I have been with the same accountant for 20 years; since he was a one man show. Great bloke, barracks for Collingwood and saves me lots of money (doesn’t make me any though).
They are not the most pro-active crowd; they don’t offer unsolicited advice or direction; you have to constantly ask.
His business is now very successful with over 20 staff. Now I get the associates looking after my account. Seems I’m not important enough any more, and I get pushed to the back of the queue behind the bigger players.
In the last few years I have had my figures and paperwork in by 1st week of Aug, but didn’t receive returns until xmas time or later.
How have you found your accountant’s service?
Do you get your figures in quickly and get looked after accordingly, or do they blow you off and service the big accounts first?
Cheers,
Marc.
[email protected]“we get sent lemons; it’s up to us to make lemonade”
We’ve just switched accountants. In both cases we’ve had tax return going directly into bank account in 2-3 weeks.
Hi there Marc
I don’t like having things drag on either and have moved accountants when we don’t get the expected service.
I particularly do not like lump sum bills and always get the accountant to itemise what they do for the money they are claiming.
Is it worth talking to your Accountant and expressing your dissatisfaction? If you don’t get a satisfactory response, perhaps it is time to move on.Hi Marc,
Just curious is your Accountant in Aus or LA?
Having worked in the tax accounting world for some 15 years (and I don’t miss it for a moment!) I know how much pressure staff are under to meet the lodgement deadlines. We would always try to aim for a 10 – 12 week turnaround for our small business clients.
The tax office require the higher payers on level 4, 5 & 6 to be lodged usually before Xmas so Accountants are under pressure to meet these targets. The lower levels 3, 2 ,1 and refunds aren’t due in until April/May.I would certainly speak with your Accountant of your concerns but perhaps ask when they would prefer you to submit your work, as 5 months is really not acceptable in my view.
AmandaBS
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I sacked my accountant because it always took him about 6 months to do my returns and he didn’t know his stuff. I now just do it myself.
Terryw
Discover Home Loans
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Hi Amanda and Raddles,
yes, I spoke to him last year after I hadn’t heard from him after 3 months from sending back the figures and that’s when I found out I was ‘down the list’.
He is an Aus based accountant (we have only been in L.A for 18 mths). I went with him again this year for the sake of convenience, but as soon as I get back mid next year I’ll go accountant shopping.Thanks for the input people.
Cheers,
Marc.
[email protected]“we get sent lemons; it’s up to us to make lemonade”
i used to do my tax online using etax and got my retun in a week…but last year i didnt do the depreciation bit so i think i’ll goto an accountant this year…
and the worst thing is my sister’s an accountant but she doesnt do tax…not very helpful is she…[biggrin]
I’m changing my accountant this year too Mark. For the last 8 years we have worked for ourselves (and while we are builders we aren’t the ones living in the flash houses). Up until two years ago we would get a nice refund in the mail, then two years ago we took on Insurance assessing work which added to our cash flow allowing us to pay off one car and pay a lump sum off our house.
As I use MYOB I have very detailed files and I backup a copy of my files and take into them so all the information is at their fingertips but I was always getting calls to ask us ‘what are our jobs in progess worth, what is outstanding at the moment etc.
For the two years we did the insurance work I was asked to have a ‘pre-tax’ assessment in the April; the first year they didn’t believe my MYOB figures and ‘held-over’ the profit until the following year. They would then ask us ‘how the business was going’ to which I replied “That’s what I was hoping you would tell me!” Anyway the following year (last year) we made just as much as the first year and bingo! Now we have two years of extra PAYG tax to pay in one year worth $19K. At the end of our ‘pre-tax assessment in April last year our accountant effectively gave us four week to pre-pay as much materials as we could to save on our tax, problem was all our cash was tied up in jobs and we couldn’t do too much at all.[grrr]
Sorry I hijacked your thread a bit but I am so cross about this, especially as it seemed that the only two years that we gave them an opportunity to help us structure/prepare and plan financially I think we were put in the ‘too small basket’ and paid the price. And yes I get the assistants now too. No mention of company, structures etc. Just recently he suggested we put our small super’s into a SMSF (20K) to manage ourselves. I didn’t think that that amount was worth doing a smsf…anyway[offtopic]
Richard Taylor has recommended his accountant so I am going to give him a shot this year I think. I don’t ask too much just a good team to help us get the job done!
All the best Mark I hope you find a good one!Julie Fisher
Daryl Fisher HomesSorry to hear that story Julie – did you fire-bomb the office building? (just kidding).
Actually, I saw a link somewhere (maybe another forum?) to an accountant in Melb called NANCY KEEP. Sounds good.
http://www.nancykeep.com.au/swf/default.asp
Has anyone in Melb dealt with her?
Cheers,
Marc.
[email protected]“we get sent lemons; it’s up to us to make lemonade”
Yes Mark, you don’t want to know what my husband said at the time and still says when the topic is brought up! Not a happy camper!
I think Sanjivgupta recommended Nancy Keep in a thread re HDT’s (also one of mine). She sounds really good. In this case though I called Qlds007’s accountant and he spent an hour on the phone with me (which is nice) regarding HTD’s and our situation so I felt obliged to give him a go this year.
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