Leaving accountant advice

[tucosalamanca]

Amazing forum , just need a little help is someone could comment:

Always tried to be 110% above board with all business dealing and recently got fed up of our accountant constantly every year messing up our returns.

This year he even put whatever dividend he wanted to on the PnL sheet so we made him change them all to the correct amount ! He also signs all our documents himself in my name e.g. the companies house balance sheet.

There was no contract with him or anything when we started, WE have to ring him every year and push him to do them.

In terms of leaving him 2 question :

1) Do we need to request all previous documents like a new accountant would or can we just move on without bothering with him anymore ? (doing them ourselves in future)

2) Do we need to send a final leaving letter as such , as there has never been any contract is this necessary?

Just thinking of previous PnL/paperwork sent to HMRC/revenue maybe ? (I do have them hard-copy and can download all the previous balance sheets from companies house website. We do the VAT and annual return ourselves so do not need those)

Any help appreciated , we will sleep much better at night knowing they wont be submitting on our behalf and we do not have to deal with them again.

[northernladuk]

You need to find yourself a new accountant first and then speak to them. They will tell you exactly what you need to ask for to help the transition process. A decent one may even try speaking to you old lot in your behalf. Unfortunately, apart from the mistakes this sound suspiciously like the situation I was in with my first so from experience if you can't speak to them to get them to so what you pay for it's highly unlilely they are going to help you when you are trying to leave so it's going to be a bit tough for you.

There is a list of accountants in the recommendation sticky but I have to recommend Gorilla Accounting who I am with. Jamie was the person that helped me with my transition. She tried to contact my old accountant and it came to nothing so she went the extra mile and helped me recreate the previous year as I was mid year and get me back up to speed. Not a very comfortable period but was happy they were close enough to not get in any trouble but took a bit of time to do.

That said there is a list of decent setups that have been recommended that give advice on the forum. Try ringing a few and see which one gives you a good feeling.

Freeagent is the tool you want as you do much of the submissions yourself via the FA portal and doing all the entry you are in full control. It's all there to export if you want but then account can be passed to another FA accountant very simply if you want to leave.

[northernladuk]

BTW speak to the new accountant first, get the list of stuff you need and then ask your old people. If you tell them you are leaving it's likely you'll not see a thing.

[Darren at Fox-Bartfield]

Accountant

The new accountant will be writing/emailing the old one to request professional clearance and will supply a list of the details required from their files.

They'll probably ask you to email your old guys to let them know of your intentions and giving clearance to release the information. If you've no letter of engagement from the outset, sounds like your old guys aren't regulated either.

As NLUK suggests, an accountant that supplies you with the Freeagent software would be recommended, there's a few of us on here that include it within the package.

[Gatdecor]

Can only second whats been said, recently went through the same thing leaving my old accountant mid year, moved to Gorilla as well actually. Ring them up first and they will help.

The freeagent software is a must whoever you choose, so much better having a full picture of everything and setting up the link to my company a/c was easy

[tucosalamanca]

Than you all so much for taking time to reply

We are doing them ourselves so what should we do in this circumstance ?

We have copies of PnL the accountant gave use for previous years and can get the balance sheets from companies house - is there anything else we really need to get from them?

Hoping we can just email them telling them we are not using them anymore

There is no contract so should be easy right?

Thanks in advance

[BrilloPad]

I went to QDOS - highly recommended especially Ben Surtees-Smith. They handled everything with my former accountant and it was very easy. Their service level was amazing.

[Lost It]

The right place.

Out of all the ones out there, Darren from Dynamo came to my aid when I had a similar issue not so long ago. I've moved to him, he's done all that was necessary to get me away from my last "accountants" and I finally have faith that I have someone I can talk to every time if I need to instead of being shunted from one department to another.

I can recommend him. He's shown an interest on here, he uses the "Free Agent" software and I quite like that I can see what's going on now. Even if I don't understand most of it.

[tucosalamanca]

It's clear half of you are not reading the post , just touting for business as I have said we are DOING THEM OURSELVES , no future accountant

[bluetoaster]

so you want to go without an accountant, and are asking this forum for advice on how to do your accounts?

wow. try finding an accountants forum.