Crunch accountant or personal one ?

[stevieshaker]

My tuppenceworth. Been with crunch for 18 months, as others have said good, Intuitive software, anything standard is dealt with promptly and efficiently, however anything out of the box is a struggle and no tax efficiency advice at all, even last tax year before the divi tax came in.

My biggest and worrying gripe though is that the software made a 'mistake' at year end showing my loan account several thousand overstated, which would have cost me a fair wedge in tax had I not highlighted it -

even then it took two phone calls and an hour of my time to get past the Account Manager who simply couldn't understand what I was saying and basically kept insisting the software had to be right. Only through sheer persistence did I get through to a real accountant who understood and got it sorted. - it was indeed a system generated transaction that had gone wrong.

I'm on the lowest package, good value at £64.50+vat.

In summary, not good enough for me enough to recommend due to issues above, but not bad enough for me to go elsewhere.

[JoJoGabor]

I've recently moved to Crunch from one of the other big accountants and wished I hadn't bothered. I save about £30 a month in fees and I was attracted to the ability to see my own accounts and issue dividends quickly. However the transfer process is not smooth and I've had to invest hours of my time learning how to use the portal. The £30 a month saving has just been wiped out by the amount of time I'm spending on this.

Maybe I'm lazy but the extra £30 a month is well worth it for peace of mind that everything is under control and I'm not going to face a massive task of correcting items in my accounts at the end of the year

[northernladuk]

But the same could have been said if you moved to the Freeagent portal? You might have had to invest some time learning the portal at the beginning but you are going to save many times that over the years you are with them because portals are much more efficient surely?

[JoJoGabor]

Possibly, but £30 a month on revenue of about £15k becomes irrelevant. My driver was for a more responsive system, I realise in hindsight I actually want peace of mind that a professional is looking after my accounts (not just me) and to spend more time with my kids rather than cursing at the screen (I do that all day)

[northernladuk]

Possibly, but £30 a month on revenue of about £15k becomes irrelevant. My driver was for a more responsive system, I realise in hindsight I actually want peace of mind that a professional is looking after my accounts (not just me) and to spend more time with my kids rather than cursing at the screen (I do that all day)

I can't comment on the Crunch portal but I can't believe it's that bad. Takes 15 minutes a week tops run the FA portal. Because the accountant logs in to it I don't have to bother sending receipts, bank statements or anything. I don't even have to open another window to submit VAT and returns. Can be done within the portal.

Give it some time, get used to it and it should be plain sailing once you have. I see the other feedback so I'll bow to the masses if you aren't the only that can't use the Crunch portal.

[blackeye]

I was with Crunch.

It was a PITA to keep all the bookkeeping updated and ended not updating it for months. Missed a couple of VAT returns because I wasn't updating it.
Also when you call them, its like a call centre and you speak to sales agents first.

Spend the extra to get someone to do the donkey work for you.

[PMC]

How much do you value your time and sanity?

I've been with Crunch and witnessed their service going from bad to worse in the course of 2 years, waiting weeks for accountant replies, issues with the system, very slow at replying basic queries. They were reluctant to cancel my subscription at the end to trading year when I decided to leave (for simplicity) even though I had given a month notice as they were saying that accounts had to be approved first, I am glad I persisted and cancelled my DD as in the end it took nearly 5 months to transfer to a new accountant and get basic accounts done.

The accounts had to be rectified several times due to some silly mistakes, like moving all mileage expenses to public transport expenses! Good at sending reminders (that are automatically generated), in fact I still receive automated emails even though I have left them nearly 6 months ago! The worse of all is the inconsistent advice from different accountants, you dont get a personal accountant by the way so answers tend to come from different accountants (thats after long waits to get some advice) and they are not able to provide you with accountancy services that deviate from their restrictive system like setting up a company with different class shares, etc.. when you account for the extra time spent on calls, revisiting their work because you lost faith they not so cheap anymore, plus they charge separately for things like providing references, signed accounts, additional employees, SA, etc.. they might be suitable for some very simple business models but for those I would say a personal/high street accountant is more suitable.

[dingdong]

There are just as many people on here with complaints about personal/high street accountants and I much prefer the Crunch model where I can see what is happening at any point with my company accounts throughout the year. I have been with Crunch four years and am really pleased with the service. I've got friends who use personal accountants for their business and they have no idea how their company has performed until they get their accounts prepared at the end of the year.

Regardless of who your accountant is you have a legal responsibility to know what is going on with your accounts. Crunch calculates your VAT return and sends an email for you to check it and confirm you are happy for it to be submitted, and you can view your financial reports at any point during the year.

It's worth remembering also that the vast majority of people who are happy with Crunch's service won't bother to comment on websites like this. They are clearly doing something right to be one of the market leaders.

[Waldorf]

I think many of these new start up contractor accountants struggle when they try to scale up their operations. One of the problems is that getting the right staff is critical and then retaining them as they squire knowledge. Get this right and they can make a success of it. There is only do much marketing can do to cover the cracks that appear in customer service and the quality of advice etc.

[Maslins]

I've got friends who use personal accountants for their business and they have no idea how their company has performed until they get their accounts prepared at the end of the year.

That's not really a Crunch vs personal accountant (whatever that actually means) question, more an online portal vs traditional old school bookkeeping method.

I think many of these new start up contractor accountants struggle when they try to scale up their operations. One of the problems is that getting the right staff is critical and then retaining them as they squire knowledge. Get this right and they can make a success of it. There is only do much marketing can do to cover the cracks that appear in customer service and the quality of advice etc.

True dat. I do find it interesting that in some situations the employee accountants can have quite a bit of power. Eg there's a few names that regularly get mentioned on here, where clients have "followed" the staff member when they moved from one firm to another. As the owner of a small accountancy practice you want your clients to get on well with and respect the staff members...but hopefully not so much that if the staff move to a competitor the clients go with them!