La Gaffe is a family-run Italian restaurant, hotel and wine bar in Hampstead, trading since 1962.
In October 2018, owner Lorenzo Stella was left without a bookkeeper after the sudden loss of the person who’d handled his books for three decades.
We stepped in, brought the books up to date, filed the imminent VAT return and rebuilt the whole setup on Xero and Hubdoc.
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La Gaffe had been looked after by the same bookkeeper for 30 years.
When he passed away suddenly in 2018, Lorenzo was left in a difficult position. The bookkeeping had been done entirely on a manual system unique to his predecessor, with no clean handover and no documentation to work from.
On top of that, a VAT return was due imminently, the books weren’t up to date and Making Tax Digital was on the horizon. Lorenzo needed someone who could stop the fire and rebuild the foundations properly, at short notice.
Lorenzo needed two things at once: the imminent VAT return filed and the books brought up to date, plus a proper system so La Gaffe wouldn’t ever be exposed to a single-person dependency again. We ran it in four stages.
Fact-finding across the previous bookkeeper's files, reconstructing the books, and getting everything in shape for the imminent VAT return.
Migrated La Gaffe off paper and onto Xero as the core platform, with Hubdoc for receipt and invoice capture. Set up a unique email address so supplier invoices flow in automatically.
Supplier invoices scanned or emailed into Hubdoc, coded, and published into Xero. Lorenzo now has a clear workflow and visibility the business never had before.
Full payroll run by Cain and Co throughout the engagement, with VAT returns filed on time and any issues resolved quickly.
Reconstructed from paper records, then migrated to Xero with proper coding and clean historical data.
Took on an imminent VAT return at the point of handover. Filed accurately every quarter throughout the engagement.
Ran full payroll end-to-end for the La Gaffe team, with any issues handled quickly. Specifically called out by Lorenzo as an area we nailed.
Xero and Hubdoc implemented and configured, with Lorenzo trained on coding invoices so he had full visibility whenever he needed it.
Of the undocumented bookkeeping, reconstructed.
Full system rebuild onto Xero and Hubdoc, MTD-ready ahead of the deadline.
The imminent VAT return was filed on time, despite taking over mid-crisis.
We work with restaurants, pubs, hotels and hospitality operators across London and the UK who’ve outgrown their current setup or need a safe pair of hands on the books. If that sounds familiar, let’s talk.
