Time taken to transfer accountants

[Acme Thunderer]

I have changed accountants to one of the Contractor specialists.

What are people's experience of how long it normally takes to have all the details transferred across? My last business year return was done by my previous accountants so I expected everything to come across smoothly but it's been 2 months and everything isn't yet up to date.

I have sent a couple of chaser emails and got "working on it" type responses. Wanted to make sure I wasn't being unreasonable before making an issue of it with my new accountant.

[SueEllen]

Did you ask the new accountant how long it would take to do the transfer?

[Acme Thunderer]

Did you ask the new accountant how long it would take to do the transfer?

Embarrassed to say I can't remember a timescale being mentioned in my initial telephone call and no timescales mentioned in emails. Hence the question.

[Maslins]

From your OP, sounds like the delay is due to the new accountant which surprises me a bit.

Not that rare than when a client leaves a firm, the "old" accountant understandably doesn't consider it their top priority to deal with everything relating to it ASAP. That said any professional firm should deal with it, hopefully within a couple of weeks.

Normally the new accountant will be keen to impress. Plus the handover is often a slightly complicated thing, piecing together what they can from dribs and drabs of information from a variety of sources. Therefore it's usually someone fairly senior who does this.

A couple of months does sound very long if that's just for the new accountant to deal with information they've already been given. Perhaps worth double checking though in case it's more like 7-8 weeks for them to finally get the bits they need from the old accountant, hence they've only had it a week and perhaps the person they have lined up for it is on holiday/similar.

[Darren at Fox-Bartfield]

Portals

Another good argument for using one of the popular portals.

[VillageContractor]

Mine took about 1 month, but I was chasing everyone and everything. Could have been quicker but issues on both sides.

I'd be p*ssed if it took 2 months.