Gm Professional Accountants

Gm Professional Accountants Award winning small business accountants Self assessment , small business, self employed, Acccountants based in East ham, Barking and dagenham

Still owed retention money you've mentally written off? You might be able to get more of it back than you think.Every co...
21/07/2026

Still owed retention money you've mentally written off? You might be able to get more of it back than you think.

Every contractor in London construction knows the feeling. A job finished two, three, even five years ago. The retention money sits with the main contractor, and somewhere along the way you stopped chasing it and just accepted it as gone.

Before you write that money off for good, here are 3 steps worth trying first:

1. Pull your records together
Find the original contract, the retention clause, and any snagging or sign off documents. If the defects period has passed and no issues were raised, the contractor has no grounds to hold the money.

2. Send a formal written demand
A polite email chasing payment often gets ignored. A formal letter referencing the contract terms and requesting payment within a set number of days carries far more weight, and creates a paper trail if things need to go further.

3. Know your time limits
Under UK law, you generally have 6 years from the date payment became due to bring a claim (12 years if the contract was signed as a deed). Many contractors sit on retention for years assuming the window has closed. Check before you assume it has.

Retention money adds up fast across multiple projects. If you are a construction business owner in London sitting on old, unpaid retention, do not assume it is a lost cause until you have actually checked.

Have you ever successfully recovered a retention you thought was gone? Tell us how in the comments, it might help another contractor reading this.

17/07/2026

PAYE or CIS subcontractor? One wrong call = HMRC penalty.

Here's how to get it right.

Link in Comments| GM Professional Accountants

17/07/2026

Limited company subcontractor? You could be overpaying tax without knowing it

CIS deductions taken at source don't automatically get repaid, but there's a way to reclaim them through your payroll instead of waiting on a refund claim.

Watch to see how it works

Drop a comment if you want us to break down your specific situation
Or DM us to check your CIS position


3 days ago

💷 How much cash is sitting in retentions you've forgotten about?Here's a number that should make every construction busi...
16/07/2026

💷 How much cash is sitting in retentions you've forgotten about?

Here's a number that should make every construction business owner in London stop scrolling: the average contractor has thousands of pounds tied up in retentions across old jobs, some going back years.

Retentions get held back on practical completion, then again after the defects period, and somewhere along the way they get buried in old contracts, forgotten invoices, or a client who's gone quiet. Meanwhile that money should be sitting in your bank account, working for you.

A few questions worth asking yourself this week:

Do you actually know the total value of retentions currently owed to you across all live and completed contracts?

Is there a system tracking release dates, or is it relying on memory?

Have you chased anything held back on a job finished more than 12 months ago?

For CIS contractors juggling multiple sites and subcontractors, this can genuinely run into serious money that quietly disappears from view.

We'd love to hear from other London contractors in the comments: how do you currently track your retentions, and has anything ever slipped through the cracks?

Share your experience below; we're building this page as a space for real conversations between construction business owners.

GM Professional Accountants | Supporting London's construction industry with clarity on CIS, Making Tax Digital, and compliance.

14/07/2026

Limited company subcontractor? You could be overpaying tax without knowing it

CIS deductions taken at source don't automatically get repaid, but there's a way to reclaim them through your payroll instead of waiting on a refund claim.

Watch to see how it works

Drop a comment if you want us to break down your specific situation
Or DM us to check your CIS position

14/07/2026

Limited company subcontractor? You could be overpaying tax without knowing it.

CIS deductions taken at source don't automatically get repaid, but there's a way to reclaim them through your payroll instead of waiting on a refund claim.

Watch to see how it works

Drop a comment if you want us to break down your specific situation
Or DM us to check your CIS position

The Silent Profit Killer Hiding in Your ContractsQuick question for London contractors and subcontractors: do you actual...
13/07/2026

The Silent Profit Killer Hiding in Your Contracts

Quick question for London contractors and subcontractors: do you actually know how much of your money is sitting in retention right now?

Not an estimate. The real number.

Most CIS business owners we speak to are shocked when they add it up. 5% held back here, 3% there, across half a dozen jobs, and suddenly there's tens of thousands of pounds that's technically yours but you can't touch.

Here's where it quietly eats your profit:

You still pay tax on invoices in full, even though you haven't been paid the retained amount yet. Cash flow tightens while your tax bill doesn't wait.

Retention gets "forgotten" past the defects period, and chasing it costs more in admin time than it's sometimes worth.

Some contracts bury retention release clauses in language that's vague enough to delay payment indefinitely.
If you're not tracking retention separately from your regular debtor list, it becomes invisible money. Out of sight, out of your cash flow planning, and easy for the tax side to catch you off guard.

Genuine question for the group: are you tracking retention separately, or does it just blend into your general accounts receivable? Curious how everyone here is handling it.

Tell us your worst retention story below. We've heard some brutal ones.

London Contractors: Is Your WIP Quietly Inflating Your Tax Bill?Here's something that catches out a lot of construction ...
09/07/2026

London Contractors: Is Your WIP Quietly Inflating Your Tax Bill?

Here's something that catches out a lot of construction business owners at year-end...
If your Work in Progress (WIP) is overvalued on your accounts, HMRC sees it as profit you haven't actually banked yet. That means you could be paying tax on money that's still tied up in unfinished contracts, retentions, or materials sitting on site.

We've seen London contractors hit with tax bills that don't match their bank balance at all simply because WIP wasn't calculated properly against actual costs and stage of completion.

A few questions for the group:
👉 When did you last review how your WIP is being valued?
👉 Are your accountants using cost-to-complete, or just guessing based on invoiced amounts?
👉 Has anyone else had a "surprise" tax bill that turned out to be a WIP valuation issue?

Drop your experiences below; this catches out more London construction businesses than people realise, and the fixes are usually simpler than you'd think.

Your Profit Might Be Paper Only. Here Is Why?Your year end accounts say you made a healthy profit. But your bank balance...
06/07/2026

Your Profit Might Be Paper Only. Here Is Why?

Your year end accounts say you made a healthy profit. But your bank balance tells a different story.

Sound familiar?

For construction business owners in London, this gap is one of the most common (and stressful) surprises.

Here is usually what is happening behind the scenes:
→ Retentions sitting with the main contractor, sometimes for months after the job is done
→ Work in progress counted as profit before you have actually been paid for it
→ CIS deductions taken at source, reducing what actually lands in your account
→ Materials and subbies paid upfront, long before the client settles the invoice
On paper, you are profitable. In your bank account, you are stretched thin.

This is why cash flow and profit are two very different conversations, and why so many contractors feel like they are "doing well" but still can't relax.

Are you seeing paper profit that never quite reaches your bank account? Let us know what's tying up your cash the most: retentions, late payments, or CIS deductions.

GM Professional Accountants | Supporting construction businesses across London and Essex

📞 0208 396 6128

3 WIP mistakes quietly draining your construction profits right nowIf your job costing looks fine on paper but profits n...
02/07/2026

3 WIP mistakes quietly draining your construction profits right now

If your job costing looks fine on paper but profits never seem to match, your Work In Progress figures are likely the culprit.

1. Not adjusting WIP at year end
Revenue hits your accounts before the job is complete. This overstates profits and inflates your tax bill unnecessarily.

2. Mixing materials and labour in one bucket
When costs are not separated, you lose sight of which jobs are actually profitable and which are bleeding money.

3. Using cash received instead of work completed
Basing WIP on payments in rather than progress completed gives a completely distorted picture of where your business really stands.

With Making Tax Digital coming for construction businesses, HMRC will have far more visibility into your records. Getting WIP right now protects both your profits and your compliance position.

Which of these have you seen cause the most headaches on-site? Drop your experience below.

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