Construction industry

Amongst other things the ideal business structure of a construction company depends on the nature and size of the business, its ownership, and your ambitions for it.

Our knowledge of the sector will ensure that we can help you look at the pros and cons of various structures and determine the best fit for you and your business.

Effective management of the cost of every project is vital and getting this right remains critical to the success of any construction business.

We have helped many construction clients determine their best approach to this and are regularly called in to solve project issues and share our experience of best practice in this area.

Finding finance has become notoriously difficult for the construction sector.

We have established relationships with the lenders who are best placed, and most supportive, to the sector and have experience of helping to achieve mutually satisfying outcomes for all concerned. Furthermore, our understanding of what financial information is required by banks enables us to work with you to develop useful routine management information reports to provide to lenders.

In addition to bank finance, we can also provide advice and introductions for other available options for raising finance for your business.

We assist our clients by designing and implementing long term incentive plans such as share option schemes to attract and reward key personnel within the business, as well as using our experience of the sector to advise on salary structures and short term bonus schemes.

By understanding your goals and the nature of your business, we can assist you to plan so as to achieve tax efficiency in your operations.

We have an award winning tax team who can proactively advise you with a myriad of taxes, which include:

•        Capital Gains Tax and Entrepreneurs’ relief
•        Construction Industry Scheme
•        Corporation Tax
•        Inheritance Tax and Business Property Relief
•        Land Remediation
•        Research & Development Tax credits
•        Stamp Duty Land Tax
•        VAT

CIS is far reaching and covers many activities that are not immediately obvious.

We can help by:

• Appraising you of the CIS rules and advising whether your activities are within scope
• Advising on whether certain contracts can be split
• Assisting you to establish robust procedures to operate CIS correctly and avoid penalties
• Assisting generally with your business’ overall tax compliance to retain/obtain gross payment status
• Supporting you in dealing with HMRC enquiries

The operation of VAT in the construction industry is highly complex as VAT on supplies can range from zero rated, reduced rate and standard rate depending on the nature of works undertaken.  Sometimes a combination of rates will apply to a single contract.

The use of applications for payment, self-billing and authenticated-receipt procedures add to the complexity.

The consequences of getting VAT wrong can be serious.  Tight construction margins rarely allow leeway so in many cases there will be no recourse to recover VAT that has been incorrectly charged.

For these reasons, construction businesses are well advised to work with specialists who are familiar with the industry and are able to help your business not only stay within the rules, but also to maximise the VAT efficiency of your activities.

We can help with:

• Advising on the correct rate of VAT to apply, e.g on renovations, new builds or conversions
• Advising on correct operation of self-billing and authenticated receipts procedure for main contractors and sub-contractors.
• Advising on most appropriate structures to maximise VAT efficiency.
• Advising on the correct operation of VAT where overseas projects are concerned.
• Advising on the advantages of VAT groups.
• Supporting businesses that are subject to VAT enquiries and disputes.

Your accounts are important. 

They are the measure by which financiers, investors and other stakeholders will form a view of your business performance, and are often a key part of a contract’s pre-qualification package.  So when we, as Chartered Accountants, ensure your statutory accounts meet the disclosure requirements of either UK GAAP or IFRS, we go just that bit further – we consider how we can, within the constraints of those accounting regulations, best display the true picture of your business. 

Where the company is part of a larger, International group, we can assist with the upward reporting packs, and also assist you to consider and report on the differences between UK and overseas reporting requirements. 

We have many years’ experience of auditing construction and civil engineering companies and are specialists in understanding and applying not only the stock and long term contract accounting rules but also the risks associated with portable plant and machinery, and site-based operations.

The benefits to our clients are:

• A team who are conversant with the industry and special rules for accounting for long term contracts and WIP
• A full awareness of the application for payment process, and the difference between measured marks and variations and claims, which can have a marked impact on turnover and balance sheet value.
• Understanding the needs and process for smoothing of prelims and demobilisations costs and profit, and other component parts of Cost Value Reconciliations. 

We developed our online accounting service in order to be able to streamline the service we provide to our clients by eliminating unnecessary time spent on data transfer and enabling us to focus our time on getting straight to work on the data itself. 

Since then of course, online access to bank accounts and instant communication has become a feature of the modern business.