For Cambridge owner-managed businesses

Accountants in Cambridge

Insight Professional Partners provides bookkeeping, VAT and management accounts to owner-managed businesses in and around Cambridge. A Chartered Management Accountant (ACMA CGMA) is personally accountable for your numbers, every month, on a fixed fee agreed upfront.

Book a 30-minute initial review →
Regulated byCIMA
Member in Practice
Companies HouseNo. 16943160
Insight Professional Partners Ltd
CoverProfessional
Indemnity Insured
ServingCambridge
& South Cambridgeshire
What most Cambridge businesses actually need

Bookkeeping and management accounts for Cambridge businesses

Cambridge is not short of accountants. What owner-managed businesses here often lack is someone senior looking at the numbers monthly — the large firms are built around year-end compliance and audit, and a small consultancy or trading company can end up a low-priority file.

We work the other way round. The books are kept current on Xero, the VAT position is reviewed before every return, and you get management accounts with commentary you can act on rather than a folder you file.

Cambridge also has a particular pattern: a lot of businesses here are consultancies, spin-outs and R&D-heavy companies where revenue is lumpy, projects run across periods and directors' expenses get complicated. Revenue recognition, accrued and deferred income, and grant or milestone income are where the ledger goes wrong — and they're exactly the areas a management accountant is trained for.

What we handle

Your books, kept properly, every month

Everything below is included in the monthly fee. Every issue we raise is tied to a published accounting standard (FRS 102, FRS 105) or an HMRC rule — nothing is a black box.

Reconciliation

Bank and card reconciliations

Every bank account, credit card and payment platform reconciled monthly, so the position you see is the position you're in — not an estimate.

Coding

Correct transaction coding

Transactions coded to the right nominal with the right VAT treatment. Consistent month to month, so your comparatives actually mean something.

VAT

VAT reviewed before filing

Every return inspected before submission — reverse charge, partial exemption, disallowed input tax. Errors caught before HMRC finds them, not after.

Reporting

Management accounts

Monthly P&L and balance sheet with plain-English commentary, so you can see how the business is really doing without decoding a spreadsheet.

Year end

Xero kept year-end ready

Clean, reconciled books handed to your accountant at year end — which means a faster, cheaper and far less painful year-end process.

Assurance

Issues flagged as they arise

If something doesn't look right — margin moving, a control account drifting, a director's loan building — you hear about it that month, not next March.

Runs on your existing Xero. Nothing for you to set up or learn. If you're not on Xero yet, we'll move you across as part of onboarding.
Fixed fees, agreed upfront

No hourly billing, no unexpected charges

Monthly fee
From £199 + VAT per month, confirmed once we've seen the scale of the work
One-off work
Any initial review or cleanup is priced separately and agreed before we start
Payment
Monthly by Direct Debit — no invoice chasing either way
Who does the work
A Chartered Management Accountant, not a junior and not offshore
Typical client
Owner-managed limited companies, £200k–£5m turnover
Notice
Straightforward terms, no long tie-in
Scope, stated plainly

What we do and don't do

We handle bookkeeping, VAT, management accounts and the ongoing finance function. Corporation Tax returns and personal Self Assessment sit outside CIMA's remit and are referred to a UK Chartered Accountancy firm we work with — you get the specialist, we stay accountable for the numbers they work from.

R&D tax relief claims, which come up often in Cambridge, are handled the same way: introduced to a specialist rather than prepared here. Clean, well-coded books make those claims considerably easier to substantiate, which is the part we can genuinely help with.

If what you actually need is a part-time finance director rather than bookkeeping, that's a different service — see our Virtual Finance Director service for Cambridge.

Why IPP

A regulated practice, run by one person who's accountable

I'm Peter Edwards. CIMA-qualified Chartered Management Accountant (ACMA CGMA) with twenty years of senior finance experience across pharmaceutical distribution, manufacturing, and professional services.

I keep my client list deliberately small so every engagement gets proper senior attention. No junior delegation. No offshored bookkeeping. No black-box software making decisions on your behalf.

That's the trade-off worth being clear about: a large Cambridge firm gives you depth of departments and a team you may rarely meet. This is the opposite — one qualified person, a small client list, and direct accountability for your numbers.

  • Peter Edwards ACMA CGMAChartered Management Accountant, CIMA Member in Practice (regulated practising certificate)
  • 20 years senior finance experiencePharmaceutical distribution, manufacturing, professional services
  • Companies House No. 16943160Insight Professional Partners Ltd
  • Professional Indemnity InsuredFull PI cover, AML-supervised
  • Xero Partner PracticeAll engagements delivered on your existing Xero
How it works

Three steps to books you can trust

01

Initial review

Thirty minutes on a call. Free, no obligation. We talk about your business, what's not working in the books, and what you'd want handled.

02

Bookkeeping Health Check

Free. We look at the state of the ledger and tell you honestly what we'd do differently — whether you engage us or not.

03

Monthly engagement

If it's a fit, we go live on a fixed monthly fee and Direct Debit mandate. Clean books from the first month.

Cambridge and the surrounding area

Local to Cambridge, and beyond

We work with businesses across Cambridge, Cambourne, Royston, St Ives, Ely and the surrounding South Cambridgeshire area — in person where it helps, and entirely remote on Xero where it doesn't.

Nearby: Cambourne, Royston, St Ives, Ely, St Neots, Huntingdon.

Not sure your books are right?

Run our free Bookkeeping Health Check — a self-serve diagnostic that scores your books out of 100 and shows you exactly what's wrong. No login, nothing uploaded, no obligation.
Or book a 30-minute initial review and we'll talk it through.

Run the free Health Check → Or book a 30-minute initial review — currently accepting enquiries