Ask three Manchester accountants what they charge and you will get three answers, none of them before a meeting. That makes it almost impossible to know whether a £180 a month quote is competitive or twice what it should be. The numbers below are what the market actually charges, broken down by service, so you can price a quote before you take the call.
The short answer
A small limited company in Manchester with a director, no employees and VAT registration pays £900 to £2,000 a year for compliance, or roughly £75 to £170 a month.
Add bookkeeping, payroll and management accounts and a full-service package runs £200 to £400 a month. Businesses with several staff, high transaction volumes or complex VAT run £250 to £750 a month and upwards.
Anything advertised at £20 to £50 a month is software resale with filing attached. It is not wrong, but it is not an accountant paying attention to your business either.
What each service costs on its own
Most quotes bundle these. Knowing the components lets you see what you are actually buying and what you could drop.
| Service | Typical Manchester price |
|---|---|
| Year-end accounts and CT600 | £500 to £1,500 + VAT a year |
| Director's self assessment | £150 to £400 a year |
| Confirmation statement | £34.80 filing fee plus £50 to £100 handling |
| VAT returns | £30 to £120 per quarter |
| Bookkeeping | £100 to £400 a month |
| Payroll | £4 to £8 per payslip, £25 to £50 monthly minimum |
| Management accounts | £75 to £250 a month |
| Company formation | £50 to £200 plus the Companies House fee |
The two that surprise people are year-end accounts, which is the single largest line and the one most people assume is included in a monthly fee, and payroll, which is priced per payslip so it scales directly with headcount.
The four things that move the price
Transaction volume. The main driver, and the one you can answer honestly to get a comparable quote. Fifty transactions a month and eight hundred are different jobs.
VAT registration. Adds four returns a year and a materially higher standard of record-keeping. Registration is compulsory once taxable turnover passes the threshold set out in HMRC's VAT registration guidance, and voluntary registration below it is a real decision with a cost attached.
Payroll and headcount. Each employee adds a payslip, auto-enrolment assessment and the statutory pay calculations that come with real people taking real leave, which is why payroll is priced per payslip rather than folded into a flat fee.
How organised you are. This is the variable nobody quotes on and everybody pays for. A client who reconciles weekly through proper bookkeeping costs less to serve than one producing a carrier bag in December, and after the first year most firms reprice accordingly.
Fixed fee or hourly
Almost every Manchester practice now quotes fixed monthly fees, and that is the right default. You know the cost, they know the revenue, and neither side is watching a clock during a phone call.
The trap is what sits outside the fixed fee. Ad-hoc advice, HMRC correspondence, an enquiry, a reference letter for a mortgage, a change of company structure. Some firms include reasonable ad-hoc questions and some bill every email. That single difference changes the real annual cost more than the headline number does.
One firm on our shortlist of the best accountants in Manchester states plainly that there are no padded hours and no surprise invoices, just one figure agreed up front. That is the standard worth holding others to.
Hourly billing still appears for advisory work, at £200 to £500 an hour depending on seniority. For planning work that is reasonable. For compliance it is a warning sign, and if your fee has crept up without a conversation, moving firms costs nothing but the notice period.
Give every firm the same six facts: turnover, number of monthly transactions, VAT status, number of employees, which software you use, and whether you want bookkeeping included. Quotes built on different assumptions cannot be compared, and the cheapest is usually the one that assumed the least.
What is not usually included
Read the engagement letter for these, because they are the most common source of an unexpected invoice:
- Tax investigation cover. Frequently sold separately at £100 to £300 a year. Worth it, given HMRC's current enquiry activity.
- Advisory and planning. Anything beyond filing what happened. Genuine tax planning is a specialist engagement and is priced as one.
- R&D claims. Charged per claim or as a percentage.
- Company secretarial beyond the confirmation statement.
- Software licences. Whether the Xero or QuickBooks subscription is inside the fee, and crucially whose name it is in.
That last point matters more than the money. If the practice owns the subscription, your ledger lives in their account and changing firms means an export at best.
Chartered or not
"Accountant" is not a protected title in the UK. Anyone can use it, with no qualification, no insurance and no complaints process.
ICAEW, ACCA and AAT members are held to professional standards, must carry professional indemnity insurance, are subject to practice inspection and can be complained about to a body that will act. Every firm we shortlisted holds at least one, and you can verify any claim yourself on the ICAEW's own register in about a minute.
An unqualified bookkeeper doing straightforward compliance for a simple business may be perfectly competent and noticeably cheaper. The difference shows up when something goes wrong, and there is nobody standing behind the advice.
When you do not need one yet
If you are a sole trader below the VAT threshold with simple income and few expenses, a self assessment is genuinely doable yourself. HMRC publishes the income tax rates and allowances you need, and accounting software plus an hour of paid advice once a year is better value than a monthly retainer.
The point to hire is when the answer to a question starts costing more than the question. In practice that is incorporating, VAT registration, the first employee, or the first property. All four change the arithmetic enough that getting it wrong costs more than a year of fees.
We research the accountants working in Manchester and rank the ones worth paying. Independently researched, re-checked quarterly, free to read.
See the ranked list
Key takeaways
- A small Manchester limited company pays £900 to £2,000 a year for compliance, or £75 to £170 a month.
- Full-service packages including bookkeeping and payroll run £200 to £400 a month.
- Year-end accounts and the CT600 are the largest single line at £500 to £1,500 plus VAT.
- Transaction volume, VAT status, headcount and how organised you are drive the price more than anything else.
- Check what sits outside the fixed fee, particularly ad-hoc advice and HMRC correspondence.
- "Accountant" is an unprotected title. Verify ICAEW, ACCA or AAT membership.
Frequently asked questions
Is a monthly or annual fee better?
Monthly is easier to budget and is what most Manchester practices now offer. The important detail is not the frequency but whether the fee is fixed and what it excludes. A monthly fee that stops covering you the moment HMRC writes a letter is not a fixed fee.
Why is my quote higher than my friend's?
Almost always transaction volume, VAT status or payroll. A VAT-registered company with four employees and six hundred transactions a month is several times the work of a single-director consultancy invoicing twice a month, even if the turnover figures look similar.
Do I need to be in the same city as my accountant?
Not for the compliance work, which is delivered by software and email wherever you both are. Being local helps when you want a face-to-face conversation about something difficult, and it helps with trust. Treat it as a tiebreaker rather than a requirement.
What is included in "year-end accounts"?
Statutory accounts filed at Companies House and the CT600 corporation tax return filed with HMRC, usually prepared together. It does not automatically include your personal self assessment, which is a separate return with a separate fee, and that is the most common misunderstanding on a first invoice.
How much does it cost to switch accountants?
Nothing directly. The incoming firm writes to the outgoing one for professional clearance and your records, and your old accountant is professionally obliged to respond. You may have to settle unpaid fees before documents are released, and there is sometimes a small charge for preparing handover information.
Should I pay for tax investigation cover?
For most businesses, yes. It typically costs £100 to £300 a year and covers the professional fees of responding to an HMRC enquiry, which can run to thousands even when you have done nothing wrong. Enquiry activity has increased notably, particularly around R&D claims.
Can I just use online accounting software instead?
Software handles record-keeping and filing mechanics well. What it does not do is tell you that your salary and dividend split is wrong, that a purchase should have been structured differently, or that you are about to cross a threshold. For a simple sole trader, software plus an annual review is often enough. For a limited company, it usually is not.
What is Making Tax Digital and does it change the cost?
Making Tax Digital for income tax begins phasing in from April 2026 for sole traders and landlords above the qualifying income threshold, replacing one annual return with quarterly updates. For anyone still using spreadsheets it means new software and new habits, and most practices are repricing to reflect four submissions a year instead of one.
Are cheap online accountants any good?
Some are genuinely good and appropriate for simple companies. What you give up is a named person who knows your business, and proactive advice, because the model depends on standardisation. If your affairs are simple and repetitive, the trade is reasonable. If they are not, it is false economy.
When should I get a second opinion?
If your accountant has not raised a planning point in two years, if you cannot get a straight answer on what your fee covers, or if you are approaching a transaction such as a sale, a property purchase or bringing in an investor. The cost of a review is small against the cost of finding out afterwards.
