Hope someone can give me some kinds words of encouragement ! I seem to be having the mother of all weeks !!!!
My new client has just produced a huge plastic bag of receipts, unopened mail and tatty bank statements. He is expecting a miracle to be performed before his very eyes.
He has been trading for 18 months, has changed accountants twice ..... do I hear the sound of warning bells ? He wants to maintain his manual system - whatever that system is, I have not seen any books as such yet, I dread to think what they are going to look like when I do, if I do!
I have today contacted his current accountant for the opening balances, but Im left feeling totally inadequate after my conversation with him. He has advised me to start from the beginning.
My only problem is that my dear mother has been putting my name about, I think she thinks I am paying commission to any leads she finds me. This new client is a dear friend of a friend situation. I have gone against all that I tell myself when first acquiring a client - (avoid the warning bells at all costs) and agreed to start work.
Given that I am now tied into sorting this out, what would be the first thing you would do to make some sense of all those scraps of paper !!
Has anyone experienced anything like this before ?
Any replies would be greatly appreciated, but please be gentle with me, feeling a little fragile at the moment.
The first thing to do is to not panic - easier said than done, I know from experience!
I would get all the bank statements and put them in order (assuming there is a business bank account). I would then summarise these into a cash book, ideally a spreadsheet (try and convince him this is 'manual'). I wouldn't worry about the analysis at this stage. Then try and match the receipts and invoices to the cash book. Tie up the ones you can and nominalise them as you go. If you can't find them going through the bank summarising these separately. It could be that they were paid using cash or personal funds.
It doesn't sound an ideal situation but then you vary rarely get a perfect client, I guess if they existed they wouldn't need us!
I did experience something similar when i first started my business. I remember filling the lounge floor with piles of receipts in alphabetical order, then date order and trying to tie them up with payments out of the bank. That client was a nightmare and i could never get regular information to keep the books up to date, ( alarm bells!!!) so much so that one particular January (30th, i think) wanted a load of receipts analysed for the accountant to do the tax return. I didn't last long with the client, but then i didn't have the friend of a friend situation either.
But, keep going, you could be just the bookkeeper to keep him in order
I think we should all get together and write a book about our clients, I`m sure it would make the bestsellers list of `accountancy weekly`, if such a magazine existed !
Must now try to stopping hiding myself on this forum and get down to some work..... Thanks for the advice.
I do think Fay's suggestion sounds good. We get this sort of thing quite a bit here (almost always when we get papers sent in the post - this is it!).
What we usually do is tackle it monthly... a step at a time. Often the client gets hit with a bunch of questions, that really try to help and get everything properly in order and reconciled.
Thankfully it's not an area I get involved in myself but I've done my fair sure as I'm sure most have.
