Non-accountant here looking for advice on a start-up hiring for the right role

siscri

Sorry in advance for my lack of understanding and any clumsiness in explaining the situation, but I would really appreciate the thoughts/suggestions of this group as it's hard to find information around my companies situation.

I co-own a young training/virtual events company with about 8 employees based in Ireland and the UK (with our customers being virtually all over the world). We get money from ticket sales, membership, sponsorship and more.

Currently we work with an accountancy firm to do our accounts with our team doing some basic bookkeeping and accounts for them. They're not great at communication, very slow, and we have a number of issues arising from (I think) us being too small a customer for them.

We'd much rather work with a freelance accountant or hire a part-time finance person, but we're not sure this is a single role or where we'd find that person. And we've struggled to find a single person who could handle both our UK taxes and Irish taxes.

Ideally the person would handle (and this is where we're feeling ignorant...is this a role?):

- Bookkeeping

- Monthly and Annual Tax returns (identifying opportunities)

- Payroll

- Invoicing (and light credit control)

- Management accounts/reporting to senior team

- Perhaps sourcing funding opportunities (grants, rebates, etc.)

We think it'd be a good role for a self-starter perhaps part qualified who wants to grow with us. But I feel like with our gaps in knowledge of finance/accountancy means we're struggling to even grasp what our next steps should be. You choose your own hours and work from anywhere - but you'd need to be paid to UK or Ireland if employed (but I guess global if acting as self-employed)

I would welcome and love any constructive feedback and thoughts. Thank you!

stephenmario

You are a bit light on details. What's your turnover approx, what accounting software are you using, how many transactions per month go through the books and what do you want in your mgmt accounts? You're not going to find a part qualified who knows UK and Irish taxes but it's not like it's hard to pick up the UK side. It also sounds like a bad fit for someone who is part qualified because they will have no support.

You could go for something like Outmin but IMO, get Xero and get all the automations possible like dext, float, bank feeds etc. Outsource payroll (8 employees should cost around 150 a month) and just go with a firm that offers a Virtual CFO service. Once you have xero set up with everything feeding into it, there shouldn't be that much bookkeeping.

GoldFour4

I wouldn’t be thinking of getting someone part qualified to do tax work in two different territories. A firm is your best fit for now in my opinion