SJD: Yay or Nay?

[Michael at BI Accountancy]

Too much of a PITA to change though

Not necessarily...if you switch at your year end there should be very minimal disruption.

Granted this is dependent on whether your old accountants "play ball".

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

Not necessarily...if you switch at your year end there should be very minimal disruption.

Granted this is dependent on whether your old accountants "play ball".

Agreed. And to be fair to SJD they are very good at the handover.

[Waldorf]

Agreed. And to be fair to SJD they are very good at the handover.

Sounds like they have had a lot of practice.

[mudskipper]

Sounds like they have had a lot of practice.

They're professional. I had no problems with them, and I had no problems when I chose to leave them.

[MarkT]

Nay - I was with them but they expected me to do most of the work. They missed giving key advise when I was a new contractor. I felt the service they offered was an expensive book keeping service not an accountancy service.

Agree completely, no advice, just looked at the numbers at the end of the tax year, said "Your tax is this, pay it then"

Now with a smaller place who sorted out their mess and put me straight.

[john@UKCA]

SJD

Agree completely, no advice, just looked at the numbers at the end of the tax year, said "Your tax is this, pay it then"

Now with a smaller place who sorted out their mess and put me straight.

Not like the good old days with Mr Dolan at the helm then!

[alloverit]

Has anyone seen the online portal SJD have been developing in house? They tried to entice me to stay with it starting my new company year but weren't forthcoming with evidence of it....

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

Has anyone seen the online portal SJD have been developing in house? They tried to entice me to stay with it starting my new company year but weren't forthcoming with evidence of it....

My guess is it'll be Nixon Williams vantage given they're now the same mob. Dunno though.

[Einstein Jnr]

Nay - I was with them but they expected me to do most of the work. They missed giving key advise when I was a new contractor. I felt the service they offered was an expensive book keeping service not an accountancy service.

This ^^

I started contracting a year ago and signed up with them. I had registered my company a year prior but had not been trading. As any new contractor I had lots of questions and he never seemed to have any time for me.

After starting to understand some of my responsibilities like filing the company taxes, I had to continuously ping him to get my zero filings done. He would always start of by saying you don't need to do taxes as you just started and I would remind him the company was registered a year prior. After him missing almost missing out on my zero filings and my personal tax, I questioned the service as it was not proactive and border-lining on unprofessional. He wrote me a long sloppy email and actually put this in writing

"There is only so much chasing up I am in a position to do as I have over 150 clients and if I spent my time checking when everyone was free to talk then I wouldn’t actually get anything done."

I can imagine dealing with 4 maybe even 10 clients, but 150 for one person??!!!! I said I was leaving right after that email - he didn't even break a sweat or bother remove me from his automated email list as I still get emails asking for submission of some sort of spreadsheet.

I am happy where I am now and they use free agent and every time I have picked up the phone they have answered all my questions and provided useful (money saving) recommendations.

For this reason I would say Nay to SJD - left a horrible taste in my mouth *spit*

[SueEllen]

This ^^

I started contracting a year ago and signed up with them. I had registered my company a year prior but had not been trading. As any new contractor I had lots of questions and he never seemed to have any time for me.

After starting to understand some of my responsibilities like filing the company taxes, I had to continuously ping him to get my zero filings done. He would always start of by saying you don't need to do taxes as you just started and I would remind him the company was registered a year prior. After him missing almost missing out on my zero filings and my personal tax, I questioned the service as it was not proactive and border-lining on unprofessional. He wrote me a long sloppy email and actually put this in writing

"There is only so much chasing up I am in a position to do as I have over 150 clients and if I spent my time checking when everyone was free to talk then I wouldn’t actually get anything done."

I can imagine dealing with 4 maybe even 10 clients, but 150 for one person??!!!! I said I was leaving right after that email - he didn't even break a sweat or bother remove me from his automated email list as I still get emails asking for submission of some sort of spreadsheet.

I am happy where I am now and they use free agent and every time I have picked up the phone they have answered all my questions and provided useful (money saving) recommendations.

For this reason I would say Nay to SJD - left a horrible taste in my mouth *spit*

If they only had 4 clients they wouldn't make any money.

Contractor's accounts are apparently very straight forward in most cases.

Clearly your accountant wasn't organised enough to deal with people whose circumstances weren't the norm.