I spoke with a lady on FB late last year with regards to possibly doing her bookkeeping. She said she was using an accountant but she wasn't that happy (I think at the time I came on here to ask about the morality of taking over her books).
As it happens, I met her at a networking thing today, and again she asked me about possibly doing her bookkeeping. She reckons the accountant is 'screwing her over' (her words) because he charged her £500 for 6months work and seems to be doing alot of unnecessary work in order to charge her more.
Now, £500 seems pretty normal to me for an accountant to charge. I charge considerably less for the size of business that she says she has (in terms of turnover) so that is why she thinks he has overcharged her. I'm really unsure whether to take her on as a client. I've told her I will meet with her as I said I couldn't really confirm fees until I'd seen what work was involved. It could well be that this guy has 'screwed her over' (apparently he was insisting on listing on her accounts every single child - she does Baby Ballet - every single week even if they haven't done that class??) but it could also be that her accounts were in such a bad way that he has had to do alot of work to get them all set up coherrently.
I am in such a dilemma. I guess I will only really know by meeting up with her on a 1:1 basis and looking through what has been done. Also if this accountant has done a brilliant job I will feel bad taking on this client - something which I will tell her I think, but then that will mean I potentially lose out.
When you take over a client you send a letter of professional courtessy to the incumbant accountant asking if there is any reason why you should not take this client. For example overdue / unpaid fee's.
In order to send the letter to the accountant the client must give the incumbant accountant permission to talk to you.
In this instance that may solve your problem as I suspect that the client is doing a lot of complaining to others about the fee's that she is paying but the person that she probably hasn't spoken to are the accountants themselves who would no doubt be more than happy to tell her exactly why she is paying fee's at the level that she is.
Clients regularly think that they know best and can see no reason for the tasks that happen behind the scenes to keep their books in a fully functional state (we had a case on here a couple of months back, dont know if you remember it, where a client was telling the bookkeeper that time spent doing bank recs was wasting their money on an unneccessary procedure!!!).
As for listing every single child... In this business they are the revenue generating units so how else would one be able to justify the revenue unless you record attendances.
One thing to watch with these sort of businesses is whether the client has a habit of missing out a few cash paying children so keeping some of her income off line? It could just be that the accountant is trying to make it as difficult as possible for her to mistate income in order to protect her in the event of an investigation.
If the client is genuinely unhappy with her accountant then it is very likely that they will change whether to you or someone else so better for you that you get the business. However, don't be trapped into offering a fee for less than you should because you said that you would be so much cheaper than the encumbant accountants. And don't skip on necessary procedures just because the client can't see the point in them.
Always remember that you're the professional here, not her. So it's you who decides what needs to be done.
Good luck with this one Sam. Hope that it proves to be a lucrative client rather than one of those nightmare clients that you just can't seem to get rid of... So you crank up their fee's in the hope that they will just leave! (to quote Neil / Dusty Like a circle in a circle, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or begining on an ever spinning wheel.... lol)
All the best,
Shaun.
__________________
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.
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.
Thanks Shaun for all your help. I'm going to meet with her and see what the accountant has done. If I feel its justified I will tell her. I think her problem with him listing every client, every week is that it is a term-time class, and as such the parents pay in advance for the term. Each term they lose a child, but gain a different one, but the accountant was still listing the ones no longer there.
I can't help thinking there is a simpler solution of having separate class spreadsheets, but taking the figures off those for separate accounts spreadsheets.
It may be this is actually what the accountant has done, but she is seeing it differently as she doesn't know a thing about accounts. I won't know till I see.
I totally agree with Shamus, there are so many business owners out there they think they know accountancy better than you do.
I had a client refused to bank rec as it's time consuming. Another client used her business card for her personal shoppings to collect more points! and complain why I always ask her these tedious questions! eventually she busted into tears feeling frustrated!
Choosing a business-minded client means you and her/him both benefit and happily work together.
