Thanks you for your insightful response - very helpful, much appreciated!
In truth it wasn’t so much that the money was deductible that concerned me, more the fact that there was money missing and this was not mentioned to me/raised.
Either way, I have learnt a lot and have since left the firm as the subsequent treatment was so awful I couldn’t deal with them anymore.
I can see your point, but then when asked to declare how much I had taken from the company and as per the bank statements the £6k wasn’t accounted for so why assume you know better than your client?
In truth, as a professional I cannot imagine assuming anything about anyone else’s finances when I could just ask them and check? But this forum has led me to believe that worryingly this is common practice, although you do as acknowledge they should have checked.
My account info was submitted 6 months prior so not close to the deadline,the timeline is a moot point, plus deadlines & late info do not negate a firms responsibility to fully review and check their clients returns.
As I say I have found someone else that I do actually trust and I have always acknowledged that I forgot the invoice so thank you for reply, I’ve learnt a lot.
What’s terrifying to me (and perhaps I place too much faith in my accountant) is regardless of the missing invoice, when money is missing (be that fraud/theft, forgotten invoice, bank error, who knows) When this firm sees that, they will not flag it/query it with their client & in my opinion that is a very basic failure of duty and professionalism. It’s such an easy e-mail to send, I can’t understand why you wouldn’t but it would appear from the replies that it is common practice.
I guess for me your comment about the accountants assumption is the problem and only seems to work one way.
They ALWAYS assume I’ve taken unsupported expenditure/missing money and prior to this, I would ALWAYS assume it’s a basic, moral requirement for my accountant to query missing money. This is where we clash.
I didn’t realise tax returns were based on assumptions, why ask for company information if you are just going to assume expenditure?
Also, I’m not ‘banging on about it’ no one has convinced me that my accountant couldn’t have just asked me about the missing money before filling out a whole tax return. If you could just shed some light on this, then I’d understand.
Your point about me possibly having a case is fair, but once again it works both ways with both parties making mistakes.
I appreciate you may not be trying to be patronising but I am very well aware of how to deal with people, I had two weeks of polite e-mails, please call me back, could you explain etc, I had been a client for almost 10 years. It isn’t bolshie to express my opinion & a decent accountant/service provider would have calmed the situation and taken then time explain & reply not ignore me for weeks on end.
An innocent error is forgetting to submit an invoice not claiming someone has taken money, increasing their tax liability (despite doing their personal tax return and being able to cross check) and all with zero evidence?
And for me, no judgement call needed to be made when you are able to pop a quick email asking about a discrepancy?
I’m getting a lot of resistance on this, why is it so hard to just say hey this doesn’t make sense, before I go any further and waste both our time can you just clarify x?
I actually find it incredibly telling no one would talk to me, it further cemented the fact they knew they were in the wrong. The manager even admitted to me on e-mail he could have queried this.
If you can’t trust an accountant to tell you money is missing then I do think you have to question their integrity.
I merely wanted to understand from others in the industry how this was deemed to be okay because thinking about it, I can’t think of another industry where when you don’t know the answer or something is missing/needs to be queried you just decide you know better & make it up!
You’re quite right, life is too short & judging but the firms google reviews I’m not the first person to have issue with their practices/treatment of clients. I could never treat a client the way they have treated me.
I chased them for 2 weeks and was promised phone calls and e-mails but was largely ignored, during which I never mentioned falsifying accounts. I then had the MDs assistant kindly raise this with the MD and that is the only way I got any from of interest/attention paid to the issue and then I brought up falsifying the accounts because to me they did falsify me taking the money in question, unless there’s another term for lying?
I have already paid £1k in fees, the remainder is for dividends vouchers (which from what I’ve read here are very overpriced!) This is a small/med sized firm in London I don’t think it’s fair to say I deserve this.
I’m here trying to understand why in the accountancy world it is deemed okay to decide where missing money goes rather than ask your client. I deal with contracts regularly, if I was missing information or didn’t understand something I would be most likely be fired for just making it up (even in a draft contract).
Thanks for you reply. I truly am just trying to understand how this has all happened.
So just to clarify, I told my accountant I had received the deposit and £6k of it is missing/never got transferred to the account & so to balance books they decide I’ve taken it (despite me never saying that/no bank statements showing this)?
So I was wrong to assume that an accountant should ask about discrepancies?
And I am wrong to question why an accountant would assume I had taken money when no such transfer exists as they have the bank statements in front of them?
So effectively, I’ve unknowingly given my accountant license to decide where missing money has gone and wrong to think they should ask me?
Thank you for your very thorough reply, much appreciated. I truly do want to understand how they can firstly not feel like £6,000 missing from accounts is an issue to be queried? And more so, that I had taken that money with zero evidence of this?
I truly do not think paying ‘only’ £850 for accounts means that they can ignore missing money and decide I’ve taken it? This is surely must be a very basic level or diligence?
I take your point about the filling of gaps but surely this is bigger than that? I deal with contracts and if I didn’t know information or understand something, I would get fired for ‘filling in gaps’. I didn’t realise this was common practice amongst accountants.,
Didn’t post number because I didn’t know they were relevant but the amount in question is £6,000 (that’s a lot to me!) and just over 10% of rental income.
I did try to resolve this but they ignored me and told me I could leave as I don’t make them enough money (that’s the Director saying that too!) so I have since had to pay someone else to file them because they ignored me for weeks prior to telling me to leave.
My answers
Thanks you for your insightful response - very helpful, much appreciated!
In truth it wasn’t so much that the money was deductible that concerned me, more the fact that there was money missing and this was not mentioned to me/raised.
Either way, I have learnt a lot and have since left the firm as the subsequent treatment was so awful I couldn’t deal with them anymore.
I can see your point, but then when asked to declare how much I had taken from the company and as per the bank statements the £6k wasn’t accounted for so why assume you know better than your client?
In truth, as a professional I cannot imagine assuming anything about anyone else’s finances when I could just ask them and check? But this forum has led me to believe that worryingly this is common practice, although you do as acknowledge they should have checked.
My account info was submitted 6 months prior so not close to the deadline,the timeline is a moot point, plus deadlines & late info do not negate a firms responsibility to fully review and check their clients returns.
As I say I have found someone else that I do actually trust and I have always acknowledged that I forgot the invoice so thank you for reply, I’ve learnt a lot.
What’s terrifying to me (and perhaps I place too much faith in my accountant) is regardless of the missing invoice, when money is missing (be that fraud/theft, forgotten invoice, bank error, who knows) When this firm sees that, they will not flag it/query it with their client & in my opinion that is a very basic failure of duty and professionalism. It’s such an easy e-mail to send, I can’t understand why you wouldn’t but it would appear from the replies that it is common practice.
Hi Adam,
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
I guess for me your comment about the accountants assumption is the problem and only seems to work one way.
They ALWAYS assume I’ve taken unsupported expenditure/missing money and prior to this, I would ALWAYS assume it’s a basic, moral requirement for my accountant to query missing money. This is where we clash.
I didn’t realise tax returns were based on assumptions, why ask for company information if you are just going to assume expenditure?
Also, I’m not ‘banging on about it’ no one has convinced me that my accountant couldn’t have just asked me about the missing money before filling out a whole tax return. If you could just shed some light on this, then I’d understand.
Your point about me possibly having a case is fair, but once again it works both ways with both parties making mistakes.
I appreciate you may not be trying to be patronising but I am very well aware of how to deal with people, I had two weeks of polite e-mails, please call me back, could you explain etc, I had been a client for almost 10 years. It isn’t bolshie to express my opinion & a decent accountant/service provider would have calmed the situation and taken then time explain & reply not ignore me for weeks on end.
An innocent error is forgetting to submit an invoice not claiming someone has taken money, increasing their tax liability (despite doing their personal tax return and being able to cross check) and all with zero evidence?
And for me, no judgement call needed to be made when you are able to pop a quick email asking about a discrepancy?
I’m getting a lot of resistance on this, why is it so hard to just say hey this doesn’t make sense, before I go any further and waste both our time can you just clarify x?
I actually find it incredibly telling no one would talk to me, it further cemented the fact they knew they were in the wrong. The manager even admitted to me on e-mail he could have queried this.
If you can’t trust an accountant to tell you money is missing then I do think you have to question their integrity.
Hi Tom,
I merely wanted to understand from others in the industry how this was deemed to be okay because thinking about it, I can’t think of another industry where when you don’t know the answer or something is missing/needs to be queried you just decide you know better & make it up!
You’re quite right, life is too short & judging but the firms google reviews I’m not the first person to have issue with their practices/treatment of clients. I could never treat a client the way they have treated me.
I chased them for 2 weeks and was promised phone calls and e-mails but was largely ignored, during which I never mentioned falsifying accounts. I then had the MDs assistant kindly raise this with the MD and that is the only way I got any from of interest/attention paid to the issue and then I brought up falsifying the accounts because to me they did falsify me taking the money in question, unless there’s another term for lying?
I have already paid £1k in fees, the remainder is for dividends vouchers (which from what I’ve read here are very overpriced!) This is a small/med sized firm in London I don’t think it’s fair to say I deserve this.
I’m here trying to understand why in the accountancy world it is deemed okay to decide where missing money goes rather than ask your client. I deal with contracts regularly, if I was missing information or didn’t understand something I would be most likely be fired for just making it up (even in a draft contract).
Hi SX,
Thanks for you reply. I truly am just trying to understand how this has all happened.
So just to clarify, I told my accountant I had received the deposit and £6k of it is missing/never got transferred to the account & so to balance books they decide I’ve taken it (despite me never saying that/no bank statements showing this)?
So I was wrong to assume that an accountant should ask about discrepancies?
And I am wrong to question why an accountant would assume I had taken money when no such transfer exists as they have the bank statements in front of them?
So effectively, I’ve unknowingly given my accountant license to decide where missing money has gone and wrong to think they should ask me?
Hi Jason,
Thank you for your very thorough reply, much appreciated. I truly do want to understand how they can firstly not feel like £6,000 missing from accounts is an issue to be queried? And more so, that I had taken that money with zero evidence of this?
I truly do not think paying ‘only’ £850 for accounts means that they can ignore missing money and decide I’ve taken it? This is surely must be a very basic level or diligence?
I take your point about the filling of gaps but surely this is bigger than that? I deal with contracts and if I didn’t know information or understand something, I would get fired for ‘filling in gaps’. I didn’t realise this was common practice amongst accountants.,
Hi Kestrop, thanks for your reply!
Didn’t post number because I didn’t know they were relevant but the amount in question is £6,000 (that’s a lot to me!) and just over 10% of rental income.
I did try to resolve this but they ignored me and told me I could leave as I don’t make them enough money (that’s the Director saying that too!) so I have since had to pay someone else to file them because they ignored me for weeks prior to telling me to leave.