Lack of Confidence in my Accountant

loveandlight

I have just had a financial due diligence done on a very small business we are buying. However, I don't think my accountant has done a very good job. He has told me that it checks out fine but he has hardly done much checking of the sellers papers and books and his report to me was very short with very little detail. My instincts are telling me he has not done a good job at all even though I am not an accountant. I don't really know what else to do, so now I'm thinking about getting a second opinion from elsewhere. Does anyone know of a friendly accountant in the West Midlands/South Birmingham area, who is good at what they do and whose charges are very reasonable? I would be ever so grateful. Thanks.

Pennywise

loveandlight wrote: »

I have just had a financial due diligence done on a very small business we are buying. However, I don't think my accountant has done a very good job. He has told me that it checks out fine but he has hardly done much checking of the sellers papers and books and his report to me was very short with very little detail. My instincts are telling me he has not done a good job at all even though I am not an accountant. I don't really know what else to do, so now I'm thinking about getting a second opinion from elsewhere. Does anyone know of a friendly accountant in the West Midlands/South Birmingham area, who is good at what they do and whose charges are very reasonable? I would be ever so grateful. Thanks.

How much did they charge? What did you ask them to check? It sounds like you didn't actually agree the scope of their work beforehand. Normally, a simple (and cheap) review would be little more than taking the figures at their word, looking for any obvious pitfalls, perhaps considering whether the asking price was reasonable in view of the profits, etc. A proper due diligence, which would check the figures were right and actually go looking for problem areas would take many hours (if not days), and would cost several hundred, if not over a thousand pounds. There is a great deal of difference, which, really your accountant should have explained. If they have only charged a couple of hundred pounds or so, it sounds like you got what you paid for - if they charged a lot more than that, then it sounds like they're taking the mickey. Rather than go elsewhere and end up paying for at least some of the same work to be done again, why not ask your accountant explicitly what they've done and if that's not enough, ask them to do more and tell them your expectations.

loveandlight

Thanks for your response Pennywise. However, my question was and is only limited to finding another accountant so I can get a second opinion. If my accountant has fallen down on the job once, then it makes no sense to me to tell him to go back and do more work on it when he should have done the job properly in the first place. What he has done is show that he can't be trusted to do this kind of work. I will be getting a second opinion just as soon as I find someone else.