I am a book keeper and always try to get my clients to view and sign my book keeping agreement and terms and conditions.
However there is a third party (a virtual assistant) company that I do some other work for and she is offering book keeping services through her business but with me doing the work.
So my question is how does this work with the fact that I want to ensure that the client signs the agreement through me so that i'm covered etc (also I'm the one registered with money laundering, insurance etc) but ideally we want to keep my company name out if the equation. Is this possible?
You are thinking of this as an agency arrangement but I am assuming from your note that the arrangement is basically as though you are working through the third party company who is offering bookkeeping services which they then subcontract to yourself.
The arrangement as described is that the third party company is the company that both the clients and yourselves have an arrangement with but you do not have an arrangement directly with the client.
You are basically subcontracting to the virtual assistant company (this does not seem to be an agency type arrangement).
Your engagement letter needs to be between you and the virtual assistants.
Payments will come from the virtual assistants, not the client (that would be an introductory arrangement rather than the virtual assistants offering the service which they then farm out).
It is the responsibility of the virtual assistants to ensure that the clauses of your engagement letter with them are reflected in their engagement letter with the client.
Money laundering causes an issue here in that the virtual assistants are responsible for performing the due dilligence on the client as they are the one's offering the service and as such they must be registered for MLR. Of cause, that does not divest you of responsibility for ensuring that due dilligence has in fact been performed and this could be another service that offer to the virtual assistants.
You need to confirm with your supervisory body that working for a non qualified company is not against their rules.
All in all think of this in the same way as if you were subcontracting work from a firm of accountants. The accountants would pretend that you are working for them rather than independently and would not thank you for approaching the client directly with forms to sign.
You may need a different form of engagement letter for this sort of arrangement whereby the virtual assistants confirm their responsibilities and liabilities for the client to you.
Also you need to clarify and perhaps even control the MLR arrangements to ensure that such is in place,
please let us know if I have misread the sort of arrangement that this is.
Hope that helps,
kind regards,
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.
As Shaun said this would be like subcontracting work from an accountant. With the accountants I do work for they have a subcontractor agreement that I sign (which reminds me I think my last agreement has expired so must chase that up), and in it is says I work under their supervision. I don't approach clients directly unless it has been previously agreed (it is with one client) and as far as the client is aware, the accountancy firm is undertaking the work themselves. I am also covered through their supervisory body for MLR, but only for the work I do for them, although I did still need my own insurance.
