I recently stopped working with a client in the construction industry as he took on an employee with knowledge of Sage and said that he didn't want to pay us both (understandable). He however, still wanted me to be available at short notice should he need anything complicated doing. I said I couldn't afford to be turning down other potential clients just in case he needed me so I terminated our arrangement.
Anyway, I invoiced him for my final batch of work which he refused to pay as apparently there were numerous errors in my work. Whilst there were indeed some postings that were not as accurate as I would have liked (in terms of nominal codes) they were the best I could do with the 9 ten limited information I was presented with (typical construction industry?)
I started court proceedings two weeks ago to recover the outstanding debt to which he hasn't responded. However, today I received an invoice from him to me for the "hours spent correcting Sage errors" that, apparently him & his accountant have had to do to get his Sage right. As his accountant charges a great deal.per hour this invoice actually has the potential to destroy my business :'(
I was wondering if anyone on here has had a similar experience and, if so, how did you deal with it? Also, can this guy actually issue this invoice against me?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
get in touch with your PII company as thats what they're there for.
There are all sorts of legal pittraps that he's opened up by doing the work himself but taking this through the courts you are simply taking the money that you would have given to him (as you could win this) and giving it to a solicitor instead.
Do you have email records of where you told the client that their data was unfit for purpose?
The whole thing is a counter measure against your action against him. Are you using a solicitor for your small claims procedings? If so tell them whats occured.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the case as I say, it's likely to end up with the only winners being solicitors so get your PII company on the case allowing you to concentrate on your other clients whilst they concentrate on letting slip their pet in house legal team to ensure that they don't give him any money (unless its more cost effective to do that than risk court)... But of course, once in the hands of your PII company non of that is your concern.
Hope that helps,
Kind regards,
Shaun.
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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.
Many thanks for your reply. I'll take your advice on my PII company. I'll also let my solicitor know what's happened. This is the first time this has happened to me & I'm worried sick so being able to leave it in the hands of others would be a great relief.
I don't have emails detailing that the data was unfit for purpose as I was doing the work in at his office so any queries were verbal. I do all my other clients out of their office so always have detailed query sheets for them. Lesson learned!
Fortunately, I do have complete email trails of all other correspondence between us and they do back up my version of events. I also have evidence of all work carried out, including some that I did at home that I didn't actually invoice for as a gesture of goodwill for ending the working relationship.
As you say, he may be just 'playing games' in reaction to my issuing proceedings against him, but since leaving I've learned that he's known for being a **** and has no qualms in screwing others over, seemingly just because he can.
Fingers crossed it all works out OK. Someone has said I should just come to a deal with him but, after 25 years in the Armed Forces, it's not really in my nature to give up
I'm not suggesting that you come to a deal Jon, but sometimes it can pay to resolve a situation as quickly as possible, and move on.
I was half owner of a small company (not in accounting), and we would have broken even at the end of our first year. But two jobs my co-director was working on went wrong. He was determined to get them sorted, and spent a huge amount of time on it. Whenever I queried it, his response was something like "If we just do this it should sort it", but it didn't. In the end we used a mediator to sort out one job and ended up paying several thousand in compensation, and we also had the cost of removing equipment and putting things right. The break even situation I had been carefully managing turned into a big loss that we never recovered from. The company survived, although I left after a further two years as the stress of juggling the cashflow was too much (it was my money financing the company!). If we had done what was needed to get a quick resolution, and spent the time saved on getting in new business, I think we would have recovered more quickly, and the company would have been more prosperous. I might have avoided my mid-life crisis too!!!!
I'm going through something similar. I had a client who decided she wanted to move from my own software to a cloud based software after I'd been working on her accounts for around 5 months. At that point she also told me that she was concerned over me transporting the paperwork to my home office (which I understood). She had been a difficult client, ringing me on Saturday evenings, cancelling meetings last minute and getting the paperwork mixed up, so I offered to assist in transferring the data over to her new accounts software and suggested she found a more local book-keeper to come to the restaurant to do the work.
She was more than happy with my suggestion and everything was fine; she gave me the password once the software was set up and I kept her informed of where I was up-to and what work was involved. About a week after I presented my final invoice she copied me into an email which she had sent to a supplier where she seemed to be upset about some assistance I'd given her with this particular supplier invoices. When I looked at it, I had done exactly what she had asked me to do (which was quite difficult as she hadn't giving me the invoice's and was holding on to them until they were paid). I sent an email apologising and explaining my understand of what I was asked to do but heard nothing. I then rang a week or so later to check everything was OK and that she has received my correspondence, she didn't take it any further and said that she would settle my invoice.
Two weeks later I then chased payment up and it was at that point she complained about my work saying that there was so many errors etc.... I asked her to put this in writing and, when she did, she gave me no detail and also complained about work she had not asked me to do, nor had she given me any paperwork to record the data she referred to, and she was quite threatening saying she would report me to my governing body.
I worked really hard for this client and I'm very upset, but have come to the conclusion that dealing with people like this is just part of the business. Fortunately I have emails to back up everything that went on so I'm quite confident I can defend her unsubstantiated claims. I have now charged the client a Late Payment Fee of £40.00 and will be accruing interest on the late payment which I have informed them about. I have offered to discount the Late Payment Fee and interest if they make payment by a certain date but she has gone quite again, probably ignoring me.
I have decided to make a claim in the small claims court if I don't received payment in the next couple of weeks, it's been a hard decision but I personally think I would rather do that than let someone bully me out of my money which I'd worked hard for. Maybe my decision would be different if I'd been through this process before but just to let you know that you're not the only faced with this problem and try not to take it personally, some people have no consideration for others and would rip your skirt off your back if they needed it.
I've noticed this general lack of respect amongst some clients that I've picked up. Its not evident until they've signed the engagement letter and then they suddenly seem to get this notion that you work for them rather than with them.
No importance is associated with their part of the arrangement and quite often paperwork is missing / late / duplicated (two of the same, not just photocopied), reused invoice numbers, clients giving us Excel spreadsheet with little real evidence of the figures within it and them thinking that they have done all of our work for us!
Some clients I manage to cure, others the cure seems temporary and some cases are terminal and I divest myself of them.
Have you ever noticed that no matter how much warning they get clients ALWAYS seem shocked that the accountant can fire the client. Just shows that they really believe that they are purchasing our services in the same way that they purchase a tin of beans.
If a client were to threaten me with my own supervisory body I think that I would beat them to it and seek the advice of my supervisory bodies legal department. If your body is good and you can show that you are the innocent party then they will side with and protect you (not least because you pay their wages).
If you are the innocent party and your professional body will not side with you then just get a better professional body (its not like there's any shortage of them).
I've come accross some very nice small business owners whilst doing this job, many more than I have bad egg's but it only takes one bad case to leave a sour taste in the mouth.
Whilst I have not had any client brave enough to put me in a similar situation to yourself or Jon I have just got back from a stage 2 interview for a Business Analyst / management accountant role back on the industry and commerce side of the fence as I am getting a little tired of chasing very small monkeys for peanuts.
Good luck in sorting the client out Elaine,
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.
Seems we all have a story to tell -I was in a similar situation over Christmas -this knocked my confidence quite badly but I did a lot of investigating to prove the errors were theirs not mine which although tine consuming did give me some peace of mind-amazing how clients are happy with your work until termination then suddenly there are a liar of errors on your part!
I did get some of the money owed from them but not all of it but decided I couldn't bare the hassle of fighting for the rest
Thanks for all the replies folks. Some food for thought.
After my posting on here last night I emailed my former client asking him for a detailed breakdown of what needed correcting on his Sage and why it needed doing. I stated that I would only be too happy to take a look at this and get back to him on it. I've heard nothing from him as yet.
I also took some informal advice from a solicitor friend who said that he can't actually invoice me as he hasn't provided any service to me. She says if I don't pay and he actually takes me to court it would just get thrown out.
Interestingly, I've today had a call from someone looking for a bookkeeper who was given my details by this guys accountants. The same accountants that he says have spent hours sorting out my 'errors'! I don't think they would still be referring to me if they thought I was that bad ;)
Great news that the accountants have recommended you! I hope this make you feel much better about the crappy situation you've been given, no doubt by someone who just doesn't want to pay the final bill!
I agree with your decision to ask for a detailed breakdown of the errors that needed correcting. If you have posted a couple of things to the wrong nominal code, this wouldn't have created too much of an issue, the accountant would just move them at the year end, when he was checking the NL as a routine. And to be fair, bookkeepers dont always record things in the same way - some might call certain "web costs" "advertising" for example... chances are he is making a mountain out of molehill.
-- Edited by FoxAccountancyServices on Friday 4th of July 2014 10:42:29 PM
5'll get you 10 your former client's accountants don't even know about the dispute, let alone identified all those errors you're supposed to have made!
Thanks Michelle. I think what you say about so called "errors" simply being differences of opinion in posting is correct. I did actually have a discussion with the girl who took over about this when she said that I'd done it wrong when putting invoice numbers in the reference field instead of in the description field
ilsm.... I suspect you're right. I don't think a reputable accountant (which this company is) would want to be associated with any actions like this.
By the way...... I've still heard nothing back after asking for the breakdown
-- Edited by Jon Lewis on Thursday 10th of July 2014 08:38:35 PM
Thanks Michelle. I think what you say about so called "errors" simply being differences of opinion in posting is correct. I did actually have a discussion with the girl who took over about this when she said that I'd done it wrong when putting invoice numbers in the reference field instead of in the description field
Reference fields are for references. What better reference is there than the invoice number? Apart from suppliers with 20 character invoice numbers when Sage only has 8 characters!
Description fields are for descriptions. Putting the invoice number in it wastes space that can be used for useful information, like what the money was being spent on.
Not really to my satisfaction but at least it's done.
We've both dropped our respective claims and my insurance company have agreed to pay me most of what the client owed me. I'm slightly out of pocket but I took the decision to do this as it became apparent that even if (when!) I won the case, there was no way that the client would pay up. Since all this started he's had two CCJ's against him from other suppliers which it looks like he's giving a damn good ignoring. In the end, I put my business head on and came to the conclusion that some money was better than none.
It's been a real learning curve this has. The main thing I've learned is that if something doesn't feel right from the start.... don't do it!
There are many people who use the description field instead of the Ex Ref field, and that's because sage has this stoopid thing about not showing Ex Ref on the reports that really need it. Like John says, it means you cant see the important bit! Still, not showing the ref in the description section is hardly a fault. You were running the system and you knew where you were up to. If you didnt need the reference to balance up supplier payments, no harm, no foul! She was probably just put out, because she had to put some extra thought into things.
Glad to hear its sorted. The new bookkeeper might end up in your shoes, at the end of it!
2003 actually Vince, when I gave up on Sage and their ripoff prices, having been a Sage dealer and user who knew the product inside out, for some years! Has it changed?
Yeah, the reference (and ex-reference) fields haven't been limited to 8 characters for quite some time. I'm not sure exactly when it changed, but I suspect 2005 isn't a long way off. :)
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
