My father owns a taxi company for which he was paying a girl to do the accounts.. She never had much of an idea of sage but muddled through best she could.
I have now taken over and although i have knowledge of sage i dont know where to start fixing the things shes put on incorrectly, im inclined to rebuild and go back to scratch at least for this financial year and just post the brought forward balance to April 2010 and then put everything back on correctly, does anyone know of any implications doing this?
The accountant doesnt seem to interested which is worrying and they get a copy of the back up every month. Im amazed were paying them £300 a month when they werent checking this.
Also she has entered pretty much everything as an overhead and not one single thing in as a purchase... Whats the difference between entering fuel as nominal code 5000 under purchases instead of under overhead 7300? As im inclined to start putting everything where it should be?
£300 a month? blimey. They saw you coming. What do they do for that?
I see 3 ways of doing this.
1) Start again from scratch for the year. ie go back to the opening year backup and post everything. 2) Reverse and correct everything previously done 3) Or analyse each nominal code and post one off journals to put the relevant expenses and income into the correct nominal codes.
Option 3 will screw the year for management figures, but for the year end accounts it will suffice as long as you keep records of the journals posted and the accountant is aware of it.
This is probably the easiest option, but you will need to be careful if adjusting VAT entries. Hopefully these should be ok.
I would have thought that if £3600 is a fix fee for the accounts then i would leave this year as it is and let the accountant prepare the year end financial statements from the sage that has been prepared. Also if the accountant has been receiving the sage monthly they will not really be in any position to complain about the records come the year end.
What services do they provide for this fee? Payroll, accounts, personal partnership tax?
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Forgive the typo's I generally do not proof read. Just lazy I guess!
Thanks Merlion, you have just reinforced my thoughts, its always good to get a second opinion
As for the accountants im not exactly sure what they do for there money but they wont be doing it for long now ive taken up the reins. Its a bit of a case of my dad has the brains for the taxi side but paperwork he just trusts someone he pays to do it all. Im actually glad ive taken it all back now and were "only" two years into being VAT registered and on SAGE, it could be alot worse.
I think im also going to have to consult a tax advisor with regards to the VAT as all the drivers are self employed and yet the girls been putting everything through as VAT accountable including all cash hires and rental. I know this is a bit of a grey area so definately need some clarification on that.
Well i would just leave as is, however were VAT registered and the girl has made a complete hash of the accounts adding vat where it shouldnt have been added, eg on educational contracts etc. Loads of other things, looking like our income/liability is increased, none of which the accountant has questioned.
The accountants as far as im aware submit the VAT return, do the PAYE for the 2 employees and thats about it. Quite alot of money for such little work.
Seems a high fee, but not sure where you are based etc. Will be worth sitting down with them and ensuring you are happy with the service they are providing.
If you now where the vat errors lie you can adjust these manually or journal them through sage rather than starting again. Your sage would be neater and easier to review if you started again but it would be the time factor that i would be concerned with if I were contemplating it.
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Forgive the typo's I generally do not proof read. Just lazy I guess!
Sounds like its time to change the accountant!!! That seems a really high bill to me, maybe you should query it and then ring around and get some prices and compare.
That is an extortionate bill - it never ceases to amaze me how much some people pay for accountancy services. Whilst cost is not always the main factor, it really is worth chatting to 3 or 4 accountants before making a decision on who to use.
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Hi, I would be tempted to download information to a csv file (customers & suppliers details, audit trail). start again with blank company (may have to re-load disks if only 1 company). Then, using the csv file rebuild. This may save a lot of entries and save re-entering customer & supplier info. You can use the accountants b/forward figures and hopefully some of the errors will be easy to spot by using sort columns ie any duplicate invoice numbers etc). Hope helps Donna
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Donna Curling - Complete Book-Keeping Ltd (CBKLtd) - 07939 101900
