Hi.
After you've calculated and filed, for instance, PAYE and VAT for your clients, how are these paid? Do you have access to their bank accounts? Do they receive a snail mail bill? Are they able to login to the HMRC portal? With regards to people's wages, how is this paid? Are wage slips for instance sent to your client on say, Tuesday for the client to then in turn pay his / her employees?
Thank you
I tell them how much they need to pay and then they log into their bank accounts and pay HMRC or their employee's by bank transfer.
On occassion clients try to give me their bank details but I won't have anything to do with that. I was brought up in banking and the idea of giving out logon details is a completely alien concept to me.
How I tell the client what they need to pay varies from client to client. I don't use snail mail for anything but I do pop into clients oiffices and vice versa plus password protected email attachments.
You could also share using something like dropbox.
The one thing to ensure though is that you do not use email to send confidential information in non encrypted and/or protected form.
HTH,
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.
PAYE I email all payslips to clients who then print off for their employees. If requested I would email straight to employee but not had that yet.
VAT I email client the VAT return sheet and advise them of amount.
I do have one client (a fence erector) where I do all his admin, which includes sending invoices out, paying the subbies and paying any bills that need paying. I take on board what Shaun says about logins, but feel privileged that he has given me such a high degree of trust.
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
nothing against the trust that the client places in you and I am sure such is well deserved.
Its just my background that people sharing banking system login details for me is a totally alien concept.
Pretty sure that you would get a similar reaction from Joanne or anyone else who has worked in corporate banking.
I know that with the smallest companies it is difficult to do but one should try to have controls in place that segregate authorisation, custody and recording. So, taking payroll as an example, recording would be yourself but I would expect authorisation and custody (transfer of funds) to be the business owner.
I would not for one moment suggest that any of us would steal one penny from a client but the client should still have controls in place. We had a case on here last year if you remember where one of our own was convicted of stealing from a client. Looking at her case there were no controls over her so did the lack of control create the opportunity that led to her commiting a crime that she would not have commited had controls been in place? Possibly. I do not dream that she took the role intending to defraud her client but showed a weakness of character when opportunity arose.
One of the things that I've always been taught about fraud is that there must be three criteria present for it to happen (remember the acronym IOR) :
Incentive to commit fraud
Opportunity to commit fraud
Rationalisation of one's actions.
People such as ourselves John would never dream to rationalise that stealing from a client was justifiable but there are too many out there who do not share similar strong ethical fibre when opportunity presents itself and for those people all businesses need to have some sort of controls in place.
To my mind at a minimum should be the clients control over their own business bank account, which of course also offer some protection to the book-keeper against accusation of misappropriation of funds.
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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.
Hi guys
Thanks for your replies.
I see the advantages to both posts.
The small business guys who want ALL of his administration taken take of, from bookkeeping to paying his staff, as John is party to.
Then there is Shauns opinion, which again makes perfect, safe, sense.
If I was the business owner, I'd rather only I have access to actually pay out.
Too many horror stories.
But I guess it's ultimately down to each individual business owner as to what services, and trust they place into their bookkeeper / Accountant.
I do agree with what you say as a rule of thumb. I guess with this client I have become a bit of a nanny!! He's brilliant at putting up fencing but hasn't a clue when it comes to dealing with money. I appreciate I could very easily take advantage of the setup, and it's probably a good idea to discuss that with him.
I do not dream that she took the role intending to defraud her client but showed a weakness of character when opportunity arose.
They were my thoughts at the time.
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
