Cheaperaccountant

Acc72

AbbieCadabra wrote: »

how can they say that they'll NEVER charge you VAT? if they go over the threshold they will!

can't find their company no.

or registered office on their website,

what's their address/phone no? also their email addy is a hotmail account!

It sounds like somebody who has done one of those book-keeping courses you see advertised in the press and have decided to offer thier services part time as a sole trader.

To the OP - how much "cheaper" are talking ?

Surely it would be better to find somebody local (ideally recommended to you) with whom you have a good rapport with rather than trying to save £100 ?

AbbieCadabra

On a more serious note, i must say that i was very hesitant to use a remote accountant as we'd used a local one for over 10 years. so glad we made the change though as the levels of service offered between the two have been night & day! our old accountant was very hard to get hold of & could take days to reply to an email, only then to give a very complex answer to a simple question.

with hindsight, we stayed with what we knew as we trusted them & thought they were doing a good job. the errors that have been picked up since we changed have reversed this opinion though! it would appear we were paying a premium price for very poor service (that was all in the background & not obvious to us at all). i'm not saying they filed/reported anything incorrectly but the way they work is very antiquated & overly complex when it just wasn't necessary.

our new remote accountant is always available for any queries & responds in a straightforward customer friendly manner. our latest yearly accounts were prepared in a matter of days instead of the 3 months the old accountants took (exactly the same type of accounts & not a full audit). the only queries that were raised related to all the brought forward items from the old accountants which i was completely unaware of & no idea why these entries were there as nothing had been queried with us! :eek:

sorry i've waffled , but my point would be - we're now getting a better service for around half what we used to pay!

Pennywise

AbbieCadabra wrote: »

sorry i've waffled , but my point would be - we're now getting a better service for around half what we used to pay!

Absolutely agree that everyone should shop around and not put up with shoddy service. That's the same for all service providers, not just accountants.

My only point would be that there are good and bad remote accountants in the same way that there are good and bad local accountants. And, of course, many accountants do both - they're local to those living near them and also remote to those living at the opposite end of the country. Some people have moved to a local accountant when they've had bad service from an online firm, and vice versa.

At the end of the day, you have to make your own decision when choosing an accountant (or any other service provider) in the first place, and if things don't run smoothly then you have to change to someone else.

For something as important as dealing with your finances and tax, then you should also be checking them out before you engage them, i.e. check their affiliation with a recognised professional body, check they have professional indemnity insurance, etc. so that if things do go seriously wrong, you will have some kind of recourse.

Rachel_B11

They are cheap prices.

When they say they are chartered I'd point out that there are more than one chartered institute they could be a member of - and there are rules as to the proportion that have to belong to each one to call themselves a whatever institute name. Confusing I know - but they could all be qualified with a few different bodies and therefore not able to call themselves a member of a particular Institute as a firm (I know I am an accountant myself).

Nothing to show that they look particularly dodgy - the usual financial precautions when handing over money apply as with anything - and maybe for safety you'd not like to pay monthly in advance unless you knew more about them - why not email them and ask?

Pennywise

Rachel_B11 wrote: »

When they say they are chartered I'd point out that there are more than one chartered institute they could be a member of - and there are rules as to the proportion that have to belong to each one to call themselves a whatever institute name. Confusing I know - but they could all be qualified with a few different bodies and therefore not able to call themselves a member of a particular Institute as a firm (I know I am an accountant myself).

Given that the website only started last month and that their turnover is planned to be under the £77k VAT threshold, I can't imagine there are several staff of different professional bodies. Far more like a one person start up making out they're bigger than they really are. Turnover upto £77k less expenses is just about enough to pay for a single qualified accountant, not several of different bodies!

PlutoinCapricorn

Some chivalrous people have come forward in defence of “cheaperaccountant”. It is true that the original post just asked if anyone knew anything about them, but as ‘Bob’ said this was because he was looking for someone to do his annual accounts for year one. Finding an accountant was his primary objective. “Year one” suggests that he may not have much knowledge of what to look for, so many posters gave him the benefit of their experience and their opinion of the website.

There is nothing wrong with doing some detective work and evaluating a website – this happens all the time on MSE – nor with warning people to be careful about giving their personal and financial information to unknown quantities. Pennywise is extremely knowledgeable about accounting matters, people are free to say that a website gives a bad impression: someone who is on the level should be grateful for feedback and information about what potential clients are looking for.

People who have been on MSE for many years have seen it all before: first time posters come on to defend a website, but they have no real answers to the criticism and comments.

Unsubstantiated claims are very off-putting. Some self employed people do not advertise because they have enough clients and get them via word of mouth. We do not know how much they charge, so how can anyone guarantee that their own fees are the lowest? This is not always a good advertisement even if true: it suggests that corners may be cut. There is no evidence that they have had even one client.

WHA

Except you've completely misinterpreted the accounts. If you looked into the firm properly, you'd realise it was a franchise operation operated by many independent accountants, so their turnover, profit, tax and dividends aren't included in those accounts you refer to, which are only the accounts of the founder/MD, who is the sole shareholder/sole director of that company. So the remuneration, dividends, etc., are just for one person and presumably the turnover will be the franchise fees paid by all the independent accountants working under the franchise name. There aren't three people sharing the directors remuneration and the dividends!

A single accountant can easily generate £77k of fees, often far more, and despite someone above thinking that the only costs are pens, paper and laptop, the average overheads of a small practice will be £10k to £20k per year. Software alone costs me £3k per year, insurance another £1k, training, books & subscription, £2k, office rental, power, rates, insurance, cleaning, etc another £8k, and that's for a sole trader with a small office. Scale it up to 2 or 3 workers or more, and you can easily increase those costs.

You are not going to get 2 or 3 qualified accountants working in a practice with a turnover of under £77k. After costs, they'd be earning less than national average!

Pennywise

A few breaches of laws/regulations on their website too.

Disclosure requirements as per Companies House website (which also apply to sole traders!):-

http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/about/pdf/gbf3.pdf

2. What information must be disclosed about a business?
You will need to disclose:
•
the corporate name (if the company uses a different trading name); or
•
the name of each partner; or
•
the individual person's name; and
•
in relation to each person named, an address at which documents can
be served.
3. Where must this information be shown?
You will need to show the information clearly:
•
in any place where you carry on your business and where you deal with customers or suppliers;
•
on business correspondence ;
•
on websites;
•
on written orders for the supply of goods or services;
•
on invoices and receipts;
•
on written demands for the payment of business debts.

Not good when someone hides their real identity on their website, in contravention of the law! Doesn't give a good impression and not the sign of a reputable business.

Pennywise

Oh, the irony!

And as a member of the accounting profession, I find some of the comments made on their website offensive and derogatory.

For example

"the accountancy profession is often dominated by a small number of larger firms that charge extremely high prices for their services."

Completely false, there are tens of thousands of accountancy practices across the UK. Every town will have a few dozen. They are all varying sizes. It is true that the auditing of PLCs etc is dominated by 4 international practices etc., but that's clearly not the market hoped for by this website, so their statement is patently false. Accountancy is one of the few unprotected professions - anyone can call themselves and accountant. Firms vary from tiny part timers working from a spare room right through to multinationals.

"The experience and qualifications held by these accountants is no different to those held by the accountants working at Cheaper Accountant."

So they employ tax specialists such as those who are members of the Chartered Institute of Taxation do they? They employ audit specialists capable of dealing with international auditing standards?

"By offering the first ever Price Promise within the accountancy profession "

No they're not. I've seen price promises before.


"We are a firm of qualified and affordable accountants who offer the lowest accountancy rates on the internet."

I hope they've got proof of that as Trading Standards take a dim view of firms who can't back up their claims with evidence and research.

"Other cheap accountants strive to benefit from commission payments from accounting software providers"

Most give the client a choice, many provide software free of charge, very few dictate what software must be used and even fewer make a profit out of it.

In summary, I think the writers of the website are slagging off other accountants which is derogatory and I am sure will be against the rules of their professional body (if they have one) and most include rules not to bring the professional into disrepute.

heretolearn_2

lol to all these newly registered Knights in Armour leaping to the defence of a company they have absolutely no connection to.

Any accounting firm that states 'we will never charge you VAT' and therefore either does not understand how VAT works, or is intending to remain a quite unsuccessful business themselves with a low turnover, is not one anyone should be using. Their fee table still states 'We will never charge you VAT on top of our fees.'

I suspect that this is a firm set up to outsource the actual work to another country. There's nothing wrong with that if properly run, and it would explain the extreme vagueness about the qualifications/registrations of their 'accountants' as they don't know exactly who will be allocated to each job by the outsource centre, but personally I think it's only appropriate to pretty basic stuff. Not if a firm wants tax advice etc.