- Original Poster
- #1
I have a question about whether I have grounds to dispute our accountant’s fees or not. My main issue is that the work he did for us was not satisfactory and is overpriced. When I first signed up with him, I asked about the fees, his reply was vague “it depends on which member of staff does the job and how long it takes”. It’s a mistake I won’t make again.
Now we’ve just received our first invoice which covers a period of 10 month and most of the work consists of advice given on business matters via email. No bookkeeping work, no account filing, a bit of help with the company and VAT registration but most of the work was done by ourselves (he double checked our applications before we submitted them). Our total invoice is £7500 (including VAT). Very strangely he offers a discount of £1800 if we pay within 10 days which seems even more suspicious to me
Let me explain our business quickly. We are online retailers, we sell worldwide in 5 currencies. I needed advice on various matters in order to run and grow the business but unfortunately because they are not a very modern firm, they weren’t unable to properly understand the needs of a modern online selling business and help find solutions to our problems. Let me give you 2 examples:
Bookkeeping
I email them explaining my needs, then meet up with them because I need help with bookkeeping. After a meeting their best solution is to provide me with an Excel spreadsheet containing a template for a simple cash business in one currency. Because this solution doesn’t work for me, I do my own research and subsequently find online bookkeeping tools. I email them again for advice and their reply is they can’t comment on those online tools because they haven’t used them before. I am charged 6 hours of work at £96 p/h for emails sent and research but I had to find the solution and do the bookkeeping myself.
VAT Registration in France
Part of the strategy to grow the business is to be able to dispatch goods directly from France. I email them to get a formal confirmation that we would be liable to pay VAT in France and ask them if they can help us with that. They confirm the obligation to register in France by email but say they are unable to help. Charge: 1h30 for research + 1h15 for the confirmation email at £96 p/h. I am no better off but I am charged £264 + VAT for this work alone.
Finally I would like to add that when we registered for VAT, before submitting our registration, they changed the VAT quarters to match our end of year accounts. I’ve had several discussions with them about VAT for a period of 3-4 months and asked them several times if they could help us file our return. They said yes…but they gave us the wrong deadline. I found out this week that we were meant to submit a return for the quarter ending February, not March and they had forgotten to tell us. Result we failed to submit our first VAT return on time. When I contacted them to point out the issue, they seemed to blame me for not sending a VAT certificate although I sent them the registration confirmation letter and never said they required a certificate in order to file the return. This is when I decided it was too much and asked the help of another accountant.
I would like to finish by adding that I first asked for an invoice 4 months ago, back in December because I wasn’t sure how much we were being charged. I was told it would come soon but interestingly we have only received it just this week (April) after the VAT return blunder. Had I known back in December how much we were being charged, I would have stopped using their services.
Being told the wrong dates when it comes to VAT filing seems like negligence to me (i have an email where they confirm to me the wrong date) but what about my two other examples where the work was done but the outcome not satisfactory? Do I have grounds to dispute their fees and how should I proceed? I feel under pressure to pay the reduced fee within 10 days in order to save £1800
Now we’ve just received our first invoice which covers a period of 10 month and most of the work consists of advice given on business matters via email. No bookkeeping work, no account filing, a bit of help with the company and VAT registration but most of the work was done by ourselves (he double checked our applications before we submitted them). Our total invoice is £7500 (including VAT). Very strangely he offers a discount of £1800 if we pay within 10 days which seems even more suspicious to me
Let me explain our business quickly. We are online retailers, we sell worldwide in 5 currencies. I needed advice on various matters in order to run and grow the business but unfortunately because they are not a very modern firm, they weren’t unable to properly understand the needs of a modern online selling business and help find solutions to our problems. Let me give you 2 examples:
Bookkeeping
I email them explaining my needs, then meet up with them because I need help with bookkeeping. After a meeting their best solution is to provide me with an Excel spreadsheet containing a template for a simple cash business in one currency. Because this solution doesn’t work for me, I do my own research and subsequently find online bookkeeping tools. I email them again for advice and their reply is they can’t comment on those online tools because they haven’t used them before. I am charged 6 hours of work at £96 p/h for emails sent and research but I had to find the solution and do the bookkeeping myself.
VAT Registration in France
Part of the strategy to grow the business is to be able to dispatch goods directly from France. I email them to get a formal confirmation that we would be liable to pay VAT in France and ask them if they can help us with that. They confirm the obligation to register in France by email but say they are unable to help. Charge: 1h30 for research + 1h15 for the confirmation email at £96 p/h. I am no better off but I am charged £264 + VAT for this work alone.
Finally I would like to add that when we registered for VAT, before submitting our registration, they changed the VAT quarters to match our end of year accounts. I’ve had several discussions with them about VAT for a period of 3-4 months and asked them several times if they could help us file our return. They said yes…but they gave us the wrong deadline. I found out this week that we were meant to submit a return for the quarter ending February, not March and they had forgotten to tell us. Result we failed to submit our first VAT return on time. When I contacted them to point out the issue, they seemed to blame me for not sending a VAT certificate although I sent them the registration confirmation letter and never said they required a certificate in order to file the return. This is when I decided it was too much and asked the help of another accountant.
I would like to finish by adding that I first asked for an invoice 4 months ago, back in December because I wasn’t sure how much we were being charged. I was told it would come soon but interestingly we have only received it just this week (April) after the VAT return blunder. Had I known back in December how much we were being charged, I would have stopped using their services.
Being told the wrong dates when it comes to VAT filing seems like negligence to me (i have an email where they confirm to me the wrong date) but what about my two other examples where the work was done but the outcome not satisfactory? Do I have grounds to dispute their fees and how should I proceed? I feel under pressure to pay the reduced fee within 10 days in order to save £1800
