Let’s be honest with each other for a second.
You didn’t start your business because you were DYING to learn the difference between a debit and a credit. You started it because you’re good at what you do, whatever that is, and bookkeeping was very much not part of the dream.
And yet here you are, three years in, with a carrier bag of receipts, a login for something called Xero that you set up once and never opened again, and a nagging feeling that you’re probably doing something wrong somewhere.
Sound familiar? Good. That’s exactly who this post is for.
The Problem With Doing It Yourself
I see three things happen over and over again with small business owners, and I mean OVER and OVER:
- You genuinely don’t know what’s required of you. Nobody hands you a manual when you register your company. You just find out you needed to do something the moment you’ve missed the deadline for it.
- You try to do it yourself, and it goes… not great. You’re clever, capable, and absolutely not an accountant, and there is zero shame in that. But a few misfiled transactions here, a VAT return done on a guess there, and it snowballs.
- You simply do not have the time. I’m based in Newquay, Cornwall, and I can tell you now, when the sun’s out and the sea’s calling, the absolute LAST thing anyone wants to be doing is reconciling a bank feed. You didn’t build a business to spend your evenings squinting at a spreadsheet.
This is genuinely the whole reason Karaccounts exists. You run the business. We run the numbers. Let’s talk about how.
So What Do Xero And Apron Actually Do?
Quick plain-English version, no jargon, I promise.
Xero is the accounting software where your business’s entire financial picture lives, your bank transactions, your invoices, your VAT, your payroll, all of it, in one place, accessible from your phone if you really want to torture yourself on a Sunday.
Apron is where your bills, receipts and invoices actually go. Instead of you (or me!) manually typing out what’s on every single receipt, you just forward it on, WhatsApp it over, snap it on the app, or drop it in, and Apron’s software reads it, pulls out the important bits, and files it away correctly. We give our non-VAT registered clients the option of taking out an Apron subscription with us
Individually, both of these are great. Together, they’re the reason you don’t have to be the one entering any of this in the first place.
How Apron And Xero Actually Talk To Each Other
Here’s the bit that actually matters to you: once something lands in Apron, it doesn’t just sit there. It flows straight through into Xero, categorised and coded, ready for us to check over rather than build from scratch.
Small disclaimer: We need to work some magic and set some automation rules for this to happen, but we do!
So instead of you handing us a bag of paper (please, I’m begging you, no more bags of paper), you send things over as they land, on WhatsApp, by email, or straight into the app, and by the time we sit down to do your bookkeeping, most of the heavy lifting is already done. Less time spent typing numbers in means more time actually reviewing them properly, which, funnily enough, is the bit that’s supposed to matter.
Okay, But What Do You ACTUALLY Do For Me Every Month?
Fair question. Here’s exactly what happens behind the scenes once you’re a Karaccounts client:
- Bookkeeping, done monthly. Not once a year in a panic before your accounts are due, every single month, so we always know exactly where your business stands (and so do you).
- Your VAT return, sorted. If you’re VAT registered, we complete and file this for you, on time, every time, based on bookkeeping that’s already up to date because, see above, we did it that month.
- Payroll, run monthly. Your team gets paid correctly and on time, and HMRC gets told what it needs to know, without you having to think about it.
None of this is a “get in touch when you remember” service. It’s just… handled.
And What Happens At Your Year End?
Once your financial year ends, we get to work pulling your annual accounts together, and here’s our promise to you: we aim to get your accounts to you for approval within 5 months of your year end. Not the eleventh hour scramble you might be used to elsewhere, a proper, considered set of accounts, in good time.
From there, we take care of:
- Your company accounts, filed with Companies House
- Your corporation tax return, filed with HMRC
- Your self assessment tax return, if that’s something you need too
All the pieces, joined up, so nothing falls through the cracks between your bookkeeping and your tax return (which, if you’ve ever used separate people for each, you’ll know is where things tend to go wrong).
In Summary
If you’re a super small business owner who:
- Doesn’t fully know what HMRC or Companies House actually expect from you
- Has had a go at doing it yourself and has a horrible suspicion it’s not quite right
- Simply does not have the spare hours to become an amateur bookkeeper on top of everything else
…then this is genuinely what we’re here for. Monthly bookkeeping through Xero and Apron, your VAT return, your payroll, and accounts in your hands within 5 months of year end, so you can get back to running your business (or getting to the beach, no judgement here).
Another small disclaimer – this is a two way relationship. We can’t work off information we don’t have, so when we are emailing you asking for something, please don’t ghost us!
Ready to hand the numbers over to someone else for once? Book a discovery call or drop us an email, we’d love to help