Shoddy Bookeeper

Good Evening Members, 

I am at a bit of a loss at the moment with my current situation i will just go through the story as quick as I can and would be grateful for any comments back as to what you think i should do or what I shouldn’t do 

So we engaged a bookkeeping service which was one women band with excellent reviews on her website meant to be from other clients. she worked with other catering firms in the area so it seemed a good option for us as she could understand our prospective. 

at the start of the work she done I was satisfied with work done she had advised me she had worked back to when the business started and that she had input all this to sage. 

as part of her services I asked her to monitor invoice from suppliers and also keep an eye on sales and if she seen anything she was worried about to raise a red flag.

i also gave her access to the bank account to do bank recs.

and asked for monthly updates on my accounts

after the first few months of getting no engagements other than she was working on getting my books up to speed I had concerns but never acted on them 
(Stupid me) as none of what I had asked her to do had been done and suppliers invoice etc was being left for me to handle although not a major issue it did draw my attention away from business which was the reason for engaging in a book keeping service in the first place. 

I asked for a meeting and we discussed me taking on an employee etc she asked if i wanted her to register me as an employer or if I would do it myself i advised i would do this but could she take care of the payroll

As i said i registered with hmrc and when the details came in i sent them across to her to put into her payroll package

The employee started no problems i emailed a few days before pay day and advised the hours I wanted paid so I could get a payslip etc. 

I did not get a response until 5pm on the date the employee required to be paid and found along with the email she apologised for delay and stated she had to wait for my employers registration to come in which she had organised for me!!!

I emailed back and said I had already registered and had given her the details as we had agreed I was able to do this.

Again apologised and said she didn’t realise

I then began to ask questions as to when my 14/15 SA would be ready and got no reply 

For weeks I was emailing and getting no reply to anything bearing in mind it was already October and time was running out to submit. 

by the end of October when I hadn’t had any reply to either my payroll queries (Employee was put on a ba?? code and wasn’t sure why as she provided all the details need might not have been ba code but it was something like that anyway irrelevant - I finally sent an email confirming I wished to cease our book keeping services with her and move elsewhere and asked her to forward me on the work she had completed to that point. 

I contacted HMRC direct to question some things to find out the following:-

{C}1.       {C}My address had not be changed when I asked bookkeeper to do it 

{C}2.       {C}An RTI Submission had not been made and we were now liable for £200 penalty

I went back to bookkeeper and she advised RTI had been made and she had posted out proof. I was then horrified when I was sent a excel spreadsheet of the work she had done and to actually how little she had done. Pretty much only 3 months worth of books form 14/15 when I was really looking for SA Figures to submit to hmrc and for her to be well on her way to 15/16 stuff. 

In any case I finally asked for her to post over my paperwork with a view to asking our new bookkeeper to check over the work done and carry on although she wasn’t keen as it could be costly if things are wrong and she advised it would maybe be better placed t scrap and start again. 

in any case a courier was organised by the bookkeeper and paperwork was collected made it to depot and sat for 12 days with no movement meanwhile I was chasing the bookkeeper asking where it was she finally told me today that the courier confirmed that the parcel had been lost and could not be relocated. 

so now I have absolutely no idea how I move forward and question what I have paid this women to do as she has literally made things worse and i have nothing to show for it and i cant even look back and start again as I don’t have any paperwork. 

My question is should I perusing the bookkeeping business for this and what should I do? 

It would be worth pointing out that the exact reason I required a bookkeeper is because i needed to spend more time with my growing business in knowledge that my books where been kept in good hands instead IV probably spend double the amount of time if I had just done it myself. Spend loads of time organising my paperwork and keeping it in good order when I might as well have just stuck it in the garden fire!!!

Look forward to replies and thank you for reading