Hi Gary,

I think that the question was more basic than that. Its not simply retention of records but rather what happens to the books after one has prepared them.



Benita,

all depends on the legal form of the business as to what happens next.

Also depends on how far you are going with the books. Are we talking only to trial balance or beyond that?

Assuming that your mention of filing indicates that this is a full service relationship then for companies there is companies house filing plus attachment of the accounts to the CT return. Your accounts would need to be in iXBRL format for filing.

For individuals the results feed into self assessment.

There are two possible arrangements that you will have, either full service in which instance you file on behalf of the client (after you have their written approval. Or the client files based on the information that you provide them.

The client owns their records which are however a leverage for payment. Note however that you have no legal right to retain the books and records of a limited company.

For each client you need to create something called a permanent file. The client has no access to that and no rights over it. This holds your client notes, copy of the engagement letter signed by the client, MLR details, etc.

You will also keep annual files so that in the event of an investigation you can quickly put yourself in a position to explain every item in the financial statements.

Hope that helps and welcome to the forum.




James / ICB,

if your people are being told that they can prepare client books for filing why do they not know the above.

Is it perhaps time that prior to award of a practicing certificate the ICB implemented a post qualification apprenticship period (per the accountancy bodies) for people filing any form of return.

You don't need the two years of the likes of the ACCA but at least ensure that your people have three months accountant verified real life experience (before, during or after qualification) before being let loose on anything beyond bookkeeping to trial balance, basic VAT and Payroll.

At the moment, after so long of singing the ICB's praises for the work done in raising the profile of the bookkeeping profession I am coming around to the reasoning why employers (including my freinds) will not even consider for interview people who only possess the bookkeeping qualifications (that's not restricted to ICB).

Its not that they have less theory on the basics than (say) an AAT bod. But it's the fact that they are being churned out in their thousands with no real life experience requirement.

If you hire an MAAT you know that person has been verified.

If you hire someone with a bookkeeping qualification its a complete roll of the dice.

At the moment I will tell you that as far as the accountants that I know are concerned (which is a good representitive cross selection) they will not waste their time on having the CVs of those with bookkeeping qualifications forwarded to them when you need to dig to find if the person has any relevant experience but you know that they have in the case of an MAAT.

At a time when there are jobs out there that is a real tragedy as there are a lot of very good people being overlooked simply because of the bit of paper that they hold.

Don't you think that it's time that the ICB reviewed their experience requirement policy so that we start seeing more employed ICB people and also less basic questions from those setting up in practice for themselves?

Bah Humbug....