — one of them with a door that closes properly, which matters more often than you would think.
Records can be dropped off at the front desk in any state. We have seen carrier bags.
No. We work with whatever you already use, provided it is a cloud system we can be given access to. If you keep the books in a spreadsheet we will carry on with the spreadsheet and tell you honestly what that adds to the fee, rather than making a software change a condition of taking you on.
It is common, and it is quotable. We look at a year of records before pricing the work, and catch-up bookkeeping is quoted as a separate one-off figure so it never appears as a surprise line on a monthly invoice.
Email that arrives before 4pm is answered the same working day. The telephone is answered by a person in the office between 8.30 and 5.30, Monday to Thursday, and until 4pm on Friday. If your call needs the partner and the partner is out, you get a time when they will ring back, not a promise that they will.
Yes, and most clients do. We write to your existing accountant for clearance and the records; you do not have to make that call. A mid-year move is the ordinary case here, not the exception, and it does not cost more.
We deal with it. Enquiry work sits outside the monthly fee, is charged at £145 an hour, and is quoted before we start. Most clients take the fee protection cover at £96 a year, which pays for our time if an enquiry lands.
No. We are not registered auditors. If your company grows into an audit requirement we will tell you a year ahead, introduce you to a firm that does them, and continue doing everything else for you.
Once a year, in writing, at least a month before it changes, and only when the work has genuinely changed. Growing from four staff to fourteen changes the payroll and the fee follows it. Inflation on its own is not a reason we have used.
Enough detail to price the work properly. If you would rather just talk, the number is 0121 496 0227 and someone will pick it up.