What would happen if a contractor accountant when into receivership?

[Sterling]

Sorry about the typo in the title.

What would happen if a contractor accountant went into receivership? Clearly, the contractor delegates his/her administration to the accountant and may not have first-hand access to all records, VAT returns et cetera. How would the contractor recover his/her situation?

[Lance]

What would happen if a contractor accountant when into receivership?

Contact the administrators and request all your data.

Although you should know it all anyway. An accountant doesn’t mean you can abandon your responsibilities.

[Sterling]

Contact the administrators and request all your data.

Although you should know it all anyway. An accountant doesn’t mean you can abandon your responsibilities.

Thank you. I would have all of the base data such as invoices, expenses, receipts etc. although I would not have VAT declarations, balance sheet and profit and loss. I suppose that everything could be rebuilt by a new accountant.

[malvolio]

Possibly but it's your company and your money. Why don't you have your P&L and balance sheet in some form or other? What are you signing off at year end?

[Sterling]

Possibly but it's your company and your money. Why don't you have your P&L and balance sheet in some form or other? What are you signing off at year end?

Of course, I could reconstruct the balance sheet and P&L and backtrack on the tax declarations. I have no loss of bass data. My accountant uses a bespoke portal, so without screen shots there is no way of preserving the accounts. At the moment the accountant's website is dead, the portal is dead and all recent emails have bounced. My hope is that this will all come right on Monday.

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

Well, ideally you should have copies of all the submissions anyway, but the ship may have sailed on that for you, it seems.

If it is a pukka insolvency then you should be able to get access to everything in due course. The prime records and tax records belong to you, and the acting manger of the business, the Insolvency Practitioner should release them.

If your accountant has simply done a runner it’s more of a problem.

However there’s not much, if anything, that can’t be reconstructed. That may need an “old school” accountant not a contractors sausage machine.

Hopefully though, your accountants portal will spring back into life Monday - fingers crossed. It illustrates why open platform, eg FreeAgent, is sensible.

Hope things sort themselves out,

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

Of course, I could reconstruct the balance sheet and P&L and backtrack on the tax declarations. I have no loss of bass data. My accountant uses a bespoke portal, so without screen shots there is no way of preserving the accounts. At the moment the accountant's website is dead, the portal is dead and all recent emails have bounced. My hope is that this will all come right on Monday.

Perhaps hope to god someone forgot to renew the domain name, or the hosting contract?

[JB3000]

Of course, I could reconstruct the balance sheet and P&L and backtrack on the tax declarations. I have no loss of bass data. My accountant uses a bespoke portal, so without screen shots there is no way of preserving the accounts. At the moment the accountant's website is dead, the portal is dead and all recent emails have bounced. My hope is that this will all come right on Monday.

I hate to ask this but who are your accountants? Have you called or visited them?

Also, use Free Agent. This way you can't be held hostage.

As discussed, accounts can be reconstructed based on your paperwork. So you have only lost a bit of time and money.

[l35kee]

Yes. FreeAgent.

[Maslins]

Any supplier or customer going bust is going to impact your business to some extent. Whilst I wouldn't recommend living your life a paranoid wreck, it's worth protecting yourself wherever you can.

As others have suggested, when it comes to accounting this means:
- ensure you have a reasonable grasp of what's going on, what needs filing when, what has/hasn't been done.
- ensure you have your own access to an HMRC portal account with your biz/personal affairs in.
- ensure your bookkeeping data can easily be accessed by you even if the accountant goes pop.
- ensure you know all your tax/accounting references (authentication code being a critical one, especially if you use your accountant's address as registered office).