An English-speaking accountant in Helsinki

You can run a company in Finland without speaking Finnish, and many people do. What you cannot do is ignore the Finnish parts: the returns, the deadlines and the letters that arrive in a language you are still learning. That is the part we take over. Karma Accounts is a Helsinki accounting firm working online, so it makes no difference whether you are in Espoo, Tampere or Rovaniemi.

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What working in English actually means here

Not a translated invoice template. It means every part of the job you touch happens in your language:

• You write to us in English, Finnish, Hindi or Nepali, and get an answer in the same language, from the person who does your books.
• The filings are made in Finnish, the language we use with the authorities, and the Trade Register's filing service at ytj.fi works only in Finnish and Swedish. You never have to touch MyTax (OmaVero), the Incomes Register or ytj.fi yourself.
• Finnish letters get translated in substance, not word by word: what the authority wants, whether it is urgent, and what we are doing about it.
• Your agreement and your reports are in English, so you always know what you signed and what your business actually earned.
• Finnish terms are explained, not hidden: you will learn what toiminimi, ennakkovero, tilinpäätös and YEL mean, because you will meet them for as long as you run a business here.

The things that catch people out

These catch out founders who did not grow up with the Finnish system, and each of them can cost money:

• VAT registration. You must register once turnover passes 20 000 euros, and the test looks at the current and the previous calendar year. How the VAT return works.
• The quiet month still needs a return. Skip it and the Tax Administration writes to ask for it, then estimates the tax if the return still does not come.
• YEL, the entrepreneur's pension. It is compulsory above a low income limit, it is not optional because you are young or foreign, and its cost surprises people more than tax does.
• Invoices from Google, Meta and Adobe. They arrive with no VAT, and you owe the Finnish VAT yourself. Reverse charge, explained.
• Toiminimi or Oy. The answer moves with your profit, your withdrawals and your net worth, not with a rule of thumb from a forum. The comparison.
• Receipts. A card slip or a bank line is not a receipt, and a missing one costs you the deduction. What a receipt must show.

How we start

1. A free introduction. Half an hour online in English, Finnish, Hindi or Nepali about what your business does, how the receipts arrive today and what is worrying you.
2. A written scope and price. You get the fee in writing before anything starts, and we verify your identity, which Finnish anti-money-laundering law requires of every accounting firm.
3. Access, not paperwork. You approve a Suomi.fi mandate so we can file for you, and give us the bank statements. The mandate takes about five minutes.
4. The month starts running. Receipts by phone as they arrive, bookkeeping during the month, and the amount to pay told to you before the due date.

What it costs

A sole trader pays 69 euros a month and a company 199, each up to 240 000 euros of turnover, and 249 up to 500 000 euros, with a written quote above that; payroll is 15 euros per payslip. Those prices include the accounting software and the year-end financial statements and tax return, and there is no charge per receipt. All prices are without VAT.

See the full price list