I am not sure if I want to take on this client so I thought if I share the story with you maybe someone will see something I don't!
A couple of weeks ago I met this gentleman who told me he is in a big mudle and he needs help. He said he found a bookkeeper 5 months ago who told him he will sort out his accounts but he didn't and now Mr T ( I will call the client mr T from trouble ) received his accounts back from the bookkeeper and still not sorted out.
Mr T has a Ltd company, a sole trader and he wants his home financial situation sorted out. He is also partner in another company where he is paid a monthly salary. At our meeting Mr T tells me he wants me to sort out all 3 accounts. And he is giving me a huge box ( I believe is an A3 size box ) full of files. I told him I need to go through the box before I give him an estimate and I have to do an ID check before I start any work.
All fine until I have a meeting with his accountant. The accountant tells me that Mr T is claiming some expenses from the company where he is a partner and that his accounts are done for year 2010-2011. Mr T tells me he is not claiming anything from the partnership company but I found an email from Mr T to his ex-bookkeeper that shows clearly that the partnership company pays Mr T the phone bill. I have also run a business report on Mr T's Ltd company, there is no P&L in the report and the last accounts have been done in August 2010 ( his financial year is Sept to Aug) so is obvious the accounts for 2010-2011 have not been done.
So I had a bit of a dig around and found out ex-bookkeeper's details and rung him. He only met mr T in November last year and he was still under the impression that he is still mr T's bookkeeper. He also confirmed that 2010-2011 accounts have not been done. The ex-bookkeeper registered the Ltd company for VAT in January and he actually emailed mr T yesterday to chase him up as there is a VAT return due at the end of March.
It all seems so complicated and the fact that I am receiving 2 different answers for 1 question made me a bit suspicious
My gut feeling tells me let him go but he seems a nice gentleman who needs help so I don't know what to do. And why is the accountant telling me porky pies? Is this a mess that the accountant got mr T into and now he is trying to pass it on to someone else? When I asked the accountant for the opening balances for this financial year he said "not today, I will email them to you" but perhaps he doesn't have them.
Sounds like a real messer. Bookkeepers/accountants normally are the easy targets to lay blame. I have had people come to me laying all the blame on their old accountant for getting them fined, whilst sometimes this may be the case, most of the time it is actually the client is the one not providing the info on time and the accountant did nothing wrong.
I normally find that the messers arrive mid late January looking for stuff done last minute, half time these ones are more bother than they are worth.
Yes indeed. Unfortunately some clients are just way too much trouble! There shouldn't be a whole complicated web of conflicting information. You won't regret walking away from this one. Some poor unfortunate soul is going to end up doing it though and having a whole load of trouble!
