Can any one offer me some advice on how you manage your relationship when you subcontract from an Accountant?
Do you agree a fix fee per job once you've been handed a file and agreed what needs to be done?
Or.
Do you record your time spent and recharge the accountant at a pre-agreed rate?
If so, how do you accurately record your time spent and what does the Accountant expect from you as proof/ comfort for this?
I'd also be interested to hear from Accountants regarding their opion of this.
The reason I'm asking this is I've had a bit of a kick in the n**s today and I'm racking my brains trying to stop this happening again. I was passed a file that was a right mess and to be blunt the bookkeeping was non-sense, so I spent twice as long as the Accountant thought it should sorting the mess out. I ended up taking the clients excel spreadsheet and redid the year in VT.
-- Edited by ADAS on Wednesday 25th of January 2012 02:59:12 PM
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Tony
Responses are intended as outline only. Formal advice should be sort from your Institutes Technical Department or a suitably qualified Accountant.
I subcontract from an accountant. I have known him for about 4 years and was the accountant of my first client when I went self-employed so he knew my work. He gives me all the paperwork and the working papers from the previous year (basically spreadsheets) and usually I just do bank reconciliations and analysis and VAT reconciliations. I charge by the hour, and just keep a notebook of the times worked. On the invoice I just put the total hours and do not include a timesheet and he has never queried it or asked for proof. Not sure how you would be able to show proof.
His partner is retiring this year and he has asked if I would be able to do more work for him, so I must be doing something right!
Did you speak to the accountant first after looking at this job and before you started on transferring everything to VT? I think I may have told him first that if he wanted this done properly then you would have to take more time over it.
Did he refuse to pay you then, or just query the time taken?
Nick, I suppose that could be a good way of doing it as well. That way you wouldn't have to worry about how long it takes you?
I didn't speak to the Accountant first and that was my mistake, because I do a lot of work for him I've always just got on with things. Maybe I got a bit too comfortable if you see what I mean. He hasn't refused flat out to pay the hours but he's made it clear he's not happy and equally I've made my feelings clear.
Using Vt has never been an issue, but in hindsight I should have cleared it first. The reason I thought it was necessary was because the accounts had been prepared without a bank rec. There was approximately 80-100 pages to reconcile and around 10 transaction per page that had nothing to do with the business, the spreadsheet didn't even have a directors loan account?
Based on experience, I have a real issue with manual / excel accounts when the client deals in credit and there isn't any control accounts. I managed to reclaim a former employer around £80,000 in unclaimed vat purely because the Accountant didn't keep a purchase ledger. So I've got good reason not to trust them (spreadsheets not Accountants !!)
Going forward I'm going to review the file thoroughly first and let him know what I think, up front. Like many here, I guess, I've never worked in practice so it's all a learning curve.
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Tony
Responses are intended as outline only. Formal advice should be sort from your Institutes Technical Department or a suitably qualified Accountant.
Yes a good idea to review first and then clear it. I must admit I haven't had a job ...yet...which has taken me longer than the accountant expected (although to be honest I don't know what he expects...lol). I do always ask if there is a deadline date though.
Yes, I think your mistake was definitely not clearing it with the accountant first and letting them know how long the work was therefore likely to take. I always think that so long as communication is crystal clear then there are no misunderstandings or surprises. So I think either charging by the hour or a fixed rate is acceptable and fine so long as it's very clear up front. I've seen misunderstandings happen before and have learnt from them.......
