Accountancy fees

Caucasian Ovcharka

Hello all,

I'm looking for some advice.

Basically signed up with an accountant january last year

new vat registered business as sole trader with turnover of 20k over 4 months

very little in terms of actual accountancy tasks as there was not much to the business just bought and sold stock.

The accountant told me to do all vat returns online with ros myself

only purchases/expenses mobile phone bills, some diesel, some shelves and stock

There was no real advice from the accounatnt for example I was not informed that I could include a percentage of business expenses such as car insurance, tax, services etc if I used own car for business I found this out myself.

didn't turn a profit so no income figures

The accountant has charged me 800 plus vat for this??

Please advise was I ripped off??:eek:

jjjd

Caucasian Ovcharka wrote: »

Hello all,

I'm looking for some advice.

Basically signed up with an accountant january last year

new vat registered business as sole trader with turnover of 20k over 4 months

very little in terms of actual accountancy tasks as there was not much to the business just bought and sold stock.

The accountant told me to do all vat returns online with ros myself

only purchases/expenses mobile phone bills, some diesel, some shelves and stock

There was no real advice from the accounatnt for example I was not informed that I could include a percentage of business expenses such as car insurance, tax, services etc if I used own car for business I found this out myself.

didn't turn a profit so no income figures

The accountant has charged me 800 plus vat for this??

Please advise was I ripped off??:eek:

Hard to know without further information. Did you agree a fee in advance for his/her services? Did he or she charge you more than they indicated to you initially? If not then it's hard to say. Your accountant needs to make a living too. If you are not happy with his/her fee ask for a complete breakdown of the fee. You could ask for a reduction if your still not happy. In any event you may be able to write off the cost as a business expense and claim the VAT back. You may even be able to carry forward any losses and offset against future profits. It sounds like you need to sit down with your accountant, talk about your business and perhaps agree a fee for the following year so there are no nasty surprises next year.

Caucasian Ovcharka

thanks for that I wil take it on board when I meet him next

Caucasian Ovcharka

Let me explain a bit further as I need some advice on this?

I met my accountant in jan 2012, we discussed fees and agreed on 960 including vat to do the vat, business returns and income tax for the year etc.

That was fine until one matter confused things and resulted in the current debacle.

1st part of misunderstanding between accountant and me:

The accountant ask me to pay this 960 by means of a direct debit and by doing so this would facilitate him as my accountant for all accountancy tasks and I can call for advice whenever needed etc. I said great and agreed.

I had prepared my returns for 4 months of 2011 as there was not much to them and had intended to do them myself but when I asked the accountant on advice doing this he said give them to him to do. Great again!

I paid the direct debit each month for 2012 and for the current 3 months of 2013.

Business circumstances changed and so I wanted to end the business as it was not good and restart in another more successful branch of it as a new business. So I asked the accountant if we could finalize the accounts for the business and restart as another business.

He said no problem and I submitted a spread sheet and all relevant monthly documents, there was only a loss and no profit so no income tax. All vat was done by myself on line.

So I had paid him 15 months of a direct debit and then I received a call stating that he would need payment of nearly 650 to submit the accounts???

I said I had paid for the accounts service for the returns for 2012 by the direct debit taken in 2012 and he said NO! all the direct debits taken in 2012 only paid for the cost of the filing of returns for the 4 months of 2011!!!!!

I was shocked by this??

Can anyone advise me I can see where the confusion lies and aired my concern with the accountant and offered to meet him half way but NO he wants full payment or he will not do the returns!!!


So I'm genuinely at a loss here any advice would be appreciated.

viztopia

do you have an engagement letter with this accountant or any other written record of what was agreed? do you have any invoices or receipts from him to date?

Caucasian Ovcharka

Hi thanks for the reply,

I have an original agreement but it does not state the service only the fee and direct debit etc. Transparency in a written agreement would of resolved any confusion but there is nothing apart from the verbal discussion that detailed what I was getting for the payments??

I have no invoices from him that I can think of the dd comes out every month.