Practice Accountant and Bookkeeper (Fully Remote)
Full-time · Permanent · Fully remote, UK only · Trades specialists · Immediate start
Together We Count is a specialist firm of accountants for trades businesses: plumbers, heating engineers, electricians, roofers and construction firms. We do proper, hands-on client work, and we back it with real investment in automation and AI, so our team can spend its time on skilled work rather than routine data entry.
We are looking for an experienced accountant to join us full-time and fully remote, with an immediate start. The core of the job is year-end accounts, Self Assessment, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment and Companies House compliance. Alongside that, you will pick up bookkeeping and VAT work when demand dictates, so the mix shifts through the month rather than staying neatly in one lane.
Being straight with you about that last point, because it matters: this is not a job with a fixed weekly pattern. Accounts and Self Assessment work gets fitted around everything else, and when a VAT quarter, a CIS deadline or a client’s books need attention, that comes first. VAT falls on the 7th, management accounts on the 15th and CIS on the 19th, and accounts filing deadlines land on top. If you want the same predictable rhythm every week, this will frustrate you. If you like variety and you are good at working out what needs doing first, you will enjoy it.
The person we’re looking for
We’re looking for an experienced, practical accountant who can work independently and contribute from day one. This is not a trainee or development position, and it won’t suit anyone who needs close supervision. It will suit an established professional who wants defined, self-contained work.
Because you will be picking up live client work straight away, we are not able to offer a training or development programme. We will show you our systems and our way of working, and there is always someone to ask, but the technical knowledge needs to be there when you start.
You will be working under two managers, one looking after the accounts and tax side and one looking after the bookkeeping side. That means you need to be organised enough to hold two sets of priorities at once, and confident enough to speak up when they collide, rather than quietly letting a deadline slip.
We value applied, real-world experience above formal qualifications. Qualifications are welcome but not essential; what matters is a proven record of accounts, tax and day-to-day accounting done well. A qualification on its own, without practical application, isn’t enough. We need someone who understands the realities of the work, not just the theory.
This is a hands-on delivery role, not a supervisory or management one. It will suit someone who takes pride in doing the work well and will turn their hand to the full range of tasks, routine and complex alike, with no job considered beneath them. It isn’t a stepping stone into team leadership. Above all, we need someone dependable and straightforward, who can be trusted to get on with the work with minimal oversight, use good judgement about when to query and when to proceed, and see every task through to completion.
What you’ll be doing
You’ll work independently on jobs delegated by your two managers, running them through to completion and only raising what genuinely needs their input.
Year-end accounts and tax
- Preparing limited company year-end accounts and CT600 corporation tax returns from the client’s records through to submission, working papers and all, then acting on a manager’s review points to get the job over the line.
- Preparing sole trader and landlord accounts and Self Assessment returns, including catch-up returns where a client has several years outstanding.
- Preparing the year-end accounts that sit behind our Making Tax Digital for Income Tax clients, so the final declaration is built on figures that actually stand up.
- Dormant company accounts and returns, including for companies sitting inside a group.
- Directors’ loan accounts, including overdrawn positions and the section 455 consequences, and being able to explain what that means to a client in plain English.
- The ad hoc work that comes with looking after trades businesses properly: mortgage references, breakeven analysis, cash flow forecasts, benchmark reports, remuneration and dividend planning etc
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment
- Signing clients up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax through our agent account and getting the right software connected at their end.
- Getting sole traders and landlords onto digital record keeping properly, rather than just ticking a box, so their quarterly figures mean something.
- Preparing and submitting the quarterly updates to deadline, then the year-end final declaration.
- Explaining the new regime to clients who are not looking forward to it, patiently and in plain words, and chasing the ones who go quiet.
- Helping us tighten up how we run this at scale, because it is still bedding in and the process will keep improving.
Companies House and company secretarial
- Confirmation statements, share transfers and reorganisations, director and PSC changes, registered office changes and authentication code requests.
- Companies House identity verification for directors and people with significant control, which in practice means chasing clients by email, phone and WhatsApp until it is actually done.
- Company incorporations and the onboarding that goes with them: engagement letters, identity and anti-money-laundering checks, agent authorisations and professional clearance from the client’s previous accountant.
- Dealing with HMRC and Companies House directly, on the phone and in writing, from agent authorisations and payment reallocations through to filing rejections.
Bookkeeping and VAT, when demand dictates
- Keeping client books clean and accurate in Xero: reviewing transactions for miscoding, recoding to the right nominals and putting the VAT treatment straight.
- Preparing and reviewing VAT returns, including group VAT where a client has more than one company, and preparing monthly CIS returns and refund claims.
- Posting journals and correcting prior-period entries.
- Handling the fiddly compliance jobs, such as VAT and CIS registrations and deregistrations, including working out an unfamiliar process and dealing with HMRC directly.
- Reconciling bank accounts and payment platforms like Stripe, ServiceM8 and GoCardless.
- Lending a hand with sales ledger, credit control, supplier statement reconciliations, payment runs and the monthly management accounts when they fall due.
- Working alongside our AI-assisted bookkeeping: checking and correcting its output rather than taking it at face value, and telling us where you think we could use AI to work even smarter.
The experience you’ll need
- At least five years’ recent, hands-on UK experience, in practice or in-house, covering accounts preparation, personal tax and day-to-day bookkeeping.
- Demonstrable experience of preparing limited company accounts and CT600 returns, and Self Assessment returns, without someone checking every figure behind you.
- Practical experience of Making Tax Digital, and ideally of getting clients set up and filing under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. If you have not done the Income Tax side yet but you know MTD for VAT inside out, tell us and we will talk.
- A confident, hands-on command of Xero. If you’re Xero certified, even better. We’ll just ask to see your certification.
- Strong, practical VAT knowledge, including the domestic reverse charge and reduced-rate work that’s common in the trades, plus solid CIS experience.
- Experience of accounts production and tax software. We use TaxCalc, so that would be a head start.
- Confidence dealing with HMRC and Companies House directly, and the resourcefulness to work an unfamiliar process out and see it through.
- The organisation to work for two managers at once and keep both sets of deadlines in view.
- A genuine interest in AI, and the judgement to check its work rather than simply trust it.
- A sharp eye for detail and a calm, methodical head when the books you’ve inherited are in a mess.
- Experience with trades clients, plumbing, heating and construction, would be a massive advantage.
Day to day you’ll work in Xero, document-capture tools such as Hubdoc, TaxCalc, our practice management and time software, Inform Direct, our MTD filing tools, our AI-assisted bookkeeping and the HMRC and Companies House portals. You won’t know every one of these on day one, but you will need to pick software up quickly under your own steam.
What’s in it for you
- Fully home-based, so no commute, and the freedom to fit work around the rest of your life outside our core hours.
- A permanent, full-time role with genuine variety, rather than the same handful of jobs every month.
- A front-row seat on Making Tax Digital for Income Tax while it is still new, which is experience that will be worth having for years.
- A friendly, close-knit team that looks after each other, even though we’re remote.
- The chance to build genuinely useful AI skills in a real finance role, in a firm that is actually investing in it rather than talking about it.
The essentials
- Hours: full-time, [hours per week to be confirmed], Monday to Friday, with core hours to be agreed. The work peaks around our key dates, VAT on the 7th, management accounts on the 15th, CIS on the 19th, the MTD quarterly deadlines and accounts filing dates, so hours flex up a little around those and ease off in between.
- Pay: [salary to be confirmed], plus 20 days’ holiday and a workplace pension. If you’d prefer to work self-employed, we’re open to that.
- Contract: permanent, full-time. Immediate start.
- Location: fully remote, and you must be living and working in the UK. This is a UK-only role and we are not able to consider applicants based overseas. We will provide a computer and a second screen. You will need to provide a good internet connection and a private space where client information can be kept confidential.
- Reporting to: two managers, one for accounts and tax and one for bookkeeping.
- You’ll need the right to work in the UK. We’re an equal-opportunities employer and welcome applications from everyone with the right experience.
- Note this is a temp to perm role.
How to apply
Like the sound of it? Email your CV to [email protected] and tell us why you’d be a great fit for the job. Here’s what happens next:
- If we like the sound of you and your CV, we’ll invite you to carry out a small practical test.
- Go well with that, and we’ll invite you to a video interview with the team on Microsoft Teams.
- The final step is a face-to-face interview in Sheffield. This one is not optional, we want to meet you in person before we make an offer.
Pay: £14.00-£18.00 per hour
Work Location: Remote
