McKilligan Financial - Rural Family Business Accountants

11/04/2026

Some weekend reading from today’s P&J Farming pages….

Aberdeenshire rural business accountant looks ahead to a new tax year for farmers.

31/03/2026

🚜 A reminder for all our farming clients with a 31 March year end 🚜

Before the day gets away from you, please make sure to do your stock count and jot it down 📝

It only takes a few minutes now and saves a lot of head scratching later in the year 😉

Please send us the numbers for all livestock you have today, for example:

🐮 cattle - cows, bulls, breeding heifers, autumn 2024 born stores, spring 2025 born stores, autumn 2025 born calves, newborn calves, etc
🐑 sheep - ewes, tups, fattening hoggs, breeding hoggs and newborn lambs

Also a note of any feed and supplies you have today, such as:

🌾 number of silage, hay and straw bales
🌾 tonnes of silage in the pit
🌾 tonnes of barley and feed in the shed
🌾 number of fertiliser bags in the shed (or tonnage/litres)

Once you’ve got the figures, just send them over to us in whatever way is easiest - WhatsApp, email, phone call or pop into the office.

The main thing is that it’s counted on 31st March and sent over before the note disappears into a pocket somewhere 😅

We can deal with the rest of the detail, such as births, deaths and crop acreages, later when things are quieter.

✅ A quick count today makes life much easier later on - for you and your accountant 😜

26/03/2026

There has been a notable increase in the number of enquiries from clients about the tax benefits of electric cars.

In summary:
🚙 buy a new fully electric car & get 100% capital allowances. That means if you spend say £40,000 on a new car, your taxable profits will reduce by £40,000 in year 1. As all allowances have been claimed up front, there is nothing more to claim in year 2.

🚙 buy a used fully electric car & get 18% capital allowances each year. So spend say £20,000 and your taxable profits will reduce by £3,600 in year 1, then £2,952 in year 2 & so on.

🚙 lease an electric car & get 100% of the lease payments as a business expense (so reducing your taxable profits) each year. You’ll also be able to claim 50% of the VAT.

Compare this to a diesel double cab truck:
🛻 buy new or used and claim 6% capital allowances each year, so if you spend £40,000, you will reduce your taxable profits in year 1 by £2,400. In year 2, it is £2,256 & so on.

Please speak to your accountant for advice tailored to your situation 😉

23/03/2026

Different morning in the office today! Some of us took a trip down to Coxton to the lambing shed🐑

Lambing kicked off on Thursday & we got to see two lambs being born while we were down - nothing quite like it ✨

12/03/2026

We are incredibly proud of Natalie, who graduated as a Chartered Accountant in Edinburgh last weekend 👩‍🎓🎉

A lot of sacrifice and hard work goes into balancing full-time work with the demands of the CA exams.

Congratulations, Natalie — a fantastic achievement, and one we are delighted to celebrate with you.

06/03/2026

Great night last night at the North East of Scotland Farm Management Association dinner, held at the P&J Live for the first time.

Over 330 people there, so lots o kent fowk. A real positive atmosphere and recognition of the resilience needed by our fantastic farming sector.

We hosted a table again for some of our team and clients — plenty of banter with a few surplus machinery deals being negotiated — supposedly for cash just to wind up us accountants 🤣

Well done to the committee for all their work. Already looking forward to next year 👌

02/03/2026

🟣 Start Your Career in Accountancy with us 🟣

To mark Scottish Apprenticeship Week, we have started the hunt for a new ICAS RGU Graduate Apprentice to join our team.

The ICAS RGU Graduate Apprenticeship is a fully funded, 5-year work-based learning degree programme aimed at school leavers, and delivered in partnership between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) and Robert Gordon University.

🟣 Work full-time within an accountancy practice gaining real practical experience
🟣 Earn a salary while studying
🟣 Study towards a BA (Hons) in Accounting
🟣 Complete the prestigious Chartered Accountant (CA) qualification
🟣 Start summer 2026

Learn more - ICAS will be hosting a webinar on Tuesday 3 March 2026, to provide further details about the programme. A link to sign up is in the comments.
It will also be available on demand afterwards.

Interested?
If you are motivated, ambitious and interested in working with us as a graduate apprentice starting in summer 2026, we would love to hear from you.

Please send your CV to [email protected] and tell us about your ambitions and what interests you in working with us.

20/02/2026

Does the thought of doing your books fill you with dread? We want to show you that it can be easy and only takes a few clicks…

Our clients use Dext to simply take a picture of their bills and invoices. Anything that comes by email can simply be forwarded on to a unique email address.

From there, we take care of everything:
📄Checking and processing your invoices correctly
📊Keeping your Xero up to date and accurate
✅Ensuring your bank is reconciled
💻Monitoring debtors and creditors regularly
⏱️Prepare your VAT return promptly and efficiently

Less faff, less stress, more time for you to focus on running your business.

If you would like to make your VAT and bookkeeping this easy, just drop us a message.

08/02/2026

We have a big focus on pre year end tax planning and with most of our clients having a 31 March year end, we are in the thick of tax planning just now & have been for a while.

Every business, every client, is different. Some of our recent conversations have been:

➡️ Client is surprised by their profit levels, they are higher than expected, with a crazy tax bill. We discussed various options available to them. Client is glad to have had the insight and is equipped with the information to make a decision on how to proceed in the coming weeks.

➡️ Another client was satisfied with their profit levels and tax position. No exposure to higher rate tax as profits will be shared amongst the partners. Investment could wait til April. They have the knowledge to make that decision, it’s not a guess or based on a gut feel.

➡️ A client was intending to invest in a seasonal machine, financed by hire purchase with a change of tractor planned for later in 2026. We suggested they switch the plans round by changing the tractor now, leaving the seasonal machine til the new financial year. That saves hassles with alternative finance as machines purchased on HP must be home & in use before 31 March to qualify for the capital allowances.

➡️ A further client appeared to have exposure to higher rate tax based on projected profits, resulting in a tax bill for January 2027 that they were really not comfortable with. We identified in the meeting that 5 year averaging would be available which removes the higher rate tax exposure. They now have the knowledge that any accelerated spend would save tax at only 21% so probably better to wait til the new financial year when the cash flow position would also be better.

Do you know where you stand in the run up to 31 March?

PS - the photo is a reminder that we will see blue skies again some day…..

07/02/2026

Featured in the Press and Journal Farming supplement today - courtesy of Monitor Farm Scotland and Katrina MacArthur.



pressandjournalfarming
monitorfarmscotland

03/02/2026

Through December & January we did a lot of pre year end tax planning with clients.

This is continuing through February & March as we head towards the end of the tax year on 5 April.

At these sessions, we review the projected taxable profits for the current year, and what the rough tax exposure might be. We then provide guidance on what can be done to manage that tax position.

We keep it real - It’s easy to tell our clients to spend x amount on machinery, equipment, repairs, pension contributions etc. But that’s not helpful if the cash position does not allow that.

And it’s not helpful if this spending isn’t actually needed in the business.

We guide our clients on the timing of any expenditure that is planned - should it be done this year, can it (or should it) wait til the next financial year, or is it better to wait longer?

Every business is different, every business owner is different. Our advice is tailored to suit their individual situation.

Do you get guidance like this from your accountant?

28/11/2025

This week we had the 3rd part of the Driving your Business series for the Deeside Monitor Farm management group.

Hear all about it ⬇️