What Records Should You Give Your Accountant?

The average small business owner spends around seven hours a week on bookkeeping and record-keeping tasks. Seven hours! That's nearly a full working day, every single week, often spent doing something most business owners never trained for and don't particularly enjoy. Here's the frustrating part, though: a huge amount of that time is spent inefficiently, not because the task itself is inherently difficult, but because nobody ever explained clearly what actually needs to be kept, and what doesn't.

We see this constantly here at Cannon Accountants. New clients arrive from Folkestone, Dover, Canterbury, Ashford, and Deal, often apologising before they've even sat down. "Sorry, I know my records are a mess." Nine times out of ten, they're not nearly as bad as the client fears, and the confusion usually comes down to one simple thing: nobody ever gave them a clear, specific list of what we actually need.

So here it is. A proper, practical guide to exactly what records to give your accountant, organised by business type, with real examples from our own practice, so you can stop guessing and start handing over precisely what's useful.

Why This Actually Matters More Than People Think

Before the list itself, it's worth understanding why this genuinely affects both the accuracy of your accounts and how much you end up paying for them.

Your accountant can only work with what they're given. If your records are incomplete, your accounts will be too, which risks under-claiming expenses you're legitimately entitled to, or worse, missing income that later surfaces and causes a problem with HMRC. And if your records arrive disorganised, hours are spent reconstructing and clarifying before any actual accounting work can even begin, time that, fairly, gets reflected in your fee.

We had a plumber client, working across Folkestone and Hythe, whose fee jumped noticeably in his first year with a previous firm compared to what he'd been quoted. The reason, once we later reviewed it, was simple: his "records" had arrived as a carrier bag of loose receipts, some faded beyond reading, several without any note of what they were actually for. Good record-keeping isn't just tidiness for its own sake. It's the difference between your accountant spending their time on genuine analysis and planning, or spending it on detective work.

The Core Records Every Business Needs

Regardless of whether you're a sole trader or a limited company, VAT registered or not, employing staff or working entirely alone, a handful of core records form the foundation of everything else.

Records of All Income

Every invoice you've issued, every payment you've received, whether from card transactions, bank transfers, cash, or platforms like PayPal. This includes income from all sources, not just your main trading activity; if you've received rental income, freelance work outside your main business, or occasional consultancy fees, all of it needs to be captured.

Records of All Expenses

Receipts, invoices, and bank statements covering everything you've spent on the business: stock, materials, subcontractors, software subscriptions, insurance, professional fees, travel, and so on. The general rule for what's allowable is that an expense must be wholly and exclusively for business purposes, though there are sensible exceptions for genuinely mixed-use costs like a home office or a personal mobile phone used partly for work.

Bank Statements

Statements for any account used for business transactions, ideally a dedicated business account, though we recognise many sole traders use a personal account, particularly in their first year or two. Having a full, unbroken run of statements, not just the months you remember to save, makes reconciliation dramatically faster and more accurate.

Records of Any Business Assets

If you've purchased equipment, a vehicle, machinery, or tools for the business, keep the purchase invoice and any relevant finance agreement. These often qualify for capital allowances, and without a proper record of the purchase, that relief is much harder to claim accurately.

What Sole Traders Specifically Need to Provide

If you're a sole trader, alongside the core records above, we'll typically also need details of any pension contributions made during the year, since these can extend your basic rate tax band and reduce your overall tax bill. We'll need details of any other income you've received personally, employment income if you also have a part-time job alongside your business, dividends from investments, or rental income from a property. And if your business involves any use of your home, keep a rough note of how many rooms are used and how regularly, since this supports a legitimate use-of-home expense claim.

A landscape gardener client of ours near Ashford initially assumed his part-time evening bar work, done purely to supplement income in his first year of self-employment, had nothing to do with his accountant. It absolutely did; it needed declaring as part of his overall Self Assessment. Once we explained why, he understood immediately, but it's exactly the kind of gap that catches people out simply because nobody had ever spelled it out.

What Limited Companies Need to Provide

Limited companies carry additional obligations, and with them, additional records worth keeping properly organised. Alongside income, expenses, and bank statements, we'll need details of any director's loans, money moved between you personally and the company outside of salary or dividends, since these carry specific tax implications if not accounted for correctly. We'll need dividend voucher records for any dividends paid to shareholders during the year, confirming the amount and date of each payment. And we'll need details of any salary paid to directors or employees, ideally already reflected in your payroll records if that's being run separately.

If your company owns any significant assets, vehicles, machinery, property, keep records of both the original purchase and any subsequent disposal, since both ends of that transaction affect your tax position. A builder's merchant client of ours near Ashford sold an older van partway through the year without mentioning it to us until his year-end review; fortunately, we caught it in time, but a quick note at the point of sale would have made the whole process considerably smoother.

What VAT-Registered Businesses Need to Provide

If you're VAT registered, accuracy and timeliness matter even more, given the quarterly filing cycle under Making Tax Digital. Keep every sales invoice issued and every purchase invoice received, clearly showing the VAT charged or paid, along with records of any VAT-exempt or zero-rated transactions, which need separate treatment from standard-rated ones.

If your business involves any cross-border trade, and this is a genuine consideration for a number of our clients given Kent's proximity to the Port of Dover and the Channel Tunnel, keep clear documentation of exports and imports, since the VAT treatment differs meaningfully from domestic transactions and getting it wrong can be costly.

What Employers Need to Provide

If you have staff, alongside standard payroll processing, we'll need details of any new starters or leavers as they happen, including their P45 if they've come from previous employment, along with details of any benefits provided outside of standard salary, a company car, private health insurance, or similar, since these typically need reporting separately to HMRC. If you're running a workplace pension scheme, keep records of the contribution rates and any changes made during the year.

A retail client of ours near Maidstone once had a new starter begin without letting us know for almost three weeks, simply because the first few weeks were hectic and it slipped his mind. Nothing disastrous happened, but it meant a slightly rushed correction to that month's payroll submission that could easily have been avoided with a quick message the day the new employee started.

What Landlords and Property Owners Need to Provide

If you receive rental income, alongside the rent received itself, keep records of allowable expenses: letting agent fees, insurance, repairs and maintenance, mortgage interest if applicable, though the tax treatment of mortgage interest has changed considerably in recent years and is worth discussing directly rather than assuming the old rules still apply. If you've sold a property during the year, keep the purchase and sale documentation together, since this affects any Capital Gains Tax position.

Records You Genuinely Don't Need to Worry About

We want to be fair here, because some business owners overcompensate once they realise good record-keeping matters, submitting far more than necessary out of understandable anxiety. You don't need to keep records of purely personal spending unrelated to the business. You don't need to submit every single email conversation with a supplier, just the actual invoices and payments. And you don't need to manually calculate anything before sending records over; that interpretive work is precisely what we're here for. Send us the raw information, clearly organised, and let us handle the calculation.

How to Actually Get Records to Us

This is where modern tools have made an enormous difference, and it's worth genuinely embracing them if you haven't already. Cloud accounting software like Xero or QuickBooks allows receipts to be photographed on your phone and automatically matched to bank transactions, removing most of the manual filing burden entirely. A hairdresser client of ours in Hythe now photographs every receipt the moment she receives it, on the spot, rather than saving a growing pile for later. Her records are effectively always up to date, and her year-end review takes a fraction of the time it once did.

If you're not yet using software like this, even a simple, consistent system, a labelled folder for physical receipts, a dedicated email address for supplier invoices, a basic spreadsheet updated weekly rather than reconstructed from memory months later, makes a genuine difference. The goal isn't perfection. It's consistency, so nothing gets lost and nothing needs to be pieced together retrospectively under pressure.

How Long You Actually Need to Keep Records

This surprises people fairly often: HMRC requires sole traders to keep records for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline of the relevant tax year, and limited companies to keep records for at least six years from the end of the last company financial year they relate to. Digital storage has made this dramatically easier than it used to be; there's no need to keep growing boxes of paper in a garage or spare room if everything's properly scanned and stored electronically.

A Simple Rule of Thumb

If you're ever unsure whether something's worth keeping or sending over, our advice is simple: when in doubt, keep it and ask. It's far easier for us to tell you a particular record isn't needed than for us to try to reconstruct something after the fact that was never kept in the first place. We'd always rather review something unnecessary than discover, months later, that something genuinely important was thrown away.

What Happens When Records Are Well Organised

We think it's worth ending on a positive example, because good record-keeping genuinely transforms the experience, for you and for us. A café owner we work with near Whitstable moved from handing over a literal shoebox of receipts each year to using a simple app that photographs and categorises everything as it happens. Her year-end accounts, which previously took weeks of back-and-forth to finalise properly, are now typically completed within days of her year-end closing. Her fee has stayed stable for three years running, because the underlying work involved has become genuinely more efficient, not because we've cut corners.

That's really the outcome we want for every client: records that are complete, consistent, and easy to hand over, so the time we spend together is focused on the parts that actually add value, planning ahead, spotting opportunities, and helping your business make good decisions, rather than piecing together what happened after the fact.

Getting This Right From the Start

If you're setting up a new business, or you've simply never had a clear list like this before, we'd encourage you to get your record-keeping system sorted early, before habits form that are harder to unpick later. If you're an existing client and you're ever unsure what to send us, just ask; we'd always rather have that quick conversation than let confusion turn into a bigger job at year-end.

If you're currently searching for an accountant across Folkestone, Dover, Canterbury, Ashford, or Deal, and you're unsure whether your current record-keeping is up to scratch, get in touch with us at Cannon Accountants. We'll take a look, tell you plainly what's working and what isn't, and help you set up a system that makes the whole process considerably easier going forward.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to keep paper receipts if I've already photographed them digitally?

Generally, no. HMRC accepts digital copies of receipts and invoices, provided they're clear and legible, so a properly organised digital system is entirely sufficient and often far more reliable than paper that can fade or get lost over time.

What if I've lost a receipt for a genuine business expense?

It's not necessarily fatal to the claim, particularly for smaller amounts, but it does weaken your position if HMRC ever queries it. Bank or card statements showing the transaction can sometimes support a claim in the absence of the original receipt, so it's worth discussing individually rather than assuming the expense simply can't be claimed.

Should I send records as they happen, or wait and send everything at once at year-end?

Sending records regularly, monthly or quarterly, produces far better results than one large batch at year-end. It keeps your understanding of the business current throughout the year, makes tax planning genuinely possible before deadlines arrive, and avoids the scramble and higher fees that come with a huge backlog handed over all at once.

What's the single most common record business owners forget to provide?

Details of any personal pension contributions made during the year, and any additional income sources outside the main business, like a second job or rental income. Both can significantly affect a tax calculation, and both are very easy to simply forget to mention.