If you are a sole trader or a business partner you are required to keep records of your business expenditure, income, liabilities and assets. You must also keep a record of all personal income.
There are two ways to record this:
- Traditional Accounting – This is when you record income and expenses by the date you invoiced your customer or received a bill from a supplier. For example if you invoiced a customer on the 28th of March 2014 and didn’t receive the amount until the following tax year, you would still record this in the 2013-14 tax year.
- Cash Basis Accounting – Businesses with an income of £81,000 or less can use this method to record their accounts. You only record income and expenditure when you have either received the money or paid an outstanding bill. This means that you will not pay income tax on money you haven’t received within the accounting period.
The types of records you are required to keep are:
- All sales and income
- All business expenditure – details of which are on this page https://www.gov.uk/self-employed-records/business-expenses
- VAT records if you are VAT registered
- PAYE records if you are an employer
- Personal income records
Additionally, if you choose the traditional accounting method you are required to keep a record of the following items at the end of the accounting period:
- All outstanding amounts owed to the business
- All outstanding amounts owed out of the business, e.g. to suppliers
- Value of all stock and Work In Progress
- Year-end bank balances
- How much money you have invested into the business
- How much money you have withdrawn for personal use
Types of records include: receipts, bank statements, cheque stubs, sales invoices, till rolls and bank slips.
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