Burtland Bookkeeping & Accounts

Burtland Bookkeeping & Accounts Bookkeeping, accounts & finance systems for content creators & small businesses across the UK.

There's a slightly terrifying stage of growing a business where you've technically built yourself a team... but you’re s...
11/10/2026

There's a slightly terrifying stage of growing a business where you've technically built yourself a team... but you’re still the only person who knows how everything works and you become the bottleneck.

You know when invoices need chasing, which brand needs what, where the random logins live and the one weird thing that has to happen every month.

Which is fine...until you're ill or decide to go on holiday or simply want five minutes where nobody needs you.

You don't need a 97-page operations manual detailing every click you make, just start with a list of the jobs that happen regularly, the important deadlines and the information somebody else would need if you suddenly weren't available.

Growing the business should eventually buy you some freedom, not make you the single point of failure for absolutely everything.

A brand paying you to create a Reel is one thing. That same Reel then appearing in paid ads for the next six months is s...
08/10/2026

A brand paying you to create a Reel is one thing. That same Reel then appearing in paid ads for the next six months is something else.

Before you price a job, make sure you actually understand what you're agreeing to. Organic use on the brand's own socials, paid advertising, website use and longer-term usage can all change the value of the deal.

I'm not about to start pretending I'm your agent or solicitor but from the finance side, this matters because the deal you thought was worth £5k might include considerably more than simply creating the content.

If your creator income is growing, having the commercial details recorded alongside the numbers makes it much easier to see what your work is genuinely earning you.

If I work from home, can I claim some of my household costs?Here's what you actually need to know 👆And if there's an acc...
06/10/2026

If I work from home, can I claim some of my household costs?

Here's what you actually need to know 👆

And if there's an accounting question you've always wondered about, send it over. It might become a future AAQ.

It can be really easy to look at the biggest value campaign or brand deal and assume that it makes the most money for yo...
04/10/2026

It can be really easy to look at the biggest value campaign or brand deal and assume that it makes the most money for your business. Unfortunately thats not always the case and you must consider what is involved in completing the deal.

Take a £30k brand deal that needs travel, an editor, management commission and hours of your time vs a £15k deal which you can film at home with minimal expenses incurred. Now which deal works out the best value for your time?

Once your creator business has a few different ways of making money, it can be hard to differentiate which deals are better if everything is all lumped together in "sales".

Breaking it down properly can show you where the business is actually performing well and where you're putting in a ridiculous amount of effort for surprisingly little return.

That's the sort of information your bookkeeping should be giving you, not just a tidy set of figures for year end.

A 20% management fee sounds simple until you look at what the 20% is actually being calculated on.Does it apply to every...
01/10/2026

A 20% management fee sounds simple until you look at what the 20% is actually being calculated on.

Does it apply to every penny you earn, or only work they bring in? What happens with existing clients? Is it based on the full deal value before other costs come out or after? And what happens to deals already in progress if you decide to change management?

Those details can make a massive difference to what you're actually left with at the end of the day.

Your accountant isn't there to negotiate your management contract for you, but they can help you understand how those fees can impact your numbers. If you're paying thousands in commission each year, it shouldn't just disappear into a generic expense line. It should be clearly visible and tracked to ensure it's correct and help you decide if its the right management for you.

What happens if a brand pays me in dollars or euros?Here's what you actually need to know 👆And if there's an accounting ...
29/09/2026

What happens if a brand pays me in dollars or euros?

Here's what you actually need to know 👆

And if there's an accounting question you've always wondered about, send it over. It might become a future AAQ.

Paid for your Tesco shop and business stationery in the same transaction? We've all been there. 😂It isn't the end of the...
27/09/2026

Paid for your Tesco shop and business stationery in the same transaction? We've all been there. 😂

It isn't the end of the world, but regularly mixing business and personal spending makes the bookkeeping unnecessarily messy.

Now we've got to work out what belongs to the business, what doesn't, how the payment should be recorded and potentially come back to you with questions about it.

Do that across dozens of transactions and a job that should have been straightforward suddenly needs a lot more untangling.

Keeping business spending separate isn't about making life more complicated. It's about making the bookkeeping boring.

And in this case, boring is exactly what we want.

If accounting software can do something reliably, we'd quite happily let it.You aren't paying us to spend hours manually...
24/09/2026

If accounting software can do something reliably, we'd quite happily let it.

You aren't paying us to spend hours manually doing something that could have been automated.

Good bookkeeping is about making sure the financial side of the business is being looked after while you're busy running it. Keeping things up to date. Reconciling the accounts. Questioning things that don't look right. Making sure the information going in makes sense so the information coming back out is actually useful.

And, importantly, giving you back the time you'd otherwise spend doing it yourself.
For some businesses DIY works perfectly well.

For others, getting those hours and that headspace back is worth far more than hanging onto another job just because you can do it yourself.

Can I claim my holiday as a business expense?Here's what you actually need to know 👆And if there's an accounting questio...
22/09/2026

Can I claim my holiday as a business expense?

Here's what you actually need to know 👆

And if there's an accounting question you've always wondered about, send it over. It might become a future AAQ.

Business growth has a habit of adding more moving parts.You start with one income stream and a handful of expenses.Then ...
20/09/2026

Business growth has a habit of adding more moving parts.

You start with one income stream and a handful of expenses.

Then another platform gets added. Brand deals start coming in. You take on an editor. There's a manager taking commission. Payments are arriving in different currencies and suddenly the spreadsheet that worked perfectly well two years ago is being held together with hope and good intentions. 😂

That doesn't mean you need to make everything complicated for the sake of looking like a bigger business.

Your systems should make running the business easier.

As the business changes, it's worth checking whether the processes behind it have kept up.

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