Dip in Level of Service from Nixon Williams

[Waldorf]

Fair point. A couple of hours perhaps. Responding to client queries is our primary priority. Completion of statutory accounts generally gets put on hold, unless they're particularly urgent for some reason (filing deadline or required for mortgage/similar). Hadn't realised you meant they literally weren't responding to anything.

How long are annual accounts “put on hold” for? Why is this a policy? Prompt annual accounts are a good discipline for both the accountant and the client. They can quickly highlight problems and in my view the sooner this can be done the better.

[Maslins]

How long are annual accounts “put on hold” for? Why is this a policy? Prompt annual accounts are a good discipline for both the accountant and the client. They can quickly highlight problems and in my view the sooner this can be done the better.

It's not an official policy as such, just prioritising staff time. I agree having statutory accounts/CT returns done sooner is always better than having them done later. However, when it comes to priorities, they're fairly low for the client, hence also for us.

Perhaps in the past when getting your statutory accounts was the main input from your accountant for the year, and it'd only be at that point that they'd query a transaction you made 6-18 months earlier, then yes, they'd be more time critical.

With clients using FreeAgent, and us checking in periodically throughout the year, any non trivial problems/opportunities should be spotted and discussed way before completion of the statutory accounts. Hence completion of the statutory docs is mainly just a formality.

[PerfectStorm]

Complete radio silence from NW again this week. Glad to see they're taking our feedback onboard and ignoring it.

Who's good in the market right now?

[northernladuk]

Complete radio silence from NW again this week. Glad to see they're taking our feedback onboard and ignoring it.

Who's good in the market right now?

We need to make a sticky I think...

[rocketjet]

Complete radio silence from NW again this week. Glad to see they're taking our feedback onboard and ignoring it.

Who's good in the market right now?

They have lots of happy customers apparently who find the service 5*!

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.nixonwilliams.com

[DolanContractorGroup]

Complete radio silence from NW again this week. Glad to see they're taking our feedback onboard and ignoring it.

Who's good in the market right now?

Maybe change to an accountant with a service guarantee that responds to emails same day

[Dark Black]

Complete radio silence from NW again this week. Glad to see they're taking our feedback onboard and ignoring it.

Who's good in the market right now?

Yet to have payroll processed by them for this month - was fobbed off last week with an excuse about it being the first month in a new tax year - but that's true for this time every year and there's not been a delay previously.

Not good enough.

[PerfectStorm]

Maybe change to an accountant with a service guarantee that responds to emails same day

When's your cutoff for that?

[Maslins]

When's your cutoff for that?

FWIW we've had a few clients who have pointed out how useless guaranteed response times are. Reason being what can happen is:

You - "[question]"
Accountant (within guaranteed time) - "hmmm...thanks for your question, we'll look into this and come back to you"
Accountant (well after guaranteed time) - "[answer]"

They technically meet their promise, but may as well have been an out of office auto responder.

[Dark Black]

FWIW we've had a few clients who have pointed out how useless guaranteed response times are. Reason being what can happen is:

You - "[question]"
Accountant (within guaranteed time) - "hmmm...thanks for your question, we'll look into this and come back to you"
Accountant (well after guaranteed time) - "[answer]"

They technically meet their promise, but may as well have been an out of office auto responder.

I think guaranteed response times are more a marketing thing rather than a useful yardstick to service. I'm more interested in getting an informative reply within a sensible time frame (that doesn't necessarily equate to the same as the guaranteed time).

However a quick response of the order of "thanks, we're looking into it" I do find useful because I know they have got my question and it hasn't disappeared into a black hole.

More of an issue for me is the delays I've experienced with the normal accountancy services that I'd expect to be processed within a reasonable time frame. E.g. payroll, yearly accounts, self assessment etc.