please can someone help me with this...

A question about : please can someone help me with this...

Hi there

I hope this is the right forum - i need to do a self employed summary of accounts (as Ive been trading under 6 months) for my DWP appoitnment next monday for council tax benefit etc - can anyone help me please?

I dont know what I have to put or anything! I dont have a clue where to start!

Best answers:

• hello, you may wish to re-post on the small business board but in short a simple "three line" book keeping entry will probably do. You will need to list either daily weekly or monthly all the money you had coming in, all the money you had going out and what the total is (for t'business purposes). Anything in that final amount is deemed profit at this stage, so if possible you will need to make that number as low as possible by putting lots of tax deductable items in the second line so that you dont have to pay tax on the profit (or have it taken into account for benefit purposes). I believe you do dog walking or something similar so your three entries may look something like this:
  In, August
  Mrs Miggins pooch; 5 hours: Ј10
  Mr Farquaharson; 10 hours: Ј20
  Mr Lewis; 20 hours: Ј40
  Out, August
  Shoes (workwear) Ј50
  Petrol to clients 40 miles @ 35p: Ј14
  Laundry(workwear) 4 loads @Ј1.50: Ј6
  Marketing: leaflets print and drop: Ј50
  Balance, August
  -Ј50
  I hope that makes a little bit of sense. Any receipts you have to support your "books" will help. Seek professional advice too though.
• Inland Revenue official mileage rates
  I'm sure the DWP would not argue with the Inland Revenue should the claimant choose to use the higher amounts as listed at link above.