Back story: I was looking through facebook at messages as I realised there were outstanding messages I never received, and one was from a lady back in July saying she was looking for someone to help with her accounts. I was mortified, and realised she was likely to have found someone, but thought I would message her anyway and apologise, explaining that I never saw the original message till now.
Anyhow, she got straight back to me, and said, yes she had found someone, but wasn't happy with them, so was letting them do the accounts to the end of the year and then would be looking for someone else. I told her about my business, rough idea of what I charge but explained it really depended on how much and what she'd want me to do. We are going to be meeting in the new year to go through everything which is great. But my question is can I just take over from this other person? Do I need to write to them at all? I just want to get everything straight from a legal/moral side of things before meeting with her.
Your professional body may guide you on a letter of etiquette and it is a good idea for the client to leave the previous adviser on good terms in case you wish to approach him/her for additional information.
Often, you won't know if or what you might require from the previous bod, until you're halfway through the job, and therefore it is good to send a simple opener : ".... I have been approached by Mrs X and am writing to see if you have any professional objection to my taking over the case".
The last one I did was one where they were at loggerheads and the reply came via the client stating there were fees outstanding.
I'm not with a professional body, hence my need to put the question to the forum. Many thanks for the advice - its what I thought i needed to do. The potential client has only had this person do one quarter of accounts so it won't be alot that I would need, if anything at all, but I want to be professional about it, especially if I ever found myself working with this other person in the future.
There are standard templete letters that you can get online that are quite good. check out http://www.ir35calc.co.uk/how_to_change_your_accountant.aspx for a sample and you could modify it to your needs.
You may find some people may give you an unprofessional response. It depends on the firm. I had problems with one accountant whose client approached me. From what I have heard about the way the accountant treats people it's surprising he has any clients at all, slapdash accounts, makes appointments and decides to go to the pub before they turn up and doesn't cancel etc etc, and he refused to send me anything for months. After 3 letters he phoned my client direct and got really shirty. All I eventually received were a set of (wrong) P&L accounts - a photocopy of what my client already had, that he then charged him £50 for. He didn't pay.
Nobody likes to lose a client, unless they are a real pain in the a**e, but there is a way to deal with these things without letting yourself down, unfortunately that does not apply to some.
