Accountancy Firm Lied To Me

[gertysingh]

Wonder if someone might be able to advise me about an accountancy company.

8 Nov 2010: Gave my company accounts to an accountancy firm 2 months before my accounts were due to Companies House. As had not heard anything, called up at the end of November to talk to my usual accountant and to let him know that I was leaving the country. Was unable to speak with him personally and was told the message would be passed onto him.

13 Dec: A new accountant from the firm introduced himself to me via email. Asked him what happened to my old accountant. He tells me that the old accountant had poor health and thus left at the end of November.

17 Dec: Accountant completes my accounts and asks me to send back the originals ASAP back to the UK. I email back to ask him to send it via webfiling as this had already been set up for me in the previous year.

22 Dec: He says there are problems at Companies House (CH) as the company has been unable to send anything to CH over the last 3 weeks. I ask him to call CH and ask to send a scanned copy of my accounts to CH. He tells me that they had received an email from CH that they had a skeleton staff due to the weather and that only the originals could be sent to CH.

I posted my accounts by express post from the country I was in. This normally has a 2-4 working day delivery time BUT due to the weather conditions were not guarantee-ing the delivery. CH received my accounts on 4 Jan 2011. 4 days late and thus received a penalty.

I appealed the penalty and got a waiver but the accounts would still be filed late.

I also received a letter in January 2011, co-incidentally backdated to Dec 13 that the accountant I used to deal with had left the company due to ill health.

2011: Unfortunately I delivered my accounts late to CH a second time (my fault - got confused between HMRC and Companies House as this was the first time I had done my company accounts myself) I was thus given a double penalty for having delivered my accounts late twice in a row.

I appealed the 2010 late filing and found out from CH that:

1. There was no issues with their web filing in 2010. I thus asked the ex-accountant to send me the failed delivery slip. They sent me a failed delivery slip that indicated there was a failure on their side due to their template not aligning with CH and I found out the email was an internal email and not from CH.

2. They would have accepted a signed copy of the accounts.

I also recently found out that the original accountant's contract had been terminated with the company in the 2nd week of Nov and so they could have alerted me much sooner about him leaving. (for the last 4 years my relationship has been wholly with the original accountant who was pushed out of the company)

Would appreciate any guidance here as to what I can do.

Thanks

[Sockpuppet]

Would appreciate any guidance here as to what I can do.

File your accounts now so you don't mess up a third year in a row.

End of the day you're the director and you're responsible for filing your accounts - you failed to do this and go fined.

[sbakoola]

I also had problems with Companies House once and my large and supposedly reputable accountancy firm a few years back.

It was back in the day when I simply signed the Annual Return form (AR01) for Companies House, my accountant would fill in the rest, return it to me and I would send it to Companies House via signed for delivery.

6 months later I got an e-mail from my account stating "I notice on the Companies House website that your Annual Return has not been filed, did you send the AR01 Annual Return" to CH ?

I did do and CH had signed for it; unfortunately my Accountant had made a 'mistake' on the AR01 form and it was a only few days until CH would apply for my Company to be struck off !! Suffice to say, I got my accountant on the case to resubmit the corrected AR01 and I didn't pay any penalties - essentially I got there just in time, otherwise, my Company Bank Account money would have been frozen and the balance transferred to the treasury solicitor ... What got me in all of this is that Companies House didn't inform me of the error on the Annual Return form for 5-6 months; I wonder if they would have bothered to inform me if they happened to apply to have my company struck off the register also.

[Derek@SJDAccountancy]

Sorry to hear you have been having so many problems in getting your accounts to Companies House. Whilst it is your responsibility as director you are paying your accountant to assist and advise in this regard so you are entitled to expect a better service than you got.
I would agree with above comment to get current affairs up to date to avoid further penalties (you may have done this already).
It looks like you had a good relationship with accountant in the past and you should look to find an accountant going forward that you are again happy with. Honest there are some good, friendly accountants out there!!

[BolshieBastard]

And the moral is, dont leave it until the last minute to get your accounts done. IMHO, 2 months before deadline date is leaving it to the last minute.

[gertysingh]

I had handed my accounts to my normal accountant 2 months before the deadline in 2008 and 2009. He never flagged it as an issue. The time I deliver my accounts is when I have a down turn in work.

The fact here is that the accountant who had taken over had lied about:
a) Companies House having a problem on their computers. There was never any problem and the issue was with their own lack of technology
b) Companies House never issued an email to the accountant.
c) The accounant could have filed my accounts without the original if he had just called up Companies House to confirm my instructions to him.

I've paid the accountancy firm but I've taught them how they could have filed accounts! The above felt he was deflecting any visible blame from himself. In addition to that there were lies about my previous accountant and the circumstances in which he left. The partner I dealt with to complain simply said it was my own responsibility!

Yes it is the director's responsibility but I paid a bunch of accountants who had to simply do a phone call to find out I was right and do as I had instructed. Rather than give me an excuse and then for me to find out they had lied to me.

This seems very wrong or am I just barking up the wrong tree.

P.S. There is no problem with getting my accounts to CH any more :-)

[BolshieBastard]

I had handed my accounts to my normal accountant 2 months before the deadline in 2008 and 2009. He never flagged it as an issue. The time I deliver my accounts is when I have a down turn in work.

The fact here is that the accountant who had taken over had lied about:
a) Companies House having a problem on their computers. There was never any problem and the issue was with their own lack of technology
b) Companies House never issued an email to the accountant.
c) The accounant could have filed my accounts without the original if he had just called up Companies House to confirm my instructions to him.

I've paid the accountancy firm but I've taught them how they could have filed accounts! The above felt he was deflecting any visible blame from himself. In addition to that there were lies about my previous accountant and the circumstances in which he left. The partner I dealt with to complain simply said it was my own responsibility!

Yes it is the director's responsibility but I paid a bunch of accountants who had to simply do a phone call to find out I was right and do as I had instructed. Rather than give me an excuse and then for me to find out they had lied to me.

This seems very wrong or am I just barking up the wrong tree.

P.S. There is no problem with getting my accounts to CH any more :-)

IMHO, submitting your accounts to an accountant 2 months before deadline is foolish. What if they had a backlog of work, what is they had people off sick, what if there was something wrong with the information you gave them? All of this is more pertinent if the accountant you used is a small one man band like yourself.

Seriously, do you expect your accountant(s) to stop working their other clients just because you've had no problems in the past?

You have 9 months to get everything sorted, why wait to the last minute? Things change as you found to your cost.

[SueEllen]

Would appreciate any guidance here as to what I can do.

1. Make sure you accounts are in a form that the accountant can deal with a minimum time period of 1 month and a maximum of 3 months from your company year end.

2. Then send them to the accountant and ask them when they can do them in writing i.e. email. Then if they haven't done them or don't answer your email ask them repeatedly (every month) when your accounts will be done.

3. If they do them late or at the last minute, which some accountancy firms like doing however early you send your company accounts to them, then find an accountant who does things on time.

At the moment the best thing you can do is find another accountancy firm as they have clearly breached your trust.

While the accountancy firm didn't have to tell you the true reason why someone in their firm leaves they should inform you they are leaving or have left to make sure there aren't any on going issues that haven't been dealt with.

[gertysingh]

Hi Sue-Ellen - thank you for your reply and what you have said is sensible. My accounts take at the most 1 day to go thru. I just needed the accountant to fill in the paper work and to cross check the data I had given them.

Anyway have just found a clause in the ICAEW for a professional breach of trust by accountants who lie in order to mitigate themselves. Will delve further.

[SueEllen]

Anyway have just found a clause in the ICAEW for a professional breach of trust by accountants who lie in order to mitigate themselves. Will delve further.

Do you have written evidence of them misleading you? If not, then making a complaint won't go very far.

And even if you do have this written evidence accountancy bodies do very little (even on accountancy forums they mention this) though while it may be worth reporting the accountant so they don't treat other clients like this don't expect anything.