From one-person trades to established contractors, construction businesses face accounting challenges most sectors never meet. The Construction Industry Scheme governs how payments between contractors and subcontractors are taxed. Projects run for months with money held back as retentions, and getting your job costing right is the difference between a profitable site and a loss. We know the sector and keep you compliant and in control.
How does the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) work?
CIS is the rule book that sits over most construction work. Under it, contractors deduct money from payments to subcontractors and pass it to HMRC as an advance towards the subcontractor's tax and National Insurance. Whether you are a contractor making deductions, a subcontractor having them taken, or both at once, CIS brings monthly duties that carry penalties the moment they are missed.
Our CIS accounting service takes care of the whole cycle, so it never trips you up:
- Verifying subcontractors, checking each subcontractor's status with HMRC so the correct deduction rate is applied.
- Making the right deductions, applying the standard, higher or gross-payment treatment to each payment correctly.
- Monthly CIS returns, filing your returns with HMRC on time every month, and issuing subcontractor statements.
- Reclaiming deductions suffered, making sure subcontractors recover their CIS deductions through their own return or company position.
- Gross payment status, helping eligible businesses apply for and keep gross payment status to protect their cash flow.
Are my workers employed or subcontractors?
A question that comes up on almost every site is who is genuinely self-employed and who is really an employee. Getting employment status wrong can lead to unexpected tax, National Insurance and penalties, because CIS does not change the underlying question of whether someone should be on the payroll. We help you think it through, run payroll for those who should be employed, and keep your CIS and PAYE obligations straight where you have a mix of both.
Job costing, knowing if a project made money
Plenty of construction businesses only find out a job lost money long after the final invoice has gone out. With materials, labour, plant hire, subcontractors and variations all moving at once, it is easy for costs to creep past the quote without anyone noticing. Good job costing, part of the management reporting we set up, tracks the budget against the actual spend on each project as it runs, so you can act on an overrun while there is still time to do something about it.
Cash flow, retentions and staged payments
Construction is notorious for cash-flow strain, and for good reason. You often pay for materials and labour well before the client pays you, work is billed in stages or on applications for payment, and a retention, a percentage of the contract value, is held back until the project is signed off, sometimes months later. That can leave a profitable business short of cash at exactly the wrong moment.
We help you forecast cash across your projects, keep track of what is owed including retentions, and plan so that growth does not outrun your working capital. For larger contracts and expansion, our business advisory and funding support can help too.
How we help construction businesses
Full CIS handling
Verification, deductions, monthly returns and reclaims managed through our CIS service.
Learn morePayroll for your team
Accurate payroll and pensions for your employed staff alongside your CIS subcontractors.
Learn moreJob costing
Job-by-job tracking so you know which contracts make money and can price the next one well.
Cash-flow forecasting
Clear forecasting that accounts for staged payments and retentions across your jobs.
Working with us on site
Understand your work
We review your contracts, your subcontractors and whether CIS, PAYE or both apply.
Set up compliant systems
We put CIS, payroll and job-costing processes in place so the monthly duties run smoothly.
Keep you building
We handle the filings, keep an eye on your cash and flag problem jobs before they cost you.