Forecourts, convenience stores, e-commerce, restaurants, cafés, takeaways and franchisees with annual sales of up to £10m. I handle your accounts, VAT, payroll and tax returns, and show you what every site is really making.
Iltaf Mohammed CA. Big 4 trained chartered accountant and former Head of Commercial Finance for a group of around 1,100 forecourt, convenience and food-to-go sites. Based in Oldham, working across Greater Manchester, the North West and the UK.
| Site | Sales | Margin | Wages | Profit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High Street | £96,400 | 27.4% | 11.9% | £6,210 |
| Station Road | £71,800 | 25.6% | 13.2% | £2,940 |
| Ring Road forecourt | £142,300 | 16.8% | 7.9% | £3,870 |
| Retail Park Review | £58,900 | 22.1% | 17.8% | −£1,120 |
| Group | £369,400 | 22.1% | 11.6% | £11,900 |
Retail Park: wages are 17.8% of sales against 11.6% for the group. Closing half that gap adds about £1,800 a month.
Most accountants file your returns and move on. I’ve spent over 10 years in finance, most of it in commercial roles inside retail, forecourt and food-to-go businesses, so I know where they make and lose money.
Forecourts, convenience stores and e-commerce. Retail profit is made one customer journey and one product at a time: what brings people in, what they add to the basket and what each line really earns once promotions, waste and VAT are counted. I look at margin SKU by SKU, so ranging, pricing and promotions are decided on facts, not feel.
Retail accountingRestaurants, cafés, takeaways, drive-throughs and franchised units. Labour is usually the biggest cost you can control and the hardest to get right: too few staff and service suffers, too many and the margin goes. I help match rotas to how you actually trade, hour by hour and day by day, alongside food margin and the VAT that comes with eating in or taking away.
Hospitality and franchise accountingRunning the business and doing the finance job too? I act as your part-time finance director: forecasts, cashflow and the pack your bank or investor expects when you open, buy or borrow.
Part-time finance directorYour compliance is done properly and on time. On top of that, you get numbers you can run the business with.
Client names are kept private. The results are real.
Hospitality, newly VAT registered
The problem. The previous accountant treated every sale as standard-rated for VAT.
What I did. I reviewed how orders are taken and served, the menu wording and signage, customer requests and the profit on each product, then set the correct VAT treatment product by product.
Hospitality, Manchester
The problem. Trading well, but losing money every month on an old card processing contract.
What I did. I reviewed the merchant statements and the contract, renegotiated with the provider and made a few practical changes.
Wholesale, working capital
The problem. A big new supply deal, but not enough warehouse space or working capital to deliver it safely.
What I did. I built cash-on-cash scenarios for every product, a working capital cashflow model, a stock flow model to find bottlenecks and a logistics costing model, plus a brochure for wholesalers.
Every plan covers your compliance properly. The difference is how much insight, planning and time with me you get.
Compliance, done properly: accounts, tax, VAT, payroll and a pre-year-end tax check.
Everything in Core, plus quarterly site-by-site management accounts, a cashflow forecast and a review meeting.
Your part-time finance director: monthly reporting, a 13-week cashflow and support on new sites and funding, with a pays-for-itself guarantee.
I’m Iltaf Mohammed, a chartered accountant trained at a Big 4 firm. Since then I’ve worked in finance across several large retail, forecourt and food-to-go businesses, partnering everyone from store and area managers to directors and investors.
Along the way I’ve built and led commercial finance teams, delivered projects from rebranding more than 100 forecourts to cutting waste across a national estate, and introduced new ways of analysing the numbers, from rolling cashflow forecasts to pricing and wage models.
I set up Taff Accounts to give independent and multi-site operators that same quality of thinking, without the cost of a full-time finance director.
If you’re a sole trader or landlord, quarterly digital reporting to HMRC is being phased in. It started in April 2026 for people with qualifying income over £50,000, and extends to those over £30,000 from April 2027 and over £20,000 from April 2028.
Qualifying income is your total income from self-employment and property, before expenses. I’ll set up the software, get your records into shape and file each quarter for you.
Practical articles on cash, costs and decisions.
18 June 2026
Why most forecasts miss the mark, and how a weekly view stopped a wedding venue owner going overdrawn.
6 June 2026
What to check on your merchant statement, and how a Manchester café group saved £4,800 a year.
5 May 2026
The WWII bullet-hole lesson, and how one client doubled net profit by looking beneath the headline numbers.
Book a free 30-minute discovery call. Tell me about your business and what you want from your numbers. If I can’t add more than I cost, I’ll tell you.