Accountant gone AWOL

[mobyjones]

Hi there.

Looking for a spot of advice! I've had my ltdco for 2.5 years.

We engaged an accountant at the outset on the recommendation of my wife's employers at the time (financial advisors so should have been good advice!).

It's a one person band working out of their house and they seemed very competent when we spoke to them so 'signed up'. The experience over the 2 years wasn't brilliant, they were very slow to respond to any requests but got our payroll and accounts done mostly on time (1st year accounts were a day or 2 late going in) so being inexperienced we didn't really want to change things. I informed them of my plans to take a staff role in Oct/Nov 2021 and they came back with good advice on what options I had and what I would need to do to close down the company if I chose to go down that route. Then basically radio silence since December 1st when I started my staff role with no response to several emails, text messages and phone calls.

I'm not sure what's happened to them, hopefully they are ok health wise (I'm sure we'll find out though they did move away from our area last year so maybe not) however my ask for advice here is how do I sort out this mess in the meantime? They were handling my payroll and company tax returns. Can I simply contact a new accountant to take these over or do it myself even? Or do I need them to formally release me from their services?

Any advice greatly received

[cojak]

It depends on your contract with them, but I would send them an email cancelling their services and go with a new accountant. You might have to pay twice for the first month (depending on that contract), but it will be worth getting out of this arrangement.

[northernladuk]

How much were you paying for this service out of interest?

[Maslins]

It's a danger of a "one person band" accountant. They can be great, indeed often are. Small, nimble, not bogged down in big corporate processes. The owner of the business is typically the sole person you deal with, they care, and are competent. However, they're human, and there's typically no back up. Holidays are trickier. Serious illness (or worse) can be totally devastating to the business and its clients.

Sounds like you've given them ~5 months of negligible response before posting this, which is certainly more than enough (occasionally we see posts more along the lines of "my accountant hasn't responded to my email yesterday, shall I go elsewhere?"). If it's been literal radio silence for that long, then yes I'd suggest you need to go elsewhere (or DIY if you're confident). It seems unlikely they'll come back imminently after that big an absence.

New accountants should be able to piece things together. However if the accountant doesn't respond to you, they're unlikely to respond to the new accountant. This can make it a royal PITA for the new accountant to get up to speed. If you're savvy and on top of most things it should be ok. If you're not, then there will be a fair bit of detective work for the accountant to do, and donkey work for you to do.

[Fred Bloggs]

I get the feeling as it's a one man band recommendation from another business, the accountant might be quite local to the OP?

If that's the case, just go and knock on the door.

[mobyjones]

Hi folks thanks for the replies. Much appreciated!

The cost was just shy of a grand a year for payroll & accounts so quite decent I think? I don't think we ever had a formal 'signed' contract so not sure if there's an option for any recourse there. It was all fairly informal and it feels I'm paying for this now!!

They did live local when we engaged with them however they have moved a couple of hours drive away since the middle of last year so dropping past is not an option unfortunately.
It does feel like they have simply bailed on us with there being no chance of them bumping into us and the fact the company will be shut down but quite shocked at the lack of basic decency if that were the case. Perhaps they have had a serious illness...

[Lance]

The cost was just shy of a grand a year for payroll & accounts so quite decent I think?

Not if they're not doing it's not.

[mobyjones]

Not if they're not doing it's not.

touche!