Welcome to inniAccounts! In the course of this guide, we’ll introduce you to key areas of our software to get your contracting or consulting business up and running.
inniAccounts has been designed to save you time, keep you informed and to help you see your business finances in realtime. Each area of our online accounting software has been designed to be intuitive and to get you started we’ve put together an overview of the key features you’ll use day to day.
Overview of inniAccounts’ features
Your company dashboard
Your dashboard provides a summary of your company’s cash position that you can click to explore. We call this LiveCash which updates in real time as you update your records in inniAccounts. It is designed to give you an at a glance view of your company’s finances that you can explore and use to help with financial decisions.
Your dashboard is also home to important messages to remind you of important actions and deadlines, for example VAT deadlines or overdue invoice payments. You’ll be guided through what action to take and reminders will disappear once complete.
Setting up contracts / clients
The first place to start is to set up your client or contract. This will save you time as details you enter for your client are used throughout the software for tracking and so you don’t need to keep re-entering the same information.
Time, expenses & mileage
The Quick Entry area allows you to quickly record day to day activities and transactions including time spent working for your customers, business expense paid using personal money and business mileage travelled in a personal vehicle. Expenses recorded on the Quick Entry area will be reimbursed to you, or your employees.
Invoicing
You will use the invoicing area to create and manage invoices for your customers. You will normally create an invoice for your client or contract that you’ve already set up in inniAccounts. By setting up your client your invoice will be pre-populated with your client’s details and you’ll with a few clicks attach billable time, expenses and mileage that you’ve entered in the Quick Entry area. The software can ensure that you bill your client accurately.
You can email your invoice directly to your client from the invoicing area.
Payroll & dividends
The payroll area is where yours and your employee payslips for salary payments can be edited. Running payroll will also automatically reimburse you and your employees’ mileage and business expenses paid for personally paid (entered in Quick Entry).
You will also be able to pay your shareholders dividends and when doing so you’ll see a summary of how much your company profits after accounting for corporation tax.
It’s important to ensure that your bookkeeping is up to date before paying salary or dividends and that you have a record in inniAccounts before making any payments.
Bookkeeping
You’ll use the bookkeeping area to maintain an accurate record of your company’s business bank account transactions by keeping your bookkeeping transactions matched exactly to your company’s bank and credit card statements. By doing so you can be confident that inniAccounts will provide you with an accurate view of your company’s finances.
You’ll need to:
- Ensure that any pending payments (such as invoice payments or payroll payments) are matched with the transactions on your statement
- Add any missing transactions, such as bank interest or outgoings paid for from your company’s bank account.
- Check the date and amounts of transactions and your bank balance to ensure they exactly match your bank statement.
You’ll need to ensure that you undertake this for each of your company’s bank, savings and credit card accounts.
- Bookkeeping
- Setting up bank statement importing
- Managing a savings account
- Managing a credit card
- Recording overseas expenses
- Charging VAT when billing clients expenses
- Transferring personal assets into your company
- Introduction to business expenses
- List of common business expenses
Paying taxes
It’s important to ensure that you pay your taxes on time. inniAccounts will keep track of your taxes throughout the year and remind you what you need to pay, and when.
PAYE (Income Tax and National Insurance)
When you need to pay HMRC Income Tax or National Insurance a reminder will appear on your homepage. You’ll be shown what to pay and how to pay it.
To read more about PAYE payments, click here.
VAT
If you are VAT registered you’ll need to pay that each quarter also. You’ll receive an email and a reminder on your homepage once your VAT return is due. You’ll need to ensure that your bookkeeping is up to date and then check the transactions on your VAT return. Your account manager will then submit your VAT return and send you an email detailing how much VAT is due. The VAT will normally be collected automatically via Direct Debit.
To read more about your VAT returns and payments, click here.
Corporation Tax
Corporation Tax is paid annually and is calculated from the amount of profit your company has made. Your accountant will contact you at the end of your company’s financial year to produce your accounts. Once the accounts are complete you’ll be told how much Corporation Tax you’ll need to pay.
Throughout the year inniAccounts will keep track of all of these taxes. If you keep your bookkeeping up to date you can go ahead and spend your ‘available cash’ (as shown on your dashboard). You can be confident that you’ll have enough cash left in the bank to pay your taxes.
