Rate & scope

The size of the job

Every figure on this page is calculated live from _data.js, so it stays true as the queue is worked. The time estimates are per-task averages, not guesses at a person's speed.

Ten a day is realistic — but not ten VAT applications

The VAT pool is six applications and four chases. That is one day of work, not a programme. Ten a day only works if "ten" means ten items drawn from the whole queue — confirmation statements, Gateway recoveries, portal setups, director corrections. The dispatch portal batches exactly that way. If you brief the bookkeeper as "ten VAT registrations a day" she will finish the entire VAT backlog before lunch on day two and then have nothing defined to do.

What can go offshore, and what cannot

Not every task is equally exportable. Splitting them properly is what makes ten-a-day-per-admin scale without creating risk.

The dividing line is who the task puts you in front of. Anything that means phoning HMRC, passing an identity check, or sitting with a director while they authorise something needs a UK-hours, UK-phone, confident-English person — and carries real consequences if done badly. Anything that is careful, checkable record work travels well offshore. Portal setup sits on the line: it is client-facing, so send it offshore only to someone you would happily put on a call with a director.

Option 1 — the UK bookkeeper starting tomorrow

Self-employed day rate

£130 per day

≈ £16.25/hour on an 8-hour day

Right for a defined 3–4 week backlog with a clear end point
No employer NI, no pension, no holiday accrual
She invoices; you pay on completed batches
Easy to extend or stop without a process

Whole backlog:

Employed, PAYE

£26–28k full-time equivalent

≈ £13.50–14.50/hour

Right only if this becomes an ongoing role rather than a backlog clear-out
Add roughly 15% for employer NI and pension on top
Slower to start and slower to stop
Worth it once VAT returns and MTD filing become recurring monthly work

Realistic once the backlog is cleared and the portfolio moves to steady-state compliance.

Why £130 and not £90 or £200. This is not data entry. It is statutory filing against live deadlines, with penalties for getting it wrong, plus HMRC identity calls and direct contact with company directors. That is solidly above general VA work (£15–18/hr) and below a qualified accountant (£35–60/hr). A bookkeeper with Companies House and HMRC experience sits at £16–22/hour in 2026, so £130/day is fair at the lower end of competent — and defensible to her, which matters more than saving £20 a day.

Option 2 — offshore admins, paid per client package

This is the model that scales: a whole client is handed to one admin at an agreed price, they take it end to end, and it is paid only when Supreme confirms the evidence. Prices are built from piece rates plus a completion fee, so a heavier client is worth more and nobody is incentivised to cherry-pick the easy ones.

Per-package pricing

Piece rates for each task in the package
Plus a £ completion fee, paid only on confirmation
Disbursements — the £50 Companies House fee and so on — reimbursed separately, never absorbed
Heavier clients price higher automatically

All 44 packages:

Why the completion fee exists

Piece rates alone reward starting tasks. The completion fee rewards finishing a client — which is the thing you actually want, because a client at 80% is worth almost nothing and still occupies a slot on the board.

It also means an admin who takes a messy client is not punished for it. On the lightest packages the fee is most of the value, and that is deliberate: it costs about the same to open, track, evidence and close a simple client as a complicated one.

Comparing the two honestly

The recommendation — run both. Put the UK bookkeeper on the tasks that need UK hours, an HMRC phone line and a director's trust; push the record work offshore. That splits roughly tasks UK-side ( hours) and offshore ( hours).

On a hybrid the offshore side is paid piece rates only — — against roughly for the bookkeeper to do that same work herself. The completion fee does not apply here, because it is paid for owning a client end to end and on a split nobody does. Use the per-package price only when one admin takes a whole client.

The saving is real but secondary. The point is that both run at once, so the backlog clears in about half the calendar time — and the bookkeeper spends her days on the work that actually needs a UK person, rather than chasing personal codes.

What this work is worth to the business

Worth holding next to the cost. Against the published tiers — Launch £1,499 one-off, Growth £799/month, Scale £1,499/month — clearing this backlog is what makes 44 clients billable rather than merely on file:

Ten confirmation statements filed removes five live strike-offs. A dissolved company is not a client, and its assets pass to the Crown — this is the difference between a portfolio and a loss.
Forty-four Gateway recoveries are the precondition for every VAT return and every MTD filing that follows. Right now 26 of 44 clients sit outside the Strong band and cannot simply sign in to their own account, so no recurring tax work is possible for them at all.
Six VAT registrations convert directly into quarterly return work.
Forty-four portals are already built and waiting — deployment is the only step between them and whatever they are priced at.

One thing no rate fixes. The practice holds no HMRC Agent Reference Number, so nothing can be submitted as an agent and 95 prepared 64-8 forms are unusable. Whoever you hire will hit this wall on day one. Getting an agent services account — which requires AML supervision first — is worth more than any amount of admin throughput, because it is what lets one person act for all 44 clients instead of chasing 44 separate Gateway logins. Treat it as the first job, not a background task.