Utilisation, retainers and the place-of-supply rules on every invoice.
Service businesses live on cash timing: retainers paid in advance, projects billed on milestones, contractors paid before the client pays. Add clients in three countries and every invoice carries a VAT or sales tax decision. We make the finance side run like the delivery side.
Four mistakes we fix in the first month.
VAT charged, or not, by guesswork
A UK agency invoicing a Dubai client and a UK agency invoicing a German client are different VAT answers. Getting it wrong is either lost margin or a liability.
Contractor status never assessed
A bench of freelancers is an IR35 or misclassification exposure the size of the payroll that should have been run.
Retainers recognised on receipt
Advance billing is deferred income. Recognising it early flatters the P&L and misleads on capacity.
Profitability by client unknown
Some retainers lose money. Without time or cost tracked to client, nobody knows which.
Built for the sector, not adapted to it.
- Invoicing with the correct VAT or sales tax treatment per client and country
- Deferred and accrued income for retainers, milestones and work in progress
- Client and project profitability in the monthly pack
- Contractor status determinations, onboarding and 1099 or deemed-payroll handling
- Credit control that shortens debtor days without damaging the relationship
- Cash flow forecast built around the billing calendar and contractor payment dates
Usually these.
In roughly this order of importance for agencies & consultancies.
Bookkeeping
Reconciled monthly on Xero or QuickBooks, so the numbers are real before you look at them.
VAT Returns & Compliance
UK and UAE VAT registration, returns and scheme selection, filed digitally and on time.
IR35 & Contractor Compliance
Status determinations, contractor onboarding and the 1099 and off-payroll rules that decide who is really an employee.
Accounts Receivable & Payable
Invoices out on time, suppliers paid on schedule, and a credit-control rhythm that gets you paid faster.
Management Accounts & Reporting
Monthly P&L, balance sheet and cash with commentary you can act on, not a PDF you file away.
Payroll
UK PAYE, UAE WPS and US federal and state payroll, run to the day with every filing that goes with it.
Do I charge VAT to overseas clients?
For business-to-business services the place of supply is usually where the customer is, so a UK agency does not charge UK VAT to a Dubai or New York business client. Consumer clients, and certain services, are different. We set the rule per client at onboarding.
Can you run payroll for staff in the UK and contractors in Pakistan?
Yes. UK PAYE for employees, contractor onboarding with the right documentation for overseas freelancers, and the group cost allocation documented for transfer pricing.
Talk to someone who has done agencies & consultancies books before.
Thirty minutes, no pitch deck. Tell us the entities and the countries, and we will tell you honestly what applies and what it costs.