Saturday night doing accounts - couple of queries

[kime]

I have put my son to bed & am making myself do some accounts!

When it comes to petrol & food can I do an estimate of what I have spent based on previous weeks? I have put petrol in my car & kept receipts but the car wasn't then used just for when I"m working. Also food was brought in my main shopping or sometimes separate but meals were not just for the mindees - some stuff was used for them & my son - sometimes even me if I had time to stop & eat!!

Any advice on the above & trying to keep on top of accounts would be very much appreciated :)

[The Juggler]

nooo!!!!!!!!!!!! put them away til tomorrow :panic::laughing:

for petrol I think you need to keep a check on your actual mileage costs and claim per mile but have never done this. Mr Anchovy's your expert- you could PM him.

for food I workout roughly in my weekly shop what goes on mindees and then set a monthly amount based on my weekly shopping which is roughly the same each week then just add on any extras I buy.:thumbsup:

[Kiddleywinks]

You need to make a note of the start and end mileage of each trip - I'm guessing you haven't done this already...?
There are then 2 ways of claiming costs:
Percentage of running costs based on business and personal use or 45p a mile for business use

Percentage way:
You need to make a note of the mileage for each trip you make, and note whether it was for business or personal use.
You keep ALL receipts related to vehicle costs - fuel, oil, mot, repairs and renewals (tyres, brake lights etc)
At the end of the year you total up how many miles you have done in total, then total up how many of those miles were for business use.
You then work out what the business miles were in terms of a percentage (eg: 1000 miles for year, 750 were business related so 75%)
Total up all the costs from the receipts you have and 75% of those costs is what you would claim (based on the above example)

Alternatively claim 45p per mile of business use which covers fuel, wear and tear on vehicle, proportion of running costs (tax, mot, insurance etc).


Food costs:
Using your receipts, cost up a breakfast, a lunch and a dinner.
Divide the total cost by the amount of people who ate it, including you and your family if you ate the same meal.
This gives you an approximate cost per person per meal
Dont forget about snacks and drinks too

I check my costings every few months as food costs are fluctuating so much at the moment.

HMRC will accept reasonable costs for food without needing to provide a receipt, however as we have to keep food receipts for EH I just put them all in an envelope and keep them with my accounts.
The receipts I use to cost up a staple to the envelope so I can show my workings out if needed.

[Chatterbox Childcare]

If you do the percentage you can also claim the Capital Depreciation of your car. If you decide to do this call out again and I will explain it further.

Both ways you can claim percentage of interest if you took a loan for the car too.

i do my food based on my receipt. I take the receipt and deduct anything that is 100% minding and 100% personal. I take the balance and divide it by the number of family and mindees, this gives me a "per head" cost. I then multiply it by the number of mindees and then I put down anything that was 100%. This way it is accurate as I found that costs went up very quickly and I was losing out on the per meal calculation.

Either way, if your mindees are the same week in and week out, why not do the calculations monthly/quarterly?