The best accountant for an early-stage UK fintech
The best accountant for an early-stage fintech keeps your books straight and says plainly when a question belongs to someone else.
Someone who knows where the job ends - not someone who guesses at FCA rules
A fintech accountant does two jobs at once. The first is the ordinary one: keeping the books right, filing on time and telling you what you owe. The second is spotting the places where your product changes the answer to those things.
Whether you need FCA permission at all depends on what your product actually does with money, and that is a call for a regulatory lawyer or the FCA itself, not for your accountant. A good accountant will say so. Be wary of anyone who answers it confidently on a first call.
What your accountant does own is the money side of that decision. That means the forecasts an application or an investor is likely to ask for, and books that show which money is yours and which belongs to your customers. If you hold customer money, ask any firm, us included, whether they have kept books like that before.
Getting the VAT question answered before you price the product - not after your first return
Some financial services are exempt from VAT. When part of your income is exempt, you may not be able to reclaim all the VAT you pay on your costs, which is a real difference to your margins.
Fintechs often sit across that line, since a single product can earn fees of several different kinds. How each kind is treated depends on how the product is built and described, and that follows you into every VAT return.
So get a written view before launch, from someone who has dealt with financial products before, and treat a vague answer as a warning sign. Ask us the same question.
Books an investor can read - not a scramble when due diligence starts
Investors will usually ask for your accounts, your VAT and payroll filings, and a clear picture of how money moves through the business. If those sit in three places and a folder of receipts, due diligence turns into a chase.
If you plan to raise under SEIS or EIS, check eligibility before investors commit. Those schemes exclude certain financial activities. Whether a particular fintech falls inside that exclusion depends on the detail of what it does, and nobody can tell you from a one-line description. HMRC runs an advance assurance service that lets you ask before you raise, and it is worth using.
If you are building software, some of that work may qualify for tax relief for research and development. Whether it does depends on what you are trying to solve technically, and a claim is only as strong as the write-up behind it. Ask who would prepare yours, and whether they have done one before.
Questions worth asking any accountant - and what a straight answer sounds like
You can learn most of what you need in one call. Ask whether they have worked with financial businesses before, what they did, and who at the firm would do your work. Then ask whether that person is qualified and where you can check.
Check the firm on its professional body's public directory and ask whether it carries professional indemnity insurance. Then ask what happens when a question is outside their remit, because the answer you want is a name to go to, not a guess.
What we do is the everyday work, books, VAT, year-end and correspondence for a flat monthly fee, with a qualified accountant behind every filing. Whether your product needs a specialist on top is a fair question for a first call.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an accountant who specialises in fintech?
Not always, but you do need one who is straight about what they have done before. A good general accountant can handle the everyday work. The parts specific to financial products are VAT on different kinds of fee income and how customer money is recorded, so ask whether they have dealt with those, and who they would bring in if not.
When should an early-stage fintech get an accountant?
Before you launch, and ideally before you set your prices. How your fees are treated for VAT and how you record customer money are usually easier to set up at the start than to unpick later. If you are still at idea stage, a single conversation can tell you what to plan for.
What should I bring to a first call with an accountant?
A plain description of how money moves through the product: who pays you, who you pay, and where any customer money sits at each step. Add your incorporation details and whether you are VAT registered. If you have signed or are negotiating investor paperwork, bring that too. With all of it, a good accountant can tell you quickly what they can answer and what needs someone else.