Tax Assist Accountants - Good/Bad?
- Thread starter Lolleo
- Start date
The Franchisors at head office know their stuff. What you need to look at is the franchisee who you will be seeing.
When I looked into this, at the time I discovered that they can get qualified experienced accoutants joining them, who go on a 5 or 6 week course with them to learn their ways. .
However they can get someone who is brand new to the industry go on their six week course who sets up the next day. They did recommend that this type of franchisee takes up a tax course to get a qualification as soon as possible, But they may have little or no work based experience to draw from when doing this new job.
The Franchisor recommends that the franchisee take on staff to do the work for them to free them up to find new clients. So hopefully in this instance they employ qualified and experienced people.
If the shop your going to has been established a while, they must be doing something right. But I would ask questions on their qualifications and work based experience or that of their staff, if your not sure. As lots of people can put a set of books together, they can even prepare profit and loss and balance sheets using computer software. But any lack of technical taxation knowledge can cost you in the long run.
They also usually set you up to pay in advance by monthly direct debit.
Caspar
When I looked into this, at the time I discovered that they can get qualified experienced accoutants joining them, who go on a 5 or 6 week course with them to learn their ways. .
However they can get someone who is brand new to the industry go on their six week course who sets up the next day. They did recommend that this type of franchisee takes up a tax course to get a qualification as soon as possible, But they may have little or no work based experience to draw from when doing this new job.
The Franchisor recommends that the franchisee take on staff to do the work for them to free them up to find new clients. So hopefully in this instance they employ qualified and experienced people.
If the shop your going to has been established a while, they must be doing something right. But I would ask questions on their qualifications and work based experience or that of their staff, if your not sure. As lots of people can put a set of books together, they can even prepare profit and loss and balance sheets using computer software. But any lack of technical taxation knowledge can cost you in the long run.
They also usually set you up to pay in advance by monthly direct debit.
Caspar
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As Caspar says some are good and some are bad 
TaxAssist - the franchisor - don't deal with complaints
They are quite happy to sell a franchise to a non-accountant
What sort of person does TaxAssist Accountants look for?
Whilst a background in accountancy is desirable, the main attribute we look for is the determination to develop a successful business. We recruit accountants and non-accountants alike. General business acumen and people skills are essential as the franchisee will be responsible for developing relationships with existing and prospective clients, as well as looking after staff needs.
If you want a face to face accountant, speak to other local practices as well before committing yourself or consider if one of the online firms can meet your needs
TaxAssist - the franchisor - don't deal with complaints
They are quite happy to sell a franchise to a non-accountant
What sort of person does TaxAssist Accountants look for?
Whilst a background in accountancy is desirable, the main attribute we look for is the determination to develop a successful business. We recruit accountants and non-accountants alike. General business acumen and people skills are essential as the franchisee will be responsible for developing relationships with existing and prospective clients, as well as looking after staff needs.
If you want a face to face accountant, speak to other local practices as well before committing yourself or consider if one of the online firms can meet your needs
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Business acumen and people sklls are essential to running an accountancy practice, but nowhere near as important as accountancy and tax knowledge. Allowing a non-accountant to start up a franchise just seems lunacy, and if TaxAssist are making their selection criteria like this publicly available I would steer well clear.
You will, at some point, wish to sit down with your chosen accountant and draw on their years of experience to help you through your own business issues. If they have six weeks training and no accountancy background, they simply will be unable to help you (or they may blag their way through the meeting).
They are undoubtedly competitive on price, but I would recommend paying slightly more and employing the services of an experienced and qualified (by experieince or otherwise) accountant.
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A
AngieVA
I think the idea behind having non-accounting franchise owners is that the owner will employ or use qualified accountants to complete the accounting work while they focuse on the sales and marketing side.
Whether they actually regulate for that, I've no idea.
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Not really sure that they're too competitive on price. I've seen some fairly hefty quotes/bills from them, often more expensive than small/one man qualified firms. If they're employing qualified/experienced accountants, then there's no reason they'd be any cheaper.
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Hi Lolleo, I hope the meeting goes well for you and you meet with our accountant who can help you with your accountancy needs.
Unfortunately, nobody who has used our service has commented here but other accountants have given you their opinions which will only be biased. There would be no reason for them to give us a glowing review.
We typically recruit qualified accountants who are capable of running their own practice but see the value in our brand and the power of our technical knowledge. We specialise in small business (up to £2m turnover) and self employed individuals and share knoweldge and best practice throughout the network of over 220 offices. We also have a dedicated tax and accountancy helpline for our accountants so we have everything you need and our clients do value that knowledge and experience we hold as a network.
bbbb is right we don't deal with complaints because the records are always held at the local office and the clients are the clients of that practice so we don't hold any of that information to be able to work out what had happened. We will hear out complaints and speak to that accountant if there are any but we get very few complaints. If you go to another local practice then you will have the same levels of complaints as we offer.
Anyway I hope the meeting goes well with your local practice, we look after over 45,000 clients so you are in good hands.
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... and no reason not to. Mike Tombs, a TaxAssist franchisee used to post regularly on here although it appears that he has now set up outside the franchise. To avoid bias, contribute to the forum positively and not just in response to comments about TaxAssist
... but there is no requirement that the franchisee has any professional experience
"We" don't look after any. Your individual franchisees look after the clients and like all firms of accountants, some will be good, some will be OK and some will be bad and that will decide whether they are "in good hands"
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@bbbb - I am certain that UKBF do not state that you must regularly comment on their forums to have your say. If someone comments on our business then we have a right to reply. Especially from someone who hasn't used our service and does not know us in any capacity.
[... but there is no requirement that the franchisee has any professional experience] - The franchisee is the business owner and in most cases is a qualified accountant. In other cases they must employ a qualified accountant to complete the work. The franchisee without qualification has to come from a finance background. They are typically from banking or audit backgrounds and make excellent franchisees. They are often looking to open multiple locations and employ a qualifed experienced accountant to run the day to day.
We as a network look after over 45,000 clients. We make sure our accountants have everything they need to run their business but our accountants meet with and service these clients.
[... but there is no requirement that the franchisee has any professional experience
] - The franchisee is the business owner and in most cases is a qualified accountant. In other cases they must employ a qualified accountant to complete the work. The franchisee without qualification has to come from a finance background. They are typically from banking or audit backgrounds and make excellent franchisees. They are often looking to open multiple locations and employ a qualifed experienced accountant to run the day to day. We as a network look after over 45,000 clients. We make sure our accountants have everything they need to run their business but our accountants meet with and service these clients.
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I have no problem with that at all. Your comment was that "There would be no reason for them to give us a glowing review". If you contributed to the forum, there would be no reason for them not to give you a "glowing review" as the professionals on here are usually quite nice to each other even though they may be in competition. It would be great if you could get some of your franchisees to join in.
I don't think there was anything particularly negative in my comments - there certainly wasn't meant to be and I did know several franchisees well before I retired from practice. It is however important for clients to realise that they are dealing with an individual franchisee running his own business and not with TaxAssist as a global practice. No different to a normal accountancy practice. As I said some will be good and some will be not so good.
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Clients know they are dealing with a local office when they are put through to them and it does say on our home page - 'Each TaxAssist Accountant runs their own business so you won't be dealing with a large corporation.' We are proud that our accountants are small businesses themselves because they understand what their clients are going through.
It very much felt from your first post that you were warning people away from our service. It did feel negative however, if you say it wasn't then I will respect that.
We will try to post more on here in the future wherever possible.
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Sorry for the hijack :redface:Thanks and sorry to have ruined the thread! bbbbb and I have DM'd and all is well.
I PMd James and we have had an amicable discussion. I now know more about how they operate and he has explained the 12 day delay
He has also promised to become more involved in the forum
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I did explain to James that if I were starting today, I would be very tempted by the attractions of a franchise whether it be TaxAssist or cheapaccounting or something similar. Unfortunately I qualified in 1975 so I'm probably a bit old in the tooth to be thinking of starting againI can feel a new franchise partnership coming on bbbbb
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This is what always puzzles me about the franchise's 26th place here:
http://www.accountancyage.com/static/top50-this-year
If this perfomance is actually made up of 189 sole practitioners with an average GRF of only £130k each then surely the "business" should not even come close to being compared with the firms that share the list with TaxAssist?
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Accountancy Age list us as an accountancy network. There are other networks listed there also.
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I think as people have said it probably depends upon the individual taxassist franchisee.
I have had a terrible experience with Taxassist - long story short they made multiple mistakes on last year's tax returns (one spotted by HMRC, two others spotted by myself and there may be more) and when asked to follow up, they responded to HMRC for the first mistake but when I spotted the next two ones myself, they ignored emails and then when pushed said that they wanted nothing more to do with me and that they wouldn't communicate with me going forward.
They also said that if the transfer to the new accountant proves to take them too much time (what ever that means), they would charge me £200 per hour.
Also be careful when you use Kashflow via taxassist - although it is cheaper, if you ever want to move away from them (and keep your Kashflow account name and your historical data) you need their approval. There may be ways round this (eg backing up your data and importing into new account but I am not sure how this works).
Again - this was my experience with a particular branch and I'm sure they are not all like that. But we wary - they are no different from any other random local accountant (i.e some will be good, some will be poor) - the question you need to ask yourself is who is ultimately paying for the marketing and the higher cost of the franchise model.
My personal experience suggests avoid.
I have had a terrible experience with Taxassist - long story short they made multiple mistakes on last year's tax returns (one spotted by HMRC, two others spotted by myself and there may be more) and when asked to follow up, they responded to HMRC for the first mistake but when I spotted the next two ones myself, they ignored emails and then when pushed said that they wanted nothing more to do with me and that they wouldn't communicate with me going forward.
They also said that if the transfer to the new accountant proves to take them too much time (what ever that means), they would charge me £200 per hour.
Also be careful when you use Kashflow via taxassist - although it is cheaper, if you ever want to move away from them (and keep your Kashflow account name and your historical data) you need their approval. There may be ways round this (eg backing up your data and importing into new account but I am not sure how this works).
Again - this was my experience with a particular branch and I'm sure they are not all like that. But we wary - they are no different from any other random local accountant (i.e some will be good, some will be poor) - the question you need to ask yourself is who is ultimately paying for the marketing and the higher cost of the franchise model.
My personal experience suggests avoid.
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I had first hand experience actually working for one of the franchise office for few weeks, worse days of my life, though came across some funny professional jokes, like doing accounts for ltd company, client provided info was not enough to even tie up balance sheet, franchise owner (non-accountant, only did some BPP short course) said to me, dont tie balance sheet just file account as it is. hahaha
Another one, a hairdresser brought bag of papers, owner quoted ridiculously low fee to get client, i said that is not enough to do basic accounts plus tax return, he said dont do account just do tax return, made me think though how on earth i can accurate tax return without actual figures.
Having said that i am sure not all offices are same there must be some good ones around
Another one, a hairdresser brought bag of papers, owner quoted ridiculously low fee to get client, i said that is not enough to do basic accounts plus tax return, he said dont do account just do tax return, made me think though how on earth i can accurate tax return without actual figures.
Having said that i am sure not all offices are same there must be some good ones around
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Sorry to hear of your problems drdes. Unfortunately as you will have seen from TaxAssist posts, the franchisor does not deal with complaints but leaves it to the franchisee. TaxAssist was going to post "more frequently" but hasn't been seen since 24th October. No doubt will be along soon
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I am aware they don't get involved - a bit unfortunate but I guess if that's they way they want to run their business then so be it.
I wasn't expecting any help from them as a result of my post - I just wanted to sound a warning to others (especially given that Taxassist were saying in one of their post that none of their customers had complained on the forum).
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Hi drdes, I'm sorry you've had this experience with a local TaxAssist office. Everything you have mentioned sounds very different to the experience of our clients. It's very odd that they stopped communicating with you and the mention of £200 per hour because that's no where near kind of fees nor service we provide.
You've hit the nail on the head with Kashflow, perfectly possible to export your data and place that in a new account with Kashflow. We do make Kashflow cheaper to help our clients. We don't pass costs on to clients as we would not be very competitive in the market and the above saving alone should clear up the point about marketing costs. Our franchise model runs on bulk cost savings to the accountant in order to remain competitive and the marketing costs are easily outweighed by the performance of the marketing so again would never be passed on to the client.
I appreciate you've balanced your comments out by saying it was one experience with one office and I'm sorry you've experienced this. We would happily discuss it with the office if you wanted to PM us.
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I may PM you but for not yet since I don't trust this branch - I am worried that they will be upset that I have gone to you and will completely shut down on me - unfortunately these are the kind of people I am dealing with.
They have made another **** up since I last posted - I will post once I hear back from them but I am stuck since first I need to get my Kashflow account freed up from them.
Once Kashflow issue is resolved, then I can raise this other issue (I am worried that they will go radio silent if I have two queries outstanding with them as they have threatened to since their response to mistakes is to go radio silent/threaten to charge ridiculous fees.). The other two issues on the tax return I have given up on (they said they based it on info I gave them but they don't have any records to check against- the fact that they put a disposal of shares in the wrong tax year I assume will be my fault.
Unfortunately their behaviour means I have to tread on eggshells although they are in the wrong.
With respect to £200/hour, I have that in writing and it was mentioned when I first met them - it made me laugh but then I would never have used them for any advice - they don't come across as £200/hour people. They were not doing anything I couldn't do myself (I am a qualified accountant) but I felt that I would let someone else deal with the paperwork. Unfortunately they failed miserably and I spent more time chasing them for their mistakes and with hindsight it would have been more efficient to do this myself.
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We have a close working relationship with our network and if you are concerned (which is sounds like you are) then just PM me the office you are dealing with and we can then speak directly with them. Their radio silence would only make matters worse so we are happy to help.
I would definitely like to see the £200 per hour letter you have been supplied. I will DM you my email address.
I would definitely like to see the £200 per hour letter you have been supplied. I will DM you my email address.
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As has been said here, Tax Assist leaves problems to the franchisee to sort out.
Having said that, Tax Assist really needs to get it's act together. It might seem a good idea to go down the franchise route, but, as is often the case, the franchisee sometimes sullies the reputation of the main company - by association.
A client has come to me from Tax Assist in Redditch. This should have been a
straightforward transfer of accounts. It happens to all of us - clients, for
whatever reason, move to another accountancy service. It is business life, and we
all need to live with it. Clients move from us, and we deal with it immediately, and wish them well.
To facilitate the client's transfer, a clearance letter was sent to Tax Assist,
Redditch on 28th July. This was ignored. A second clearance letter was sent on 2nd
August. This was again ignored. We called again on 4th August. We were advised to
email the clearance letter again. Their reply was, "We have received your email and
will be in touch soon."
We called again on 15th August. Their reply was, "We are very busy." We called again on 17th August. Their reply was, "We are short staffed and we will be in touch."
At this point I offered to drive to their Redditch office and collect everything
from them. This offer was rejected. I called again on 25th August. Their reply was,
"We are having difficulties with our system and will post everything to you after
the Bank Holiday.
PAYE references were sent to us on 12th September. We are still waiting for Tax
Assist, Redditch to cancel their Agent Authority with HMRC so that we can register
this client for employment services, and be able to run the Payroll at the end of
this month. Still no accounts have been sent to us, neither have the HMRC and
Companies House registrations.
This procedure shouldn't take over two months. I cannot believe this is normal practice for a reputable company such as Tax Assist.
Having said that, Tax Assist really needs to get it's act together. It might seem a good idea to go down the franchise route, but, as is often the case, the franchisee sometimes sullies the reputation of the main company - by association.
A client has come to me from Tax Assist in Redditch. This should have been a
straightforward transfer of accounts. It happens to all of us - clients, for
whatever reason, move to another accountancy service. It is business life, and we
all need to live with it. Clients move from us, and we deal with it immediately, and wish them well.
To facilitate the client's transfer, a clearance letter was sent to Tax Assist,
Redditch on 28th July. This was ignored. A second clearance letter was sent on 2nd
August. This was again ignored. We called again on 4th August. We were advised to
email the clearance letter again. Their reply was, "We have received your email and
will be in touch soon."
We called again on 15th August. Their reply was, "We are very busy." We called again on 17th August. Their reply was, "We are short staffed and we will be in touch."
At this point I offered to drive to their Redditch office and collect everything
from them. This offer was rejected. I called again on 25th August. Their reply was,
"We are having difficulties with our system and will post everything to you after
the Bank Holiday.
PAYE references were sent to us on 12th September. We are still waiting for Tax
Assist, Redditch to cancel their Agent Authority with HMRC so that we can register
this client for employment services, and be able to run the Payroll at the end of
this month. Still no accounts have been sent to us, neither have the HMRC and
Companies House registrations.
This procedure shouldn't take over two months. I cannot believe this is normal practice for a reputable company such as Tax Assist.
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They were probably surprised that you needed any information. A couple of years ago a sole trader client went to the local Tax Assist and I received no request for information. They no doubt made incorrect guesses instead and they would have had no idea about the balance on the capital allowances. Also many years ago a company when to another franchise of Tax Assist and they wanted details of the overlap relief
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