Telephone, Internet, Computers & Mobile Charges: Codes 7550, 7551, 7552 & 7553

Every modern business runs on connectivity and computing in some form, and this block of codes keeps those costs visible and separate from general office running costs.

The codes, and what each one holds

Code 7550 — Telephone and Fax records landline and fax line costs.

Code 7551 — Internet Charges covers broadband and internet connectivity costs.

Code 7552 — Computers & Software covers computer hardware purchases too small to capitalise as a fixed asset, plus software licences and subscriptions.

Code 7553 — Mobile Charges covers business mobile phone contracts and usage. All four are Overheads codes and normally carry a debit balance.

Real-world examples across industries

Contact centre or customer service operation

A 40-seat inbound support team runs almost entirely on metered VoIP lines and needs guaranteed-uptime connectivity to match. A £2,160 telephone invoice (£1,800 net) is debited to 7550 (Telephone and Fax), a £3,450 leased-line invoice (£2,875 net) with failover backup is debited to 7551 (Internet Charges), and £3,390 (£2,825 net) of CRM and call-handling software licences sits in 7552 (Computers & Software). Together that's a debit of £1,800 to 7550, £2,875 to 7551, £2,825 to 7552 and £1,500 to 2201 (Purchase Tax Control Account), credited in full as £9,000 to 2100 (Creditors Control Account). Mobile barely features here — most staff never leave the building — so 7553 stays close to nil.

Field-based trades, such as plumbing or HVAC

Here the pattern flips. Fifteen engineers each carry a company-contract mobile for job scheduling and customer calls under one fleet agreement, invoiced at £1,800 (£1,500 net) and debited to 7553 (Mobile Charges) — by far the largest of the four codes. Office broadband is a modest £66 (£55 net) to 7551, and a replacement laptop for quoting and invoicing comes to £360 (£300 net) in 7552. Landline spend is usually nil, since 7550 exists mainly for firms still running a dedicated phone line rather than mobile-only. Combined: debit £1,500 to 7553, £55 to 7551, £300 to 7552 and £371 to 2201, credited as £2,226 to 2100.

Serviced-office or home-based small business

This kind of business rarely sees much in 7550 or 7551 at all: a serviced office often bundles phone and internet into the monthly desk charge, posted to 7100 (Rent) instead, while a director working from home typically claims only a reasonable business-use share of a personal broadband bill — say 20% of an £80 monthly bill, £16 — journalled through the director's loan account rather than a purchase invoice, with no VAT reclaimed since there's no VAT invoice made out to the company. Spend instead concentrates in 7552, for accounting, email and cloud-storage subscriptions, and a couple of mobile contracts in 7553 for the owner and any field staff — steady, modest costs rather than anything close to the contact centre or trades examples above.

Why this matters day to day

IT and connectivity spend tends to grow quietly as a business adds software subscriptions and devices, so keeping it in its own visible code is a useful check against subscription creep. It's also worth deciding early where the line sits between an expensed small purchase here and a capitalised fixed asset in Office Equipment (code 0030), since larger computer purchases are usually better treated as assets rather than run through this code.