1 - Accountants who post opening balance adjustments as the first day of the new year, rather than the last day of the completed year, instead of passing them to me so they'll be done properly (and I'll earn ten minutes more money).

2a - Accountants who, when posting those adjustments, post journals to the sales and purchase ledger control accounts instead of putting their brain into gear and posting something appropriate to the actual customer/supplier accounts that are affected.

2b - Accountants who provide me with the opening balances (or adjustments) to enter, which require adjustments to the sales/purchase ledger, but don't provide me with details of which customers/suppliers are affected, so I have to chase them for the information.

3 - Non paying clients. Especially those who "joke" that I don't need to be paid because I'm loaded, and after a while almost seem to believe their own joke. (This particularly annoys me at the moment because I had to spend some time in hospital a few months ago due to very high blood pressure, and I'm now on medication to keep it down - which getting annoyed at non paying clients is surely not helping with!)

4. Clients who can't follow simple instructions or answer simple questions.

5 - Plus all the other stuff people have mentioned above.

On the bright side, apart from #3, these things all contribute more to my income when they happen, so maybe I shouldn't consider them pet hates. :)

-- Edited by VinceH on Wednesday 23rd of January 2013 06:22:54 PM

business owners believing that absolutely everything in their life is an allowable expense of the business no matter how tentative the link. for example, I had one recently that sent his wife to a spa for the day to make up for hubby missing an evening meal due to working late!!! (straight to DLA for that one).

business owners thinking that mileage logs are optional and that the accountant is going to sort all of that out at year end.

Receipts saying one thing and being recorded in the clients documentation as something completely different.



.... Can I also give Sage a mention....

Too late

How I so agree with you Amanda. They just do not realise how much longer this takes. Missing bank statements and cheque books also is a pet hate and horrendous hinderance especially if the client does not do internet banking.

^ OCD much? lol.

Peasie, I agree! Even worse, not bothering to use a hole punch and just ramming the paper down onto the file.

Amanda, I'm also spending today wading through a mountain of mostly irrelevant receipts, so I feel your pain.

My current pet hate, though, is a particular client who should take half a day of my time each month (as agreed), but in fact goes through phases of emailing and phoning me several time a day. Today, he's decided that I don't come in often enough, and can I go in before the end of the month. I pointed out that this means I'll have to go twice, because I can't do the whole month's accounts before the month is actually finished. That's fine, apparently. Making two return journeys of an hour each way, for four hours' work, is just dandy. Pondering whether this is the final straw...

I have been thinking about ditching him for quite a while, if I'm honest. It would be the first time I'd done that, though, so I don't want to be hasty. Is it justifiable to dump a client mainly because you'd feel better?!

People who spell stationery, stationary GRRR

Amanda, you'd hate me. I tend to pull out the first card at Tesco or the petrol station.... having said that, if a client did it then that would be a different story. I reconcile my own accounts. Don't do as I do....

My pet hate is people who don't have a sense of urgency, or seem not to care about their business. If they don't care, why should I?

Kris

Shamus wrote:

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They come away experts on a bit of software that can give them a good living if they are willing to continue to pay the client tax.

[...]

On the QB front I've had it instaled for a few days now and called them this morning to register it.

The conversation went along the lines of

[....]

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The thing with the Sage tax is that you don't actually have to pay it, provided you are confident that you aren't going to need to call upon support at any time - if you have that confidence, and the version of the software does all you want it to and you aren't going to want to upgrade (including if you aren't going to be transfering files between your system and a client or other bookkeeper/accountant who might have a newer version), then once you've purchased the software there is no further Sage tax.

That Sage tax comes at two levels - Sage Cover, which gives you support and IIRC discounted upgrade prices, and Sage Cover Extra, which includes upgrades to new versions of your software.

There now follows a little rant about Sage...

I used to not bother with it, and preferred to stick with the same version of the software. I only chose to start paying the Sage tax a few years ago after I'd bought a new version and had to fight with Sage to even get them to acknowledge a bug I'd discovered in it (specifically in an aspect of the software that was one of the very reasons I'd bought the new version) - because I wasn't entitled to any support.

Personally, I think that's wrong on two levels:

Firstly, they need to recognise the difference between a user encountering an actual bug in the software, and a user who simply needs help with the software due to not knowing how to do things. The latter I can accept paid support for, but the former should be dealt with outside of any support contract; at the very least, accept the bug report because it means you can try to fix it and thereby improve the software. I persisted, though, and eventually got someone to listen - although the way they talked about fixing the bug was itself wrong, and I told them so. (As it happens, I was proven right about that last week, when the same bug struck again!).

Secondly, I think that the first YEAR'S basic support should be free, not the first 45 days - especially given the price of the software. That's just wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG!

Anyway, shortly after that I decided to go for Sage Cover Extra, mainly so that I'd get new versions of the software - including, hopefully, the dodgily fixed bug - but also so I'd have an easier time dealing with such things in future.

The bug was in the way emailed statements are sent (and remittance advices - and undoubtedly other reports as well, but those are the two that I encountered it with). The software seems to create a temporary directory to store the email/report - for each individual email. Another part of the program sends out the emails, then deletes the files contained therein. The first part of the program, after giving the emailer time to do its job, deletes the directory.

However, it does this without checking to see if the directory is empty - so when on a slow connection (or the SMTP server was being slow rather than the whole connection), what happened was the program was trying to delete the directory while it still contained the temporary files; the email hadn't yet been sent. Essentially, it was doing a RMDIR (or the equivalent Windows system call) - but when you do that, if the directory isn't empty, the OS refuses with the error "The directory is not empty", and Sage was then reporting that error to the user and halting the process. (So some statements or whatever might have been sent - but not all of them, and there's no way within the software to know how many have been sent).

Speaking with my programmer hat on, the solution is simple: Instead of just deleting the directory, check to see it's empty first (which is a trivial thing to do). If it isn't, give the emailer time to do its job again, before repeating the process. Only delete the directory and move on when it IS empty. I actually said that to whoever I eventually managed to speak to at Sage.

He told me they would increase the time allowed.

I said that wasn't solving the problem, just masking it - on a suitably slow connection it would happen again.

Two or three years later - last week - it happened again when I was sending out remittance advices. I have told Sage "I told you so" - though in a great deal more words than those four. :)

(A tip when it comes to that sort of thing: What I did when I first encountered the problem a few years ago was modify the email settings for each report that I send out that way, so that they CC a copy back to myself. My email software filters those CC'd emails into a separate box. If/when Sage hits that problem, I can look at the CC'd emails to see how far through the process it got, and I can therefore attempt to send the rest - eg for statements, by highligting the customer accounts after the last one I've had the CC'd email for. I've left things set like that since, and when I set it up for others I now set it up like that.)

Getting back to the Sage tax, though - I won't be paying it anymore. I've told Sage that I will no longer be doing business with them unless I absolutely have to; I will continue to use the version of the software I have, but I will stick with this version. If I ever NEED to upgrade, I will minimise the amount of money I spend on their software - so rather than upgrade my multi-company Line 50 Accounts Plus, if I NEED an up to date version of Sage's accounts software for any given client, I will simply buy the latest Instant wherever I can see it cheapest, along with a seperate laptop on which to run it (to avoid licencing issues).

Why have I told them that? Because Sage have become spammers: http://misc.vinceh.com/2012/10/sage-joins-ranks-of-spammers/

I don't do business with spammers.

That's the end of the Sage rant.

Now... Quickbooks.

It's been a *very* long time since I used that, probably at least ten years, but one of the biggest problems I found with it when I did was I found the data entry to be slow and cumbersome. Particularly entering things like supplier invoices - there wasn't (at the time - perhaps there is now?) a 'batch' entry method like there is with Sage. I can enter a lot of invoices very quickly when presented with a [spreadsheet-like] grid, including function key shortcuts to copy and increment data from the row above.

IIRC, I also couldn't see a way to lock down a VAT return such that it wasn't going to be changed by transactions in that quarter entered later, and instead have those transactions included in the next return (in the way Sage has always 'flagged' transactions as having been included on a return, and allows those entered later to be included on the next one). Again, perhaps this has changed in the intervening years. This could be worked around, of course.

However, I think pretty much the final straw for me was when I needed to do something urgently; I was called in somewhere to do a VAT return at the very last minute - and found myself locked out of the software. I called their support people, and the American I spoke to asked what version it was. His immediate suggestion was "That's not the latest version. You should upgrade." I asked if that would solve the very immediate problem I had (this was something like 5pm, and the office was about to be vacated and locked for the weekend). The response was "I don't know, but it's a really good idea." So I angrily asked him to look at the actual problem I was reporting and give me a definitive solution - which turned out to be a lock file that needed to be deleted (similar to what can happen in Sage sometimes, for example if you kill it off via the task manager, so when you next run it it thinks you're still logged in).

I did that company's VAT return, and haven't touched QuickBooks since.

Oh. That kind of turned into a QuickBooks rant as well. Ho hum. :)

Edit: Forgot the second reason Sage's support policy is wrong.

-- Edited by VinceH on Thursday 24th of January 2013 11:59:41 AM

You don't need their support Shaun, I haven't had it for years and I can get myself around it quite easily, plus your support is free on here!!!! Saying that I am a member of the Pro advisor programme so I suppose I have actually got support now.

I am a big fan as you know and I'm sure once I get time to actually learn about all the new reports in the new 2013 version I will love it even more.

It's about time! I'll bear that in mind next time I get a request for help with it, if only so I can take a sneaky look at it at someone else's office, instead of just turning the work down. :)

!!!!!!!!!!!! is it better that way around Neil?

Shamus wrote:

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!!!!!!!!!!!! is it better that way around Neil?

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That's what I use (well, maybe not as many as that) in a file name if I want it right at the top of the list for sorting. 

VinceH wrote:

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"Multiple exclamation marks," he went on, shaking his head, "are a sure sign of a diseased mind."

(From Eric by Terry Pratchett)

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like tidy desks.

(from Shamus)

Shamus wrote:

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.......

like tidy desks.

(from Shamus)

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 Oh dear better shuffle some paper around

My pet hate is Pets (& kids but mainly pets). I have several clients who have dogs. When ever I go to the clients I am usually greeted by loud barking, two paws and a slobbering face peering out of the front door window, to be followed by the usual pleasantries when I get through the door, of them having a sniff around, jumping up, and getting under my feet. With the universal "They're just being friendly" response from the client. Sometimes the same happens with the ankle biters. Both should be licenced

Hmm. It was specifically supplier invoices that I mentioned in respect of a batch entry system.

It's obviously also useful for payments and receipts etc - and even sales invoices if the company does its invoicing outwith the software (though in cases like that, if they're doing it with other software, I prefer to export the data from that and import it into an accounts package). But it was specifically supplier invoices I was thinking of when I commented. :/

No its in 'banking menu, if you want to put in small receipts say lots of subsistence/fuel receipts, to to write cheques and there is a button for batch, so you can put them all on in one go, saves alot of time. If I have proper invoices then I put them in under the supplier and then pay as usual. I found this useful as I have one client who has loads of small fuel receipts and this really saves time.

Does that make sense?

Hiya

The bank accounts thing really pees me off to.

The astonishment on a clients face when you present them with an invoice for your services.

Being texted or emailed on a weekend and feeling obliged to answer!

Think thats about it for now

Sam

I agree with many of these pet hates! I may issue this as rules to new clients....

1. I'm with Peasie on the hole punch. It's not hard to punch them properly.

2. Step away from the stapler. You do not need to attach ten peices of paper together with 54 staples which I then need to pick out.

3. (and this is a new one) Please don't make a spreadsheet for me. It wont make sense or add up.

4. If you have made a spreadsheet and printed it out for me, put totals at the bottom of the columns people!! A printed spreadsheet with no totals has no purpose!

5. 29th January is not an acceptable day to suddenly decide to deal with your tax return(s).

6. Don't be surprised that if you didn't turn up for the appt we arranged (and I watched you write in your phone), that I will then refuse to drop everything and see you the afternoon that you suddenly decide you need an appt 3 days before tax return deadline.

7. Don't use an accountant who has been convicted of fraud/tax evasion

8. Don't use a bookkeeper who will be convicted of fraud

9. Don't tell me my job, yes I am very sure that you can't claim for that, and yes I do know what I'm talking about despite what your mate/brother/butcher may have told you.

10. Stapling together a mass of receipts, claiming VAT off the whole lot regardless and then putting the value in the sundry column does not make you a bookkeeper.

11. Don't wait a year and 8 months before you realise you need to deal with your company accounts

12. Bring me vodka


I think I may be a tad stressed right now. 

Your day sounds ****, mine wasn't great today either but not as bad as that one!

I saw in another thread Jenny about the Bookkeeper who is being done for fraud. Is she local to you? And how did you find out she was being done for fraud? The reason I am asking is I know a dodgy one that's not too far away from you, although I don't know if shes that dodgy.


7), I worked for a company once whose accountant back in the 70's was hurled up in court regarding fraud, but he didn't get convicted due to lack of evidence, although his accomplish did get convicted. He still went on to practice for many years after that! My client had no idea about this, I was told via another accountant and then looked it up on the net and it was true.

12), I could do with one of those, a double please!

4), They probably haven't added up the spreadsheet correctly so you may as well add it up yourself with a calculator.

Lastly I would like to add one to that 'Incompetent Accountants' sorry this is not a general thing aimed at accountants and I will apologise in advance for this one. I was told that they didn't have 30 mins to sort their mess out that they had caused as it was January and they were very busy!!! That was just one thing that got said to me, along with aload of other rubbish!!!!!

I know that feeling Jenny, my story isn't repeatable on here!

The man upstairs sounds interesting, is he meant to be working? I mean proper work not running something else!

Hope you didn't need the hand over stuff for a January tax return.

Shame we can't all have a holiday in January, that would be interesting then to the clients, we can say well we did chase you in October to do them early as we are going on our annual holiday in January. That would be funny.

I only make the crease in the paper when it's a few sheets. I use the slider thing when there is a lot of pages - although, I don't trust it.

I get the impression you "only make the crease in the paper when it's a few sheets" and "use the slider thing when there is a lot of pages" because it's harder to fold lots of sheets to get the crease.

I only fold the top sheet. As long as the rest are lined up with it, job done.

Yes, I'm equally anal about the holes being sensibly positioned - including the edge they are on**. I'm fed up seeing stuff printed landscape with the holes along the bottom edge, so that in the file it's the top half you should be looking at. That's WRONG! To view documents portrait, they should be on the right of the file, but when looking at the contents landscape, those documents should be on the *bottom* - so the holes should be punched along the top.

** Even to the point that if I designate something previously filed as reusable and decide to print on the reverse, I make sure I feed it through the printer so that it's printed with the holes on the correct side. (If I can't avoid printing, which I try to).