Timeframe to do accounts

New2Biz23

Hi all,

I have a limited company with one partner. He is responsible for gathering all details for our external accountant for our business which has a turnover just shy of €500k. I know my BP uses quickbooks (started learning it from the guy who helped us do things last year) and the BP does most of the work before it's given to the accountant. We start trading again post-Covid in mid-July 2022 and our business year closed end of Dec 2022. Since January my BP been working to get everything into Quickbooks and ready for the accountant, and things were finally submitted end of June 2023 (we got an extension). The accountant has prepared a Directors Report and Unaudited Financial Statements for year ended 31 Dec 2022 and all looks ok. However, even though I have asked many, many times, nothing is on Teams yet and I have no visibility of things that have been submitted and feel there is no transparency. This even applies to monthly payroll; my stub is emailed to me but I have not seen any of my BP's paystubs. While I don't think anything is amiss, I don't think this work should have taken almost 7 months to do and we still have nothing scanned/uploaded/filed on Teams.

While all this is going on, I feel I am doing the majority of the work that keeps the business ticking over, and am happy to do so IF my BP does his end of things but I feel deadlines are not met and that he is all over the place with work and procrastinating on everything. One example came up last week that illustrates this completely: I had mentioned several times in the few weeks before that a certain document the BP was responsible for needed to be updated and that we should be getting it out before things go quiet in the month of August when a lot of our industry clients take holiday; this was something he was very aware of. Last Monday he mentioned that the accountant was in touch (I was not copied on the email) requesting further information regarding our accounts and that it could take him a little bit of time. On Tuesday morning I was told he'd need the day or so. I knew on Wednesday that the work I needed wouldn't be done and would be pushed off until this week. On Thursday an email was sent to the accountant, on which I was copied, and it contained the work that appears to have taken my BP two full days to do....it appears our accountant did a spot check on items to do with our accounts requesting documents to verify we had things on file and my BP sent her the attached two zip files, the first contained 10 specific invoices we had sent out to clients in 2022, and the second zip file was for 35 other invoices from suppliers and equipment we purchased in 2022. Now, I'm not sure about anyone else, but after seeing that email, I saw red as that is work that would have taken me most definitely less than an hour. This was info already on file and should have been easily pulled and sent. Does anyone else agree? Am I underestimating the time frame for doing a simple task like this?

This all leads back to, in general, even with a learning curve, would it take six full months to figure out an accounting system for this business to prepare work in a good state to provide to accountant--who we're paying €3000k per year? Thanks for any advice.

Citrus_8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058305538/timeframe-to-do-accounts

Perhaps your BP has no skills required to do the tasks quickly. Maybe no well organised, maybe files are not in the right folders so more difficult to find? Maybe BP doesn't like these tasks and has no motivation to complete them efficiently. Or maybe just overall lazy person?

New2Biz23

Thanks for the reply @Citrus_8, appreciate your comments. You are right, I think his office skills are very weak but as we've entered into this business 50/50 I expect him to work at a professional / partner's pace. I will be discussing this issue with him shortly and highlighting where I see the issues and will encourage him to up-skill/take a computer course it seems or work longer hours in the day to get the work done on time. I wouldn't mind, most of the time he acts like he knows everything but when it comes down to it, time is money.

Citrus_8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120871910#Comment_120871910

Exactly... Nowadays businesses don't want to waste time for bookkeeping and accounts: this either must be done lightning fast or outsourced. If your business doesn't have required skills, upskilling is one option, but if the person has no capacity or willingness to even upskill, then they shouldn't be a part business, especially a business partner. I personally work in a big company, large office but I'm well recognised even though I'm just somewhere below middle. But people know me for doing things fast and accurate if I know what I do or I will find out and still do, but indicate the management about a possible delay. If there's no communication, then the person is not a business player and had no clue how money is made. If they sleep on a pile of papers and dreaming about the money tree, then they should be managed and they can't be self-employed or be a part of a small business owner. It doesn't suit their personally. You just need to explain that. Maybe he's too afraid to admit that he needs to step back.

Madd002

Yeah I agree, that's something I'd pull in 5- 10 mins if they weren't already on email that had to be scanned and sent over.

I was given list from external accountant for our yearly audit numbered 1-10 boss done 3 on list which were queries she could answer, I had other 7 exporting spreadsheets, lodgements, bank statements, nominal codes into excel and scanning all invoices relating to individual nominals in less than an hr, like previous poster I'm very fast at what I do and not knowing which folder their saved in is no excuse. You name folders and save under accounts folder.

Your accountant charging good price for year, my husband paid that for self employment and I was doing all the work and just sending into them at year end, they could access my sage.

DUBLINIRL

It doesn't sound like you are partners. How do you not know what's happening with the finances of your business?

DUBLINIRL

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058305538/timeframe-to-do-accounts

I'm an auditor, they are just testing your revenue recognition and expenditure. It's an hour tops to get that info. They should also be asking for evidence of payments made and received for these invoices so just bank statements which should already be provided to the accountant and a batch payment listing if applicable and possibly a remittance from the customer.

What exactly is the split of work in your company? There are good bookkeepers out there who will work a couple of days a week if that is what is needed which will free up your BP to focus on more revenue generating activities.