CIS, without the monthly scramble.
Subcontractor verification, deductions at the right rate, monthly returns and retentions — handled in the ledger rather than in a spreadsheet beside it.
Usually on: Business or Complete
The CIS month-end is a spreadsheet nobody owns
Verification happens on the HMRC portal. Deductions get calculated in a spreadsheet. Statements go out by email. The return is keyed in by hand. And the ledger gets a journal at the end that ties it all together, posted by whoever remembered.
Every one of those steps is a place where a rate is applied to the wrong subcontractor, or a payment is missed off the return. Qwikr treats CIS as part of paying a subcontractor rather than as a monthly reporting exercise bolted on afterwards.
- Verification status held against the subcontractor, not looked up each time
- Deduction calculated on the labour element at the verified rate
- Monthly return built from the payments actually made
- Statements generated and sent from the same records
What you get
Subcontractor verification
Verification status and rate recorded against each subcontractor, so the deduction follows from the record rather than from memory.
Deductions at the right rate
Gross, standard or higher rate applied to the labour element only, with materials excluded as they should be.
Monthly returns & statements
The CIS return assembled from real payments, and subcontractor statements produced from the same figures.
Retentions
Retention held on certified work and released when it falls due, tracked as its own balance rather than a note on an invoice.
Project costing
Costs, labour and materials tracked per project, so you know the margin on a job while it is still running.
Domestic reverse charge flagged
Contractor and subcontractor relationships are recorded against the client, and a return notes where the reverse charge is likely to apply — the VAT treatment and invoice wording are the preparer’s to apply today.
Questions, answered
Not automatically yet. Where a client is a CIS contractor or has subcontractors recorded, a VAT return flags that the reverse charge is likely to apply — but applying the treatment and the invoice wording is currently down to the preparer.
Yes — CIS subcontractors and PAYE employees sit in the same system, which matters because plenty of firms have both and the split between them is exactly where employment status questions arise.
Retention is tracked in both directions — held on work you have certified, and held against you by a main contractor — as balances rather than as memoranda.
A construction business itself needs Business or Complete depending on whether you want project costing and inventory. An accountant running CIS for construction clients wants Practice.
Other kinds of business
Built for construction & trades
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