Leaving SJD

[captainham]

...potentially dodgy motives of the OP...

+1. Simply not cricket, especially as it is not even him but "A friend of mine". I thought telephones came in handy when you actually need to speak to somebody rather than trolling on a forum...

[Segush]

In their defense I have had an excellent service from them so far, all the reminders etc come at the right time. My accountant is Sarah and she is lovely.

Probably not the cheapest out there but you get what you pay for.

[Wanderer]

We charge a full years fee's if we do a full years work (annual accounts etc). If a client leaves part way through the year without us doing the accounts we charge on the basis of time spent to that point and offset the monthly fees from that.

I presume there was a certain amount of work involved in setting up a company that would need to be recouped, fair enough. So what is your early termination policy. ie, how much would you charge if a hypothetical startup contractor engaged SJD but terminated 4 months into the year?

[Scoobos]

They told me they charged the full year and lost documentation to boot.

I was told that the fee was for the year end accountants and just spread out over the months .......

[mudskipper]

They told me they charged the full year and lost documentation to boot.

I was told that the fee was for the year end accountants and just spread out over the months .......

If you want them to do your year end accounts, they will charge you for the year. Seems fair enough.
My company setup wasn't free with SJD, so unless that's changed, that shouldn't be an issue.
FWIW, I was happy with SJDs service, but switched to OneTouch half way through year because of fee increase. Switching was pretty straightforward - a few forms to fill in etc, but not as complicated as I'd feared, and no 'catch-up' charge.

[cojak]

From memory, he's a contractor accountant.

I wasn't aware of this. But I am now and will pass this info onto Admin...

I'm particularly miffed that you can ask this question without readers knowing of your occupation J1MT.

[Old Greg]

I wasn't aware of this. But I am now and will pass this info onto Admin...

I'm particularly miffed that you can ask this question without readers knowing of your occupation J1MT.

+1. The professional / business jealousy of SJD is rather tedious.

[Alan @ BroomeAffinity]

An apology

Guys. My bad. I should have declared that I was an accountant in the OP. In my (rather thin) defence I didn;t say I wasn't either but I acknowledge it looked rather dodgy. The contractor in question was considering moving over from SJD and asked the question. I didn't know the answer so asked here.

For the record, I have 250 clients, SJD have 7,000. I think in the last three years, we have traded maybe 3 or 4 clients. So while we do operate in similar markets, we are not really in competition. I have a huge amount of respect for Simon and what he has done with SJD.

So, sorry. Mea culpa. I guess I'll slink off now and lick my wounds.

[simondolan]

Guys. My bad. I should have declared that I was an accountant in the OP. In my (rather thin) defence I didn;t say I wasn't either but I acknowledge it looked rather dodgy. The contractor in question was considering moving over from SJD and asked the question. I didn't know the answer so asked here.

For the record, I have 250 clients, SJD have 7,000. I think in the last three years, we have traded maybe 3 or 4 clients. So while we do operate in similar markets, we are not really in competition. I have a huge amount of respect for Simon and what he has done with SJD.

So, sorry. Mea culpa. I guess I'll slink off now and lick my wounds.

We actually have 12000......

[northernladuk]

We actually have 12000......

11999 now it seems