costs of audit, bursar, payroll bureau

[TwoGirlsNowNoSleep]

Hello,

I'm a pre-school's committee member (voluntary - run by parents), first time, and we try to cut costs. I don't really have an idea how much things should cost, but the amounts look quite high - especially the audit, considering we are quite small, with a budget of a bit more than £100k and don't need to do one (but do it as kind of insurance)

Does this sound too expensive or normal (annual costs)
bursar (budget, invoices for parents): £1600
payroll bureau £830
auditor: £3500

Any ideas welcome - particularly interested in audit costs!
Thank you

I have just spoken to my DH, who is an accountant and he says audit would be bare minimum of £2500. He did say though that rather than a full audit you could do an "accountant's report" which would cost ballpark £500 instead. It is not as thorough, but would involve someone external looking at your figures, which may be all you need.

Thank you! I did not know that there's something in between, so definitely worth looking into it, considering that we are running at a loss at the moment.

i work in audit/ accountancy and above poster is correct. For an audit there is a minimum amount of work you have to do regardless of size which means its not really worth doing for less than about the amount you are being charged. TBH i wouldn't bother having an audit done if i were you.

Whats the set-up of the preschool- is it a limited company or a charity (or both). Does the current accountant also prepare the statutory accounts? An accountants report is what we attach to accounts where we prepare the accounts from the clients source records- it basically says that the accounts are in accordance with the records. £500 sounds abit cheap for a £100k company though, we'd charge more like £1,200, more if the records were messy.

how many staff on the payroll and is it weekly or monthly? that cost sounds expensive if not many staff but then we're cheap on payroll.

Hi ChazDingle,

we are only a charity, and employ a bursar/ bookkeeper, so hope the records are alright - at least they are all on a spreadsheet.

Income is 3 times a year from government plus for all children (up to 48 in summer term) invoices every half term, so 6. Fundraising comes in as few amounts (eg raffle).

We have 6 part time staff, pay is per hour, split over 12 months, so they are paid each 12 times/ year. Payroll bureau was employed because yearly changing committees got too often the pay wrong.

The audit was done first when the council demanded it for a change in funding, and somehow nobody stopped it.

Thank you so much for your reply!

Hi there
We have a book keeper who runs the Pre School accounts and she covers all the admin and payroll for about £2000 a year.
Nearly £70 a month for just a payroll service for 6 staff sounds an awful lot!
I'd advise you to phone around and get some quotes. :0)

Hello

I run a payroll services company and we can take care of all your statutory requirements - including the new RTI reporting - for less than half the amount charged by the payroll bureau. Plus, the first month is free of charge!

Please take a look at our website below and feel free to get in touch
www.oxfordpayrollpartners.co.uk