Mona Accountancy Services

22/05/2026

One down, a few more to go...

I recently sat my ATT Paper 1 exam, the first of many on my ATT/CTA tax pathway journey. While the ink* is barely dry on the exam paper and await the results, the clock's already ticking for the next exam in November.

This means it's time to find some space for this fresh delivery of study manuals from Tolley for ATT Paper 2 (Business Tax). I say space, they will likely just move between the office and coffee table most days for the next 5-6 months.

Balancing full-time workload as an accountant with the tax studies is testing my time management 🫠 (and caffeine tolerance), so if anyone has any tips on staying sane while juggling work, studying, and existing as a semi-functional human, please let me know 👇

*Side note: It's obviously not real ink anymore since everything is computer based now! haven't sat a pen and paper exam since my Level 3 AAT days, which funnily enough, was also back when I worked a job in industry where we still wrote out manual ledgers every day.

06/04/2026

Happy New Tax Year! 🎉🎉

With the 2026/27 year being officially here, it means the doors are wide open to now file your 2025/26 Self-Assessment Tax Return.

I know, I know, unless you're a tax geek like me, filing taxes doesn’t exactly sound like a fun time. But do you know what does? Finishing your tax return in April or May and not having that “January Panic” hanging over your head for the next 9 months!

Get ahead, get it done, and enjoy that slightly smug (and totally deserved) feeling of being in the "already filed my tax return" club. Don't want to do it yourself? Get an accountant (Hi! 👋) to do it for you and you can still get that smug feeling knowing it's being handled.

Who’s aiming for an early filing this year? Let me see your smug faces 😏 in the comments 👇

06/04/2026

Happy New Tax Year! 🎉🎉

With the 2026/27 year being officially here, it means the doors are wide open to now file your 2025/26 Self-Assessment Tax Return.

I know, I know, unless you're a tax geek like me, filing taxes doesn’t exactly sound like a fun time. But do you know what does? Finishing your tax return in April or May and not having that “January Panic” hanging over your head for the next 9 months!

Get ahead, get it done, and enjoy that slightly smug (and totally deserved) feeling of being in the "already filed my tax return" club. Don't want to do it yourself? Get an accountant (like me!) to do it for you and you can still get that smug feeling knowing it's being handled.

Who’s aiming for an early filing this year? Let me see your smug faces 😏 in the comments 👇

14/01/2026

I had a memory pop up letting me know, that 14 years ago today, I received the notification I'd passed my final exam (business tax) and had just qualified as an accountant!

A couple of years later I then undertook and passed a standalone diploma in personal tax (despite already having a personal tax exam under my belt)

Roll forward to now and I'm back to studying. Just before Christmas I finally made the decision to work towards becoming a chartered tax advisor, further formalising my tax geekery. Something I've talked about since 2016

These are the books for my first unit and the two computer based assessments (law and ethics, I get an exemption from doing the accounting one obviously!). That's a lot to stuff into my brain over the next few months, but at this level stage it's a lot of what I already know and do luckily.

So here we go again. More studying, more tax geekery and probably a lot of stress and tequila, but pretty bloody exciting too!

25/12/2025

Nadelik Lowen! Merry Christmas!

No more bad tax jokes from me now the advent calendar is finished (I bet you enjoyed them really...)

I hope you have a good one, however you celebrate

31/10/2023

Happy birthday to me! 🎂

Can you believe Mona Accountancy Services is 10 years old today!! 10!! Double figures. A blimming DECADE! How on earth has that happened and where has the time gone!?

From starting as a little side hustle alongside my full-time job, so I could help family/friends with their tax returns, to it now being my full-time job helping clients all over the UK (and in the case of the military community, all over the world with their UK liabilities).

I can’t believe how much my small accountancy practice has grown in these 10 years and what a learning curve it has been at times too. There may be many ups and some downs (especially during tax season 😬), but I couldn’t imagine doing anything else!

A big thank you to each and every one of you that is/has been a client, and to those that have helped and supported me along the way. Here’s to the next 10 years! 🍾🥂

24/06/2023

If you didn't already know, today is Armed Forces Day 2023, which gives all of us a chance to show support for and celebrate our awesome Armed Forces! 🎉

If you're new around here you may not know that I am a military wife (and have just endured the house move to prove it), so this is also close to home for me. This also means I am proud to support today and join in with everyone else in honouring the selfless service of the entire Armed Forces community.

Side note: I had to include a picture of the glorious Chinnok in this post, which now I've moved, I'm going to sorely miss seeing it go over the house regularly. I'll miss the Wokka Wokka sound even more
.

12/04/2023

💷 What is Cash Accounting? 💷

You might have noticed a question on your self-assessment tax return asking if you use "Cash basis"? 🤔

Cash accounting is just a method of accounting that records transactions when money is received/spent.

You simply record income when you receive payment from a customer, and you record expenses when you make a payment to a supplier.

This makes it really easy to keep your accounting records, as you can get the transactions directly from your bank statements (but don't forget about actual cash that might not have the same paper trail!).

It's normally used by small businesses or individuals who don't have complicated transactions. It's worth a mention though, that Limited Companies are not allowed to use cash basis, instead, they must use accrual accounting (which I'll cover in a different post).

Even though it's easier, cash accounting does have some downsides. For example, it might not give an accurate financial picture of your business if you have a lot of outstanding invoices or bills.

However, the ease of using cash accounting outweighs a lot of the downsides in most small businesses.

Do you use cash accounting for your business? Let me know in the comments 💬

06/04/2023

If you think there may be gaps in your national insurance record, be sure to double check your Personal Tax Account (and if you don't have one, it is worth getting one).

You can then "top up" any historical gaps while this scheme is still running.

The deadline for making voluntary National Insurance contributions has been extended to 31 July.

Taxpayers have more time to decide whether to fill gaps in their National Insurance record dating back to 2006 to boost their new State Pension 👇

https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions

05/04/2023

With only 1 more sleeps until the new tax year, I am thinking about self-assessments again. (🚨Geeky accountant alert! 🚨)

But do you know what information you need for your self-assessment? 🤔

If you're not sure, I'm here to help!

This list is not exhaustive but will cover the most important things and will make your (and my) life much easier.

Let me know if you found this helpful