Your clients’ books, handled in the UK by a bookkeeping firm you can pick up the phone to. We work under your brand or ours, and we do not approach your clients. ISO 9001 certified bookkeeping for accountants, with a three month risk-free trial.
Bookkeeping is the lowest-margin work in most practices and it absorbs the most hours. Qualified people end up recording daily transactions, chasing missing invoices and tidying bank statements before any real accounting work can begin. Keep it in house and it costs you senior time. Turn it away and the client goes to a firm that will take it on.
Cain & Co handles the recording so your team starts from accurate records. Your clients’ financial data stays in the UK, worked on by named bookkeepers you can speak to directly. We operate under your brand or ours, whichever suits the relationship, and we do not approach your clients.
Speak with us today on 020 8087 1341 or drop us an email at takecontrol@cainandco.co.uk
Recording invoices, coding expenses and reconciling bank accounts pays the least of anything your practice does, and it takes qualified people to do it properly. Hand the recording to us and those hours go back into tax planning, financial reporting and the strategic advice clients will pay for.
Capacity problems rarely arrive gradually. A client parts company with their finance person in December, or three sets of records land in the same fortnight. We take on overflow work at short notice, so a deadline does not depend on finding someone available.
Missing receipts, unexplained payments and a chart of accounts nobody has maintained turn a straightforward job into a week of queries. We chase the gaps, reconcile the accounts and keep the coding consistent across every client, so what reaches your desk is usable.
We are confident enough in the work to offer a three month risk-free trial. If the bookkeeping does not reach the standard your practice needs, you are not charged. It gives you a proper look at how we work before anything is committed to.
Provide the information we request on time and your clients will not face late filing penalties. If a penalty is issued, we will cover the cost.
Records stay organised and up to date throughout the year, which removes the pile-up that builds around month-end and year-end.
Around 90% of bookkeeping questions are answered within one hour, with all queries responded to within 12 hours.
We explain the figures, reports and records in plain English during regular reviews, so nothing needs decoding before you can use it.
Our team identifies bookkeeping errors early, which prevents compliance problems and last-minute surprises ahead of a filing date.
Our fees are simple and transparent with no hidden costs. If you find the same level of service for less, we will match it.
Our team is available year-round, including through the busiest periods, so your practice is never left waiting on an answer.
Practice work is priced per engagement rather than from a package. The volume of transactions, the number of clients and the state of the records vary too much between practices for a fixed monthly figure to be fair to either side.
Tell us what you are carrying and we will price it properly. Every engagement comes with our 7-Point Guarantee and the three month risk-free trial.
Several of the firms we support are accountancy practices. Here is what they have to say about the bookkeeping we deliver behind them.
Our bookkeeping services cover the recording work that sits underneath everything your practice produces. Accurate financial records feed directly into the profit and loss accounts, balance sheets and tax returns your team prepares, so the quality of the recording decides how much work the accounting takes.
Sales invoices, supplier invoices, receipts and payments arrive constantly and each one has to be coded correctly. Left to build up, the volume becomes unmanageable and the errors compound.
We record business transactions as they come in, maintain a clean chart of accounts so coding stays consistent across every client you place with us, and carry out full bank reconciliations against the statements.
VAT returns, payroll and Making Tax Digital submissions all carry deadlines, and a missed one lands on your practice rather than on the client.
We prepare and submit VAT returns on time, run payroll where required, and keep digital record keeping compliant with HMRC recognised software throughout.
Bookkeeping is ongoing where accounting is periodic, and the gap between the two is where discrepancies hide. Reconciling only at year-end means finding problems when there is no time left to fix them.
We reconcile regularly, catch missing receipts and discrepancies early, and produce the trial balance, nominal ledger and aged debtor and creditor reporting your team needs at month-end.
Capacity gaps appear without warning, and finding a competent bookkeeper at short notice is difficult in January.
We take on short-term and overflow work alongside ongoing engagements, which means a sudden gap does not become a deadline problem.
Our Curry & Co nights are relaxed monthly networking events held across Kent, London and the South East, bringing local business owners together over great food and genuine conversation. No awkward pitches, just real connections, quality curry and a friendly atmosphere.
If you know a business that would benefit from better bookkeeping, simply introduce them to Cain & Co. When they join us, we’ll send you a bottle of champagne as a thank you for the referral.
We work inside your existing accounting software rather than exporting financial data out to a separate system. Our team uses Xero, QuickBooks and Sage, so your clients’ records stay where your practice already keeps them and the audit trail remains unbroken. You see every entry as it is posted.
Bookkeeping that needs correcting before your team can use it costs more than doing it in house. Every transaction is coded against a chart of accounts we keep consistent, reconciled against the bank statements, and checked before it reaches you. That means accounts preparation starts where it should rather than with a round of queries. Your team picks up accurate financial records and goes straight to the work that carries a fee.
Our team handles bookkeeping software, payroll, and time tracking, giving you more hours for client work and less time spent on financial admin. This allows you to stay focused on delivering value rather than managing paperwork.
Recording and reconciliation absorb hours that could be spent on tax planning, management accounts and the strategic financial advice clients actually value. The work has to be done properly, and it rarely justifies a qualified person doing it. We take the recording off your team’s desk across as many clients as you want to place with us. What you do with the hours is up to you, whether that is taking on more clients or stopping the practice running at capacity every January.
Managing VAT quarters, payroll runs and Making Tax Digital submissions for one business is straightforward. Managing them across a portfolio, each on a different cycle, is where things slip. We track the dates for every client we handle and flag what is coming before it becomes urgent. Records stay current on a daily basis rather than being pulled together in the week before a filing date, which is what keeps bookkeeping errors from turning into compliance problems.
Paul Cain has worked in finance since the early 1990s and has spent years supporting accountancy practices as well as business owners directly. Cain & Co delivers professional bookkeeping services from the UK for practices that want the recording handled properly, without giving up control of the client relationship.
Call us today on 020 8087 1341 or email takecontrol@cainandco.co.uk to talk through what your practice is carrying.
Paul regularly takes on personal walking challenges to raise money for children’s hospital wards, diabetes charities and other causes that matter deeply to him and the local community.
These challenges are a simple but meaningful way Paul supports his own wellbeing, pushes himself personally and gives back to the people and causes that have helped him and others in similar positions.
In the United Kingdom. Your clients’ financial data does not leave the country and is not passed to an offshore delivery centre.
Most providers competing for this work run their teams overseas. That model can be cheaper per hour. It also means the person handling your client’s records is in a different time zone and you are unlikely to ever speak to them. We work differently, and you can call the people doing the work on 020 8087 1341.
No. It is written into our agreement with you.
We do not market to your clients, we do not contact them outside the work you have asked us to do, and we will not take them on directly if they approach us. That last point is the one that matters. Practices are rarely worried about being cold-called by their own bookkeeper. They are worried about a client deciding halfway through that they would rather deal with us.
If one of your clients asks us to work with them directly, we tell you and we decline. Your client relationships are the practice’s asset. We are there to handle the recording behind them.
If you want that in writing before anything starts, say so and it goes in the engagement letter.
Named bookkeepers from our team, assigned to your practice and kept on your accounts. You will know who they are and you can contact them directly.
Our bookkeepers hold ICB qualifications and Cain & Co is ISO 9001 certified, which means the processes behind the work are documented and repeatable rather than dependent on who happens to pick up the job. Consistency matters more on practice work than on any other kind, because you are the one reviewing what comes back.
Yes, under yours or ours, whichever suits the relationship.
Some practices prefer their clients to deal with one name throughout. Under your brand we stay in the background and any contact with your clients happens only where you have asked for it. Other practices are happy to introduce us directly, particularly where the client needs someone to chase records. Tell us which you want at the outset and we will work that way.
Xero, QuickBooks and Sage. We work inside your existing file rather than exporting financial data out to a separate system.
Access is controlled to the people working on the account and protected with multi-factor authentication. If you decide to bring the bookkeeping back in house, the records are already where you keep them and there is nothing to migrate.
Practices often start with one client’s books rather than handing over a portfolio, particularly where the records are in poor shape and the work is not worth a senior person’s time. Starting small also gives you a look at how we work before more is committed.
Around 90% of bookkeeping questions are answered within one hour and all queries are responded to within 12 hours, so you are not waiting on a reply while a client deadline moves closer.
We cover the cost of the penalty. Provide the information we request on time and your clients will not face late filing penalties, and if one is issued it is ours to pay.
Most providers advertise an accuracy percentage and say nothing about the remainder. Errors get corrected at our cost and we tell you about them rather than waiting for you to find them at review.
It depends on volume and how predictable it is. A bookkeeper in house makes sense once you have steady work across enough clients to fill the role year-round, and once you can absorb the cost through quiet months.
Most practices do not have that. The work arrives in waves, heavy around VAT quarters and year-end, thin in between. Hiring for the peak means paying for the trough, and recruiting someone with the right qualifications is difficult in a market where certified bookkeepers are in short supply.
Outsourced bookkeeping services flex with the workload. You place the clients you want covered and scale up or down as your business needs change. There is no recruitment, no training and no cover to arrange when someone is away.
Small businesses and sole traders whose records take disproportionate effort relative to the fee. Most practices have a handful: the client whose receipts arrive in a carrier bag, the one whose bank statements have not been reconciled since last year, the one who calls three times a week with a question about expenses.
These are the clients where bookkeeping quietly loses money. The work is unavoidable if you want to keep the relationship, but it rarely justifies a qualified person’s time. Passing that group to us usually makes more difference to a practice than handing over the clean, straightforward files.
Larger clients with steady transaction volume work equally well. There is no business size we cannot handle, and no minimum standard of records we expect before starting.
It improves it, because strategic advice depends on accurate financial data underneath it.
Accountants rely on what bookkeepers compile. Where the records are wrong, the profit and loss accounts and balance sheets built on them are wrong, and any strategic financial guidance drawn from those figures is guesswork. Where the records are clean and current, you can talk to a client about cash flow, tax planning and business growth using figures you trust.
There is also the time. Practices that stop doing the recording themselves have more capacity for financial analysis, forecasting and the advisory work clients will pay a premium for. That is where the margin in a modern practice sits.
Financial records contain sensitive information and are treated accordingly. Access is limited to the people working on the account and protected with multi-factor authentication.
We work in cloud-based accounting software, which means digital receipts and supporting documents are stored securely rather than sitting in email threads or on a local machine. It also reduces duplication, since your team and ours are looking at the same file rather than passing versions back and forth.
Everything stays in the UK. Your clients’ data is not transferred to an offshore delivery centre, and you can review any record at any point without asking us for it.
