The Happy Accountant

Distribution Costs
As the name suggest, this is the cost of transporting your product to your customers
Administrative Expenses
This includes expenditure on head office premises, administrative staff and overheads.
Apportionments
It is frequently impossible to categorise an item of expenditure as purely distribution or purely administrative.  When this is the case (for any item, not just distribution or admin [...]

Turnover
In the Profit and Loss Account, turnover is the income you generate through your sales.  (Investment income, which will be the subject of a future blog, is dealt with elsewhere)
Cost of Sales
This is basically all the direct expenditure incurred in generating your sales.  Therefore, the cost of stock and raw materials will be included here.
Gross [...]

The Profit and Loss account is probably the financial statement that gets the most attention.  At it’s simplest, it is merely a statement of income less expenditure - which hopefully still leaves a positive figure.  If you are a plc (public limited company, who’s shares are traded on the stock exchange), the Companies Act lays [...]

Because… 

doing the accounts takes you away from your real business
an accountant will do the job quicker
an accountant can save you money
professionally produced year end accounts will be taken more seriously by banks and other lenders
Your accountant can help you get the most out of your business

Assets in the balance sheet are divided into Fixed Assets and Current Assets.
Fixed Assets
Fixed assets must be used by the business.  So you would not normally expect the family home on the balance sheet.  The asset must also have a “life” of more than year, (well, strictly speaking, more than one accounting period, which may be longer [...]

A liability is a debt that a business or person owes.  (A creditor is a liability, because they are owed money)
A current liability is a debt that must be paid within a fairly short period of time.  In balance sheet terms, this is generally accepted as a debt that is repayable within a year.
These include [...]

Capital is the amount of money that the owners have put into the business.  Capital is also referred to as a liability.  This is because capital is the debt that the business owes to its owners.
In the case of a limited company, the capital will be in the form of shares.  When a limited company needs [...]

A balance sheet is divided into two halves, with either:

the capital and liabilities in one half and assets in the other; or
capital in one half and net assets in the other.

 The balance sheet may be presented horizontally or vertically.  In either case, both halves must add up to the same total.
However, a balance sheet is not so named because [...]

Speak to your prospective accountant on the phone first and then, if you are still happy, set up an initial meeting - which should be free of charge.
Ensure that they are professionally qualified and are current members of a professional body (Chartered Accountant (ICAEW/ICAS/ICAI), Chartered Management Accountant (CIMA), Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA) for a fully [...]

I have already posted (4 April 2007) about the difference between bookkeeping and accounting.  Bookkeeping is part of accountancy but there is an Insitute of Certified Bookkeepers, to which appropriately qualified bookkeepers can belong.  (Membership is by examination or by exemption).
Bookkeepers tend to maintain the accounting records of a business throughout the year and handover to [...]