What is your policy on DIY clients

DIY clients

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After out last weekly meeting, we've decided that we no longer take on DIY clients and are desiging a system for onboarding new and some existing clients onto our ecosystem from start to finish. We are so finished with DIY clients and everyone in the office was delighted with the decision. We spend so much time hand holding and sort out the complete dogs dinners that clients prepare that it is economically unfeasable.

Does anyone else have a policy on their DIY clients or do you, like we did, take the clients rubbish and try to correct it?

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By Wanderer
15th Mar 2020 21:04

Define 'DIY clients'.

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Replying to Wanderer:
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By Tickers
16th Mar 2020 22:49

Clients that do their own bookkeeping or are using their own spreadhseets or software which are very difficult to unravel, the time it takes to unravel is usually longer than if you had prepare the accounts from scratch.

I actually preferred the shoebox clients because they would come in once a year with a shoe box but at least you could write it up, give them a list of whats missing. These days a clients come in with a half finished TB, the bank reconciliation is a mile off so you have to do the bank rec anyway which completely defeats the purpose of clients having these cloud accounting packages, and when you complete the bank rec there is a host of transactions which are missing on the statement but not on the ledger along with another list of transactions which are on the ledger some of which are supposed to offset against one another but there's always this back story of "this client paid up front so we created an invoice for the full amount and refunded the difference but I only enter the balance in the accounts" I mean WTF! Why is it that people have this notion that they are competent enough to prepare their own accounts? I know my limitations when it come to certain things, I don't try and do my own conveyancing, I don't try and do my own carpentry or service my car so why do people think they can do their own accounting?

We had a case earlier in the year where a client was hiring for a sales admin position, a person came in and interviewed for the sales admin job which she didn't get but they decided to give her the job as the bookkeeper.

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By Martin Schneider
15th Mar 2020 23:15

If you mean clients who do their own bookkeeping etc, yes I am thinking I might also go that way (or only where they employ a salaried bookkeeper).

So sick of "quick questions" from clients who don't want to pay us to do their bookkeeping but demand super quick replies when they don't know how to do something it' sbeen stressing me out

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By SXGuy
16th Mar 2020 08:27

Im actually thinking of ditching one this year. Luckily I only have 1 DIY client that falls in to your explanation.

its a two man band, with their relative doing the book keeping, every year things are massively wrong, like you say, half the reconciliation or bank statements are missing leading to completely incorrect balance sheets etc.

And each year so far, when I question the "book keeper" on certain things, she likes to pass the buck over to the two partners, when I explain that if it is her who does the book keeping then it is her whom needs to answer the questions, it falls on death ears.

So I think this year, will be the last.

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By ireallyshouldknowthisbut
16th Mar 2020 09:13

We either have clients who use "approved" bookkeeping methods, or ex-clients.

if clients wont after the first year switch to our methods for year two there is rarely a third year.

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By Truthsayer
16th Mar 2020 09:14

I have no intention of ditching d-i-y clients. All you have to do is quote them a fee that makes the time spent worthwhile. There should be no such thing as an unprofitable client: there are merely clients where the fee is too low. Just put it up, and say take it or leave it.

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By Maslins
16th Mar 2020 10:11

Our clients do their own bookkeeping on FreeAgent...but other than that, I agree. Ie we used to have a cheaper package where clients did their own payroll/VAT/personal tax, theoretically with no input from us.

When clients did ask Qs about those things, reality is we have to answer, but they'd begrudge paying for it. Where they didn't, sometimes they'd make a hash of it, which we'd then have to sort out (again, they'd begrudge paying for it).

So we either oversee everything (and hence accept reasonable responsibility for everything), or we don't want to get involved.

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By pdtaylor78
16th Mar 2020 11:47

Some of our best clients are DIY clients, their bookkeeping is excellent the accounts are a doddle to do. They are nice fee earners.

We do have some who's bookkeeping is terrible and they are always asking questions, but they pay more for this. Those clients that do not listen to advice and book keeping continues to be terrible are given significant fee increases (after a warning that fees will increase if they dont improve their record keeping). If they go, nothing lost, if they stay, then at least your being paid well to put up with the rubbish and the endless advice.

As long as clients are paying the correct amount of fees for the service you provide, I think you are loosing out by banning all DIY clients.

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Replying to pdtaylor78:
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By Tickers
16th Mar 2020 19:31

But why spend time cleaning up a clients mess when you could be doing more profitable and more enjoyable work?

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By ohgoodgodno
16th Mar 2020 13:29

We have some DIY clients who are fantastic, to the point were I'm thinking why do you need us at all?

Others are bad, in part down to not knowing what to do, and I feel in part down to the software, despite what the adverts say, you still need to have a basic competence to use it, and if you don't know how to do bookkeeping, you wont be able to use the software effectively.

The software also makes a difference in how easy it can be to fix the clients mess, some is straightforward to unravel, others are not, Personally we find QB to be horrendous to sort out if its gone wrong.

I don't think ditching a client is necessarily the only way to go, there are opportunities to explain to the client their shortcomings and increase the year end fees or to take on the bookkeeping yourself, orto get some training in for the client - make the client feel loved, you are doing it for their benefit and they'll get on board

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Replying to ohgoodgodno:
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By Tickers
16th Mar 2020 22:54

ohgoodgodno wrote:

I don't think ditching a client is necessarily the only way to go, there are opportunities to explain to the client their shortcomings and increase the year end fees or to take on the bookkeeping yourself, orto get some training in for the client - make the client feel loved, you are doing it for their benefit and they'll get on board

Been there done that, bought into the whole marketing buzz that "there are no bad clients only bad accountants" and I'm sorry but I just can't go there anymore. I just don't have the energy levels or interest to get into the trenches and wade through 500 transactions of £2.75 flat whites, Amazon, Amazon, Starbucks, Amazon.

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