HGV Owner-Driver Accountants

The consequence is that the useful number stops being your day rate and becomes your cost per mile. Until you know what a mile costs you to run, a rate offered by a customer is a guess. The cost per mile calculator is the fastest way to find out.

• Year-end accounts and the tax return, sole trader or limited company, with the vehicle treated correctly from the day it arrives.
• The purchase or finance decision on the truck: hire purchase, lease or contract hire, what each does to your tax position and, separately, what each does to your cash flow. See buying or financing an HGV.
• VAT registration and returns, including whether the Flat Rate Scheme is worth having once you are reclaiming VAT on diesel in the quantities a truck uses.
• Fuel card reconciliation set up so the weekly statement posts cleanly and the VAT is actually recoverable. See fuel card bookkeeping.
• Self-billing agreements checked and reconciled, so what the customer says they paid you and what your books say agree. See self-billing for HGV owner-drivers.
• Financial standing evidence for the operator licence, prepared in the form the Traffic Commissioner expects rather than as a bank statement bundle. See O-licence financial standing.
• Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: whether it applies to you yet, and getting the records into a shape that will survive it. See MTD for HGV owner-drivers.

There is no universal answer, and anybody who gives you one without asking about the truck finance is not paying attention. The relevant questions for an owner-driver are narrower than the general ones.

• How the vehicle is financed, and in whose name the agreement is. Moving a vehicle that is on hire purchase into a company is not a bookkeeping entry.
• Whether your customers will contract with a sole trader. Some pallet networks and larger hauliers will not.
• Whether the financial standing evidence is easier to demonstrate in a company, where the money sits in a business account with a visible balance.
• What you actually need to draw. A company only saves tax if you can leave some of the profit in it.
• Whether you intend to take on a second vehicle, because that decision is much cheaper to make before the structure is set than after.

• The truck is bought on hire purchase and treated as a monthly expense, so the capital allowance is missed and the tax bill is wrong for the whole period.
• Fuel card statements are filed rather than reconciled, so VAT is either over-claimed on the gross figure or under-claimed because the statement was never posted.
• Self-billed income is recorded from remittance advices that arrive late or not at all, and the turnover in the accounts does not match what the customer reported.
• Financial standing is met by moving money into the account the week the licence is checked. Traffic Commissioners look at the period, not the day.
• The operator takes drawings based on what is in the bank, forgetting that the bank balance includes VAT collected on behalf of HMRC and the next quarter's tyres.
• Downtime is never costed, so a week off the road looks free and the rate that made it necessary is accepted again.

Owner-driver work is quoted as a fixed fee covering the year: bookkeeping arrangement, VAT returns, the accounts and the tax return. The quote is agreed before any work starts and does not change because the year turned out busier than expected.

Tell us how the truck is financed, who your main customers are, and whether you are VAT registered. We come back by email with the fee and the dates.