Reply to: SJD Accountancy ongoing resource crisis - advice needed

[Dagger]

I'm getting PTSD reading this thread and remembering the pain and struggling it took to get SJD to complete my final accounts for liquidation. Over 6 months of lies and ghosting of my calls and emails before they finally managed to muster up somebody to get it done.

I found the drop off in "quality" in SJD became really apparant from 2019 onwards. It got to the point that I genuinely thought they had gone out of business as the service was so dismal.

[Fred Bloggs]

Thanks Fred - yes I was already on FreeAgent with SJD and one of the best things was being able to give the new accountants view access straight away without waiting for SJD’s clearance. And much easier to use than the old spreadsheets or SJD’s portal

Well done. Seriously, with FA there's absolutely no reason to tolerate poor customer service. It's so simple now to move accountant with FA.

[thunderlizard]

Thanks Fred - yes I was already on FreeAgent with SJD and one of the best things was being able to give the new accountants view access straight away without waiting for SJD’s clearance. And much easier to use than the old spreadsheets or SJD’s portal

[Fred Bloggs]

I wish I'd seen this 3 months ago. I'd been using SJD for years and not requiring much of them, and they were adequate. Then after my last company year end, I gave them final figures within about 6 weeks of year end and they did nothing with them for 8 and a half of the 9 months grace period despite my increasingly frequent enquiries.

I enlisted another accountant with a month to go. But what I had entirely not realised is that switching accountants triggers a lengthy Professional Clearance process in which the new accountant tries to pick things up gracefully from the old accountant without treading on their toes. You can't just send the new accountant the same stuff you sent the old accountant and tell them to get cracking ASAP. Which, if the reason you want to move accountants is that the old one is being unresponsive, is not great.

Which I guess means you really need to instruct the new accountant more like 2 or 3 months before deadline. Though I get the impression that expecting to have your accounts all ready 3 months before deadline is deemed over-officious by the accountancy profession, so you wouldn't know until it was getting too late.

SJD came good in the end and gave me draft accounts on the 2nd working day of the deadline, then made the corrections and filed on the last possible afternoon, but I'm not going through that again.

If you don't already use it, suggest you start using FreeAgent with your new accountant. Makes switching accountant and statutory filings far easier in the future.

[thunderlizard]

I wish I'd seen this 3 months ago. I'd been using SJD for years and not requiring much of them, and they were adequate. Then after my last company year end, I gave them final figures within about 6 weeks of year end and they did nothing with them for 8 and a half of the 9 months grace period despite my increasingly frequent enquiries.

I enlisted another accountant with a month to go. But what I had entirely not realised is that switching accountants triggers a lengthy Professional Clearance process in which the new accountant tries to pick things up gracefully from the old accountant without treading on their toes. You can't just send the new accountant the same stuff you sent the old accountant and tell them to get cracking ASAP. Which, if the reason you want to move accountants is that the old one is being unresponsive, is not great.

Which I guess means you really need to instruct the new accountant more like 2 or 3 months before deadline. Though I get the impression that expecting to have your accounts all ready 3 months before deadline is deemed over-officious by the accountancy profession, so you wouldn't know until it was getting too late.

SJD came good in the end and gave me draft accounts on the 2nd working day of the deadline, then made the corrections and filed on the last possible afternoon, but I'm not going through that again.

[Fred Bloggs]

Aye. So many comments along the lines of "Yes they've been poor for years, and recently it's got much worse...but they've promised they'll improve/I imagine others are just as bad."

Usually followed sometime later by a further post requesting help to sort out a mess at their company.

[Maslins]

There's an oft quoted statistic that people are more likely to get divorced than change banks but maybe 'banks' should be replaced with 'contractor accountants'?

Aye. So many comments along the lines of "Yes they've been poor for years, and recently it's got much worse...but they've promised they'll improve/I imagine others are just as bad."

[northernladuk]

I did the same thing too, I kept to the spreadsheet which worked well for me but now being forced to the new system I just can't be bothered to learn for the moment. I'm still with SJD as they've just kept my ltd ticking over while I work inside IR35 with a local client. They reduced their fee's but did bump it for the current company year. My end of year is in a few months and looking to change accountants.

Are people generally sticking with contractor specialist accountants or looking at local accountants?

Changing accountants is a hassle I could do without at the moment but needs to be done this year.

Check the accountant recommendation thread. On the whole looking at feedback on here a vast majority are going with contractor specialists that have FA. Some of them are ex SJD as well. I believe Gorilla has ex SJD people and Sarah Solo at Paper Rocket is ex SJD as well so they've got knowledge of both sides. That said I'm sure people like Maslins have seen their fair share of ex SJD'ers with a spreadsheet in their grubby mit so won't be new to him either.

[SuperZ]

My SJD accountant filed my VAT return with no problems a few weeks ago. Waiting to get the year end accounts signed off and filed shortly then I'll be off somewhere else.

I always had reservations about the SJD portal so never moved to it and kept the spreadsheet.

There's an oft quoted statistic that people are more likely to get divorced than change banks but maybe 'banks' should be replaced with 'contractor accountants'?

I did the same thing too, I kept to the spreadsheet which worked well for me but now being forced to the new system I just can't be bothered to learn for the moment. I'm still with SJD as they've just kept my ltd ticking over while I work inside IR35 with a local client. They reduced their fee's but did bump it for the current company year. My end of year is in a few months and looking to change accountants.

Are people generally sticking with contractor specialist accountants or looking at local accountants?

Changing accountants is a hassle I could do without at the moment but needs to be done this year.

[Abbot]

If your year end is imminent and you genuinely believe your accountant can’t do much for you then contact companies house and have your accounting reference date changed. You can reduce it by as a little as 1 day if you want to keep it simple. This will extend your filing deadline by either 3 or 9 months (companies house can confirm) which gives up ample time to give notice to your accountants, engage a new accountant and for that new accountant to receive professional clearance.

[edison]

My SJD accountant filed my VAT return with no problems a few weeks ago. Waiting to get the year end accounts signed off and filed shortly then I'll be off somewhere else.

I always had reservations about the SJD portal so never moved to it and kept the spreadsheet.

There's an oft quoted statistic that people are more likely to get divorced than change banks but maybe 'banks' should be replaced with 'contractor accountants'?

[Fred Bloggs]

yikes...

So it's a zombie company till 1st October when it becomes insolvent.
I wonder how many people will be on here 2nd October crying about who's going to do their company returns...

In an ideal world, there'd be no clients left by then. But the astonishing lack of motivation to do anything displayed here lately suggests there's going to be quite a lot of them.

[Fred Bloggs]

I suspect they might - given the large final payments due to them in September 2022.

Give a toss for themselves? Absolutely.

Give a toss about contractors left to the mercy of private equity investors? Not a chance.

[Lance]

I suspect they might - given the large final payments due to them in September 2022.

yikes...

So it's a zombie company till 1st October when it becomes insolvent.
I wonder how many people will be on here 2nd October crying about who's going to do their company returns...

[eek]

They'll be sitting on the deck of the yacht in the marina at Monaco sipping the champagne wearing a smug grin. I can't imagine for a single nano second any of them give a toss.

I suspect they might - given the large final payments due to them in September 2022.