Accountants in Dundee
Dundee has one of the most distinctive business bases in Scotland: games studios, life sciences and a waterfront that has changed what the city sells.
The business base in Dundee
Dundee is a games city. Studios of every size work here, sustained by Abertay University's long-established games courses, and around them sits a broader digital and creative economy of freelancers, contractors and small agencies. Separately, the University of Dundee anchors a serious life sciences cluster, which produces spinouts and research-driven small companies with quite different needs.
The waterfront regeneration and the V&A have added a real visitor economy on top, which means hospitality and retail with sharp seasonal peaks. The accounting question that comes up more here than anywhere else in Scotland is research and development relief — who genuinely qualifies, and just as importantly who does not.
How we work with businesses in Dundee
Buzz has no Scottish office, and we would rather say that plainly than put a rented address on a page to look local. Work runs by phone, video call and WhatsApp, with a named accountant rather than a call queue, unlimited questions at no hourly charge, and FreeAgent included.
A games studio, a university spinout and a waterfront restaurant need three quite different conversations, and we would rather have the right one than offer all three the same package.
What we do for Dundee businesses
Research-driven businesses and a visitor economy, which pull in opposite directions and need different things from their numbers.
- R&D relief assessed honestly — including telling you when a claim would not stand up, which is worth more than a claim that unravels two years later now HMRC's scrutiny has tightened
- Creative sector reliefs — the video games expenditure regime worked through properly against what the studio actually spends, rather than assumed to apply
- Grant and equity funding — the accounting and tax consequences of taking grant money or investment, settled before the money arrives rather than after
- Freelance and contractor structures — for the large number of people in this city working through their own company, including the Scottish rate position on how they draw income
- Seasonal hospitality trading — management accounts by month, so a strong summer on the waterfront and a thin February show up as two facts rather than one average
Questions we get asked in Dundee
We are a small studio. Do we qualify for R&D or creative relief?
Possibly both, possibly neither, and they are different tests. Creative sector relief looks at what the game is and where the spend goes. R&D relief looks at whether you were resolving genuine technical uncertainty rather than building something difficult but well understood. Plenty of studios qualify for one and not the other. We will tell you plainly where you sit, because HMRC's scrutiny of these claims has tightened a great deal and a claim that unravels costs more than it ever paid.
We are a university spinout with grant funding and no revenue. What do we need?
Less than you might think, done properly. The priorities are keeping the grant conditions satisfiable, getting the share structure right before an investor looks at it, and making sure R&D claims are documented as you go rather than reconstructed a year later. Monthly management accounts matter more than the annual accounts at this stage, because the question that decides everything is how many months of cash you have left.
Our restaurant does most of its trade in four months. How should we plan?
By looking at the year in months rather than as one figure. Seasonal businesses get into trouble in the quiet quarter, not the busy one, and the fix is knowing in October what February's cash looks like. That is a management accounts job rather than a year-end one, and it is the single most useful thing a hospitality business can add.
Looking for an accountant in Dundee?
Tell us what you need and we will come back to you, usually the same working day. No call centre, no script.
We work right across Scotland
Pick your town for the local detail — what the business base actually looks like there, and the questions that come up most often.
See the full Scotland page for what changes at the border, the guides and the rest of it.
