The company's paperwork is the director's job, not the accountant's
Your accountant knows the law and applies it — to whatever you hand over. The better organised that is, the better the work and the smaller the chance of an error, a late filing or a penalty. Almost nobody is taught this part, and it is the part that costs money when it goes wrong.
This is the training we built for it: one course, written for owners rather than for accountants, by someone who found this side of his own business hard.
Business Organisation — The Responsible Director
A practical guide for anyone who runs, or is about to open, a company in the UK. It covers both ways of trading — self-employed and limited company — with more weight on the limited company, because it is the structure that demands more of you. The aim is not to turn you into an accountant. It is to make you a director who is in order with HMRC and Companies House all year, instead of one who finds out in January.
What you will be able to do afterwards
- Which model applies to you — sole trader or limited company — and when it is time to move
- How to open a limited company step by step, from the name to the Certificate of Incorporation
- The director's full calendar: what Companies House wants, what HMRC wants, and when
- How to change a company name properly — the resolution, forms NM01/NM04/NM06, and what to update afterwards
- A monthly financial routine: separate accounts, director's loan, salary versus dividends, receipts
- How VAT actually works, input and output, and what it changes about your prices
- PAYE and payroll in practice, including what changes the day you hire someone
- Self Assessment as a director: the UK tax year, the deadlines, and Payment on Account
- How to close a company properly — dormant, DS01, and what HMRC still expects afterwards
- Tax residency and income from abroad, and how to tell a real government contact from a scam
What is inside
Twelve chapters, grouped here by the problem they solve.
Sole trader or limited company
7 lessons
The two ways of trading in the UK, what each one costs you in tax and in admin, and the signs that it is time to incorporate.
The director's calendar
5 lessons
Companies House and HMRC are two bodies with two calendars. Confirmation statement, annual accounts, CT600, VAT, PAYE and Self Assessment, laid out across the year.
Monthly financial organisation
3 lessons
The routine that makes the year end quiet: separate accounts, the director's loan account, salary against dividends, and what a receipt has to show.
VAT
3 lessons
Input and output VAT without the jargon, when registration stops being optional, and what it does to the price you quote.
PAYE and payroll
3 lessons
What changes the day the company has an employee, including the parts people discover late and expensively.
Closing properly, residency and scams
10 lessons
Dormant versus struck off, the DS01, what HMRC still wants after the company stops trading, income from abroad, and how to recognise a real government contact.
There is also a glossary and a resources chapter, because half the difficulty of this subject is that nobody explains the words.
Who it is for — and who it is not for
It is for you if
- You are a director of a UK limited company, or about to become one.
- You are self-employed and wondering whether incorporating is worth it.
- You hand everything to an accountant and have no idea what any of it means.
- You have missed a deadline, or paid a penalty, and want that to stop.
- You moved to the UK and are running a company under rules you were never taught.
It is not
- An accountancy qualification. It will not make you an accountant, and it does not try to.
- Business intelligence, data or analytics training. Our name says Intelligence; this course is about company administration, and we would rather you knew that before paying than after.
- Tax advice for your specific situation. It teaches the system; your accountant applies it to you.
- A course about growing sales. That is a different problem, and we help with it elsewhere.
How it works
At your own pace
5h 10min of material across 37 lessons, in a portal that remembers where you stopped. Most people take it a chapter at a time, in the order the tax year needs.
Five languages
English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and Polish — because a UK company is often run by someone who did not grow up with UK paperwork.
Written for beginners
No prior knowledge assumed. Every term that matters is defined the first time it appears, and again in the glossary.
This one works anywhere in the UK
Search, advertising, social media, training and consultancy do not care where your office is. We are based in Ipswich and a good part of this work never involves anyone meeting in person — not a lesser version of the service, the same service. If you are in London, Manchester, Cardiff or a village nobody has heard of, this is available to you on the same terms as it is to the business next door to us.
What it costs
£97, paid once. Not a subscription. One penalty for a late confirmation statement or a missed Self Assessment costs more than the course, which is the entire argument for it.
If you would rather not learn this yourself, our business consultancy does the organising alongside you instead. And if what you actually need is more customers rather than better paperwork, start at services.