Seeking partial refund from Accountant

[xoxo2020]

Hi All

I posted another thread a few weeks ago- I was paying an accountant on retainer for last year to cover bookkeeping and year end accounts. YE was Feb, all invoices etc were sent to the accountant and 2 weeks ago as nothing had been done, I was able to get everything returned to pass to someone else.

I'm a year and a half into my business and I have no idea what my earnings are, or what profit I've made.

I've emailed the accountant to discuss a partial refund for the services that he didn't provide (bookkeping) but he's refusing to enter into a conversation about this - his response is detailed below:

I will not be communicating about a refund, yes agree you have paid for those services, but fact remains I wanted and committed to delivering them, but you chose for own needs to get them done elsewhere to satisfy a need more urgently.



This is common, for example I'm taking on Electrical company, second year started 01.06.16 and has paid monthly for year 1, has few problems, but has chased accountant to do May16 Accounts just so he can move to sort VAT issue. He said to me (not the other way) he was not going to pay me when already paid them and not paying twice.



Plus on another note, behind scenes, I have offered advice, help in and out of hours help, used my address as registered office and still is I'm aware, as not moved, time and costs put aside as I was doing other things.



This is a clean break and I think Jason will have access to anything else needed, if not please just shout.

Really not sure where I stand with this. I'm not disputing the work he did do, I'm disputing the work he didn't do and I don't feel it's fair that he wasn't able to complete the work yet I still have to pay.

Is this common place with accountancy?

Any help or advice is welcome right now

 

[john1989]

Nope, he's being a pillock.

If he's had a reasonable amount of time to complete the work and hasn't done so, then it should be of no surprise that you are leaving.

He cannot charge you for services that he hasn't done.

Though, a reasonable charge for other services such as registered office might be due to the accountant. It all depends on the contract you had with them.

 

[Darren Brock]

A letter threatening to inform his professional body , CIMA , ACCA etc will have to desired effect imo.

 

[john1989]

P.s Did you ever contact the AAT like I suggested in the previous thread?

 

[xoxo2020]

@john1989 I have just spoken to AAT and confirmed that he is a current member.

I don't disagree that things like using his address is potentially chargeable - but I still feel like not providing bookkeeping when charging for is unfair.

He's had everything since Feb and was to finally bring is up to date for the start of this month... but wasn't able to with workload and I asked if he'd be doing it the following week but no, he was then on 2 weeks holiday. So I told him I needed it all back and he did return it the next day.

 

[xoxo2020]

How much is a reasonable amount of time in your opinion?

 

[xoxo2020]

Just getting my evidence together if I have to make complaint and he's agreed to 8 deadlines and missed all 8 in the last 4 months

 

[ethical PR]

Depends on what you agreed with him in advance of you sending the books over.

If say you agreed in January you would send the books over by say 14 Feb and wanted them back by 1st March and he agreed.

And then when you sent them over as agreed he didn't do the work to the agreed deadline - that would be unreasonable.

If you sent over the books on 14 Feb without agreeing a date for the work and then as you mention he had other work scheduled in and then holiday booked and you demanded completion in two weeks. IMO you would be unreasonable.

As others have mentioned make a complaint through his professional body.

 

[xoxo2020]

8th March - "I'll get them done asap"
24th March - "I'll get them done next week"
11th April - "On my list for this week"
28th April - "Do it over the next 10 days"
6th - supposed to have a meeting to do handover, cancelled by accountant
10th May "back end of next week"
I could go on....

 

[ethical PR]

wow what a nightmare -

 

[Newchodge]

Those were his responses when you pressed him.

What was agreed in advance? I ask this because many service providers, when faced with a request by a client that was unexpected, will try to satisfy the client's expectations by agreeing to the request, despite not having the capacity to do so; hence offering deadlines which then fail.

 

[xoxo2020]

Well we hadn't actually agreed anything in writing other than the fact that accounts would be done on time. No bookkeeping has happened for last year though and I'd have assumed that should have been taken care of as a priority.

 

[xoxo2020]

He had said in February that he would do every month monthly going forward and that hasn't happened...

 

[John Crowder]

Its a total disgrace.

But how much refund are you expecting?

If its a couple of hundred then send a complaint to his body and move on.

More than a grand its probably worth some more correspondence and some legal advice - has missing the deadline been detrimental to your business?

The response is particularly condescending - how is that example relevant?

This bit is particularly flaky

"Plus on another note, behind scenes, I have offered advice, help in and out of hours help, used my address as registered office and still is I'm aware, as not moved, time and costs put aside as I was doing other things."

You could ask him to itemise this with his time sheets.

A registered office at an accountant maybe 200 quid at most - unless you received a lot of mail.

Good luck with it.

JC

 

[xoxo2020]

To be honest, if he was going to charge for the registered office, I'd probably not have bothered in the first place but I agree - £200 tops (I'd allow £100 for that personally as I know I can registered office addresses for that - and barely any mail as we have our own correspondence address which is the office we work from).

The refund would be for just over £700 but I'd settle for £500 if it meant resolving the matter.

I completely get that he may have over committed but we work in the service industry too and if a client had been coming to me in the same manner, I'd have either made sure I did the work or apologised profusely for not completing it and I'd have given them a refund and moved on. But I guess I can't expect others to act to the same standards as myself.

I also provide help and advice to clients off the clock - perhaps there's a trick here that I've missed, and I should be sending them a bill for services rendered!

 

[xoxo2020]

We're up to date with HMRC etc so we haven't incurred fines... but we've been unable to move forward with a finance application as we don't even have an estimate of how much profit we've made. We were also applying for some funding and couldn't progress with that as we don't even have an estimate on profit as we have no books to speak of. Sage is empty apart for the invoices I'd raised... I could have used free software for that, or designed something in word and sent the client a PDF

 

[Newchodge]

I am very confused.

You wanted the book keeping done monthly, and this was agreed in February. You also want the year end accounts doing, which hasn't been done. You sent him the books in February and stopped paying him 4 months ago? Is that the position?

When were the year end accounts due?

 

[xoxo2020]

Year end was due Feb but we hadn't been keeping up to date. It's been really annoying me as when not having the financial information up to date has been really holding me back in regards to funding etc.

I aired my concerns and we discussed it and he agreed to bring books up to date for last year and then keep on top of it monthly moving forward. Year end accounts need filled September.

 

[Newchodge]

When did you send him the paperwork so that he could get the books up to date, and what period did they cover?

 

[xoxo2020]

I sent it in Feb for the previous year - so covered from April to Feb.

 

[xoxo2020]

I should add - I was a one person company then so not much to record. And we only have between 1-3 sales invoices in a month. I took my first member of staff on in March which is why I was more conscious of making sure everything was up to date and I knew where I was - I had another mouth to feed.

 

[Newchodge]

But you sent 10 months of books in February this year, and then stopped paying him?

 

[xoxo2020]

the last invoice I paid was May this year (might have been April, need to check) as we decided to bring a FC inhouse on freelance basis. I'd paid him monthly on retainer since April 2015 for bookkeeping and accountancy services

 

[Newchodge]

Gemma, I do understand that.

As I see it you entered into an agreement with an accountant to provide book keeping and accountancy services, including a registered office address, from April last year.

However, although they provided some of those services, registered address, accountancy advice, possibly other things, they could not supply the book keeping service because you chose not to send them the information. Very shortly after you sent the information, which presumably, was the end of February, you requested an immediate date for bringing your books up to date.

I understand your need to know how much profit you were making and all the other information that a business needs every month in order to run properly, but how could your accountant supply that if he did not have the books?

 

[xoxo2020]

I completely agree with you - he's not able to provide that information without the relevant paperwork. I didn't have an issue with everything not being up to date last year as it was just me but moving forward, I wanted to make sure I knew where I was at. I didn't actually realise that I was obliged to have everything up to date either (first business) so didn't see it as an issue, accountant hadn't requested anything.

I'd spoken to accountant and he said he was able to bring the bookkeeping up to date and he suggested the date for completion - not me.

He's now had the paperwork since February and we're now approaching August and paperwork was still in the envelope it was sent it.

I haven't sent paperwork past April this year as that's being dealt with inhouse now.

 

[john1989]

I've not got time to do a detailed reply.

But ta hard for you to say it's now August when you haven't paid them since April or May.

I think there's been some unprofessional behaviour, and some demanding expectations.

You are better putting a detailed compliant to the account, giving the timeline of events and politely asking for a partial refund.

You might then want to take it further by conplaining to their professional body.

But all this takes time and time is money.

 

[xoxo2020]

I'm not sure why I would still continue to pay them when they're not going to be doing the work for those months... and I've already paid last year for work that ws yet to be complete?

I've already contacted them twice now for partial refund and they've said no.

What is a more appropriate timescale for bookkeeping? I'd have thought that 4-5 months to do at least some of it was apt.

 

[john1989]

If you continue you to pay, you are in a much stronger position if it needs to go to court as you have kept up to your side of the contract.

Yes they were slow. But on the same token, you can't go months and months without providing them with paperwork and then expect them to drop everything to complete your work.

Put everything in one formal letter of complaint. If you don't get anywhere, then complain to their professional body.
If you haven't formally put in a complaint in the first instance, I can't see the AAT taking the complaint seriously.

 

[Bob]

Professional bodies don't normally get involved in fee disputes. They believe that you should he pursuing fee disputes through the courts. They may however be interested in his behaviour bringing the profession into disrepute but you would probably need far more supporting documentation than you have

 

[xoxo2020]

I think that if my expectations are unreasonable, I would prefer that someone point that out to me now. The one thing I don't want to be is unreasonable - this is someone's way of making a living etc.

And thanks @Bob I had read online that they wouldn't get involved in fee disputes and actually wasn't sure if this was classed as fee dispute or service delivery