As I am new to running my own bookkeeping business alot of the work I do is on an ad-hoc basis for accountacy firms or other bookkeeping businesses. However I am trying to market myself to small businesses and wondered what I would do about contracts. How do I get these drawn up, what do I include/exclude, should they be done differently for each client? Do I need a professional to draw up the terms & conditions? What has everyone else done?
the engagement letter is a contract between bookkeeper and client.
There is a basic engagement letter available in the BKN members area. Depending on your supervisory body you may also find engagement letters in their members area's.
Invariably the preset letters do not say everything that you want them to. Mine is an adeptation of the BKN one but it's over twice as long.
Bookkeepers don't tend to share their own engagement letters as it's a document quite specific to them and their business but using any of the above sources you should be able to develop your own quite quickly.
kind regards,
Shaun.
-- Edited by Shamus on Thursday 28th of July 2011 02:05:09 PM
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
My engagement letter uses a reduced font from the BKN one and is five pages long.
Mine covers :
Period of engagement Client Obligations Work to be performed Basis of Fees Subcontracting of Work Force Majeure events Suspoension of service Termination of Service Money Laundering Applicable Law Variant Confidentiality Limit of Liability Complete Agreement paragraph
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
If you find a client that wishes to use your services and you have had a meeting with them to find out what there requirements are going to be then i would give them a letter of Engagement where you can set out your terms of representation. You could start it like this
Dear Name of client
I enjoyed meeting with you on -------------to discuss your requirements by your name . This letter will confirm the terms of my representation. My services will begin upon receipt of a signed copy of this letter.
Then put in your letter things like
Services to be Provided By you
Excluded Services that you have not been ask to carry out
Statements:such as how you will send your invoices and your terms of payment
Right to Terminate Representationthere right
Right to Terminate Representationyour right
Date Protectiongive an undertaking to keep all there accounts confidential
Hope this helps my be someone can add a bit more for you to put in
Ps make the letter friendly but at the same time it needs to be professional
-- Edited by nautica on Thursday 28th of July 2011 02:25:21 PM
Thank you. Am not currently under a supervisory body so have MLR under HMRC. Am currently doing AAT Level 2 although have 15 years experience of bookkeeping under employment, hence my reason for asking about contracts. Thank you for the advice regarding Letters of Engagement. I will have a look. How much is it and is there a special requirement to become a member of BKN.
I think our posts crossed paths Nautica. Thank for the info. Do I need to register with anything/pay a fee for Data Protection? Or is just stating I will not pass on/or use any of their details enough.
Ok I may have to do that as I think it will be extremely useful.
If you look at the link next to it you will see PII cover is available for £78 to BKN members. Don't know what you currently pay but this is certainly quite cheap and may be worth the £24 joining fee alone.
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Never buy black socks from a normal shop. They shaft you every time.
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Am intrigued now - hope he wasn't rude about me. I did wonder why my thread had been resurrected when I thought I'd been given all the info I needed (for which I am extremely grateful - many thanks)
Adam has previously stated that he has no bookkeeping knowledge or experience but he repeatedly posts inappropriate and often completely incorrect advice as though he is an expert on the subject.
Additionally, he often digs up old posts which have been answered and then his totally incorrect responses look to newbies as though they were the right answer (but of course, they're not going to remain as the last answer in a thread on my watch!).
I can't remember the exact wording of this one but it related to a suggestion that you needed to hire a professional to do the work for you.
The grammar was not the best and it may be an accident of translation from whatever Adam's native tongue was that I felt that it could have been considered offensive.
However, the condescending part seemed unmistakable regardless of the language barriers. Telling bookkeepers that they need to hire a professional when they ask on here for advice will not be tollerated by the site which after all is here by bookkeepers and accountants for bookkeepers and accountants to help each other no matter what the question or level of prior experience.
To be honest, I'm not even sure that Adam had read the post that he resonded to and he certainly hadn't read that you come to this with 15 years experience.
I don't even think that he was intentionally rude as these things will happen when you are responding in a different language to your native tongue. I just don't want legitimate members of our little community being offended by people who are only here as prep work for a spam attack.
On that note , we're getting quite a few Spammers at the moment which is probably the bad side effect of the sites continued success.
Unfortunately this one has proven resilient as normal banning tactics as so far I've banned Adam under three seperate IP addresses.
The site admin technical team are now also looking into this one.
right, fingers crossed he won't post in this thread again although I suspect that the site in general is not completely safe from his attentions just yet.
Have a good day Sam,
talk later,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
As a note for Shamus, apologies for bumping the thread to the top as a result.
I've been ressurecting old threads as I am going through the forum as a resource and I post when I think I can add value to a discussion where the content is still current to others, even not the OP.
I'm not trying to spam in any way - just saying this in case my behaviour looks the same. It hadn't occured to me that such trolls/spammers/annoying folks do this as I haven't come across it in my time moderating forums. Clearly I have been lucky!
When people are Trolls or Spammers it's generally pretty obvious what they are up to.
You would be surprised at how many spammers we've had post on here but generally they are caught very quickly. Generally they start by cut and pasting something that they feel sounds about right into a post without actually understanding what they've posted or realising that the people on here include a lot of experts who can see through the bull.
Only downside for me is that there is a documentation overhead for audit purposes for every post I delete and poster I ban. Then again, it's a small price to keep this site the excellent source of material that it is for new and old bookkeepers and accountants alike.
I've seen several other sites (yes, I'm thinking of you Accountingweb) become places where people new to the industry fear to tread. That's really what sets this site appart as we have accountants, bookkeepers and students of all major bodies combined with people interested in making the move to this business all co-existing and not being at all condescending.
long may it continue. (Think that we should give Neil (SpamKebab) a full time job keeping the mood of the site light!).
So, how are you enjoying things so far? Hope that the sites proving to be everything that you were hoping for.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I've been a member of AccountingWeb for a while so obviously I am fearless! It's that tax deductible expenses nerd thing. I bored everyone on FB and had to find new meat. It's fun watching accountants squabble over interpretations of HMRC diktats, sorry, rules.
I allocated a few hours for a few days to trawl through the forum and still at it 5 days in with no end in sight. I suppose that's good, even if my brain is exploding, lol. It pays to put in the research first instead of later.
Just a thought, is Neil offering any of those Spam kebabs? They sound tasty.
