ICAEW member excluded for unauthorised withdrawals of client money
An ICAEW member has been excluded from the institute after borrowing hundreds of thousands of pounds from the client accounts to pay his staff salaries and to keep his business solvent.
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This is usually the area that the legal profession get caught on (having created fictions to dupe the reporting accountant)
Those are serious sums held on client account
Makes my client account look pathetically tiny
I can't believe how light the fine was ...
The statement that he had “used client funds to pay staff salaries, so that clients’ accounts and clients’ payroll could continue to be processed, rather than closing down the practice and causing considerable financial loss and distress to clients” is not only indicative of a 'lack of remorse' ... it suggests a total disconnect between reality and his perception of it.
The problem is the unregulated never get publicised like this..it all gets lost in failed expensive civil actions ....at least regulation works and no loss to the public ..unlike a local cowboy who stole 750k from a widow with very little recovery ..
I just lost a substantial amount (6 months rent plus rent plus rent deposit) when my rental management agent went bust. They took the funds from the tenant, but never passed them on to me, nor did they protect the deposit.
The director had taken loans of £400k+ from the company over the years, which left it without funds to pay its obligations.
Estate agents should be required to hold funds on client account (some do, but not mandatory). Mine was supposed to hold insurance to protect, but I bet that the liquidators will find he didn't!
And I sit and fret if there's a random 7p difference on the client account bank rec....
Mind you it takes some doing to run a firm of CAs at a loss....
I can't understand how there could have been that amount of money sitting in the client account?
Makes our client account look like small fry.
Well done ICAEW.
Tipped off in October 2017, and ICAEW justice is meted out in March 2022. Working at top speed again; they even manage to make HMRC look efficient (three words I never thought I would ever write)!
Must have been a major player to have 400k go through the client account for those type of services to contractors
Not sure why the anonymity (of the "Firm") is preserved in the article ... but, although there are a lot of Charles Fowlers who are/were CAs, this looks a good fit https://uk.linkedin.com/in/crsfowler
... unless anyone knows better?
If that's him, he seems to be a pillar of society - which should immediately raise suspicion!
Fool Fowler fell foul big time. Exclusion from the Institute with such a relatively light fine seems a small price for the ''borrowing''.There's much more to this than meets the eye. Non participation before the Disciplinary Committee - tantamount to ''No Comment'' in ''Line Of Duty'' - says it all.
Solicitors operating client accounts have to have them checked annualy by an audit registered accountantant. Should this not apply to accountants?
My observation of practice assurance visits is that checks were limited to client matters & records. Did include client accounts but did not check for matters like VAT & PAYE for the practice (up to date and correct?), Income Tax or Corporation Tax for the practice (up to date & correct), loans from clients, business relationships with clients (ie running business's) etc.
"Solicitors operating client accounts have to have them checked annualy by an audit registered accountantant. Should this not apply to accountants?"
Solicitors get reports by accountants, just like a few other trades
Why would an accountant need an accountant?
Practice visits ALWAYS include the client account: a review of bank statements and reconciliations
Your suggestion is that qualified people need further regulation, giving the unqualified yet more business advantage, as they would not need to be "audited"