Crunch accountant or personal one ?

[iamintoit]

Hi Clare

On the other hand I think a bigger firm can benefit in that it has junior staff who are more than capable of carrying out the bookkeeping tasks, leaving the qualified and experienced people more time to answer complicated emails, talk you through your questions and generally be there when you need them (rather than being too busy to talk to you as they are up to their knees in receipts or trying to complete 200 flat rate VAT returns a month).

You don't have to sacrifice personal service in a larger company, it just takes more effort to maintain it

In theory, what you are saying sounds good to me. However, when you talk about reality; big accountancies are more focused on their clients with high turnovers. There's where actually small-medium sized contractors like me suffer. Big cos goal then shifts from customer service to increasing their own profits (which in business world, is completely OK) but not good for contractors like us as we don't receive proper attention.

It's just my view on things based on my experience.

I can only talk about myself

[Nixon Williams]

In theory, what you are saying sounds good to me. However, when you talk about reality; big accountancies are more focused on their clients with high turnovers. There's where actually small-medium sized contractors like me suffer. Big cos goal then shifts from customer service to increasing their own profits (which in business world, is completely OK) but not good for contractors like us as we don't receive proper attention.

It's just my view on things based on my experience.

I can only talk about myself

Local accountants, who do not specialise in the contractor market, will have a wide variety of clients, and I can see that a client paying a huge fee will receive more attention that one of their contractor clients.

In my experience non-specialised, local accountants, do not understand the contractor market, especially the accountants who are not qualified.

All our clients basically pay the same fee, so no-one receives better treatment based on what they pay, we believe that all of our clients receive the same, equally high level of service and attention.

Alan

[iamintoit]

@Alan

Local accountants, who do not specialise in the contractor market, will have a wide variety of clients, and I can see that a client paying a huge fee will receive more attention that one of their contractor clients.

In my experience non-specialised, local accountants, do not understand the contractor market, especially the accountants who are not qualified.

All our clients basically pay the same fee, so no-one receives better treatment based on what they pay, we believe that all of our clients receive the same, equally high level of service and attention.

Alan

Alan,

So you mean to say; irrespective of the turnover, price is same for all.

Which means whether my turnover is £25k per annum or £225k per annum, my fee and service level will be the same? And both will be tagged "KEY ACCOUNTS" or considered?

[northernladuk]

In theory, what you are saying sounds good to me. However, when you talk about reality; big accountancies are more focused on their clients with high turnovers. There's where actually small-medium sized contractors like me suffer. Big cos goal then shifts from customer service to increasing their own profits (which in business world, is completely OK) but not good for contractors like us as we don't receive proper attention.

It's just my view on things based on my experience.

I can only talk about myself

Which is why you should go for an accountant specialising in contractors.

[escapeUK]

How many of you who are with SJD or Nixon actually find they are proactive in saving you money tax wise? Do they do the work or do you have to do their job for them and pay them extra too?

Ive been with Crunch 3 years now, and it has evolved nicely into a very powerful accounting portal. It invoices effortlessly, all you do is right click on the previous invoice and select that you wish to repeat this invoice, it then allows you to make any changes. It then automatically e-mails the invoice to your client. A recent update allows it to automatically chase money (via e-mail again) from your clients, though I have not tried this feature yet.

Expenses are handled a similar way, and a recent update allowed repeating expenses to be entered into the system automatically. Your mobile bill, accountants fees etc.

One small point though, if something goes wrong with the system they are more likely to spend hours trying to explain to you how you can correct it, rather than just going in and making the change themselves. This has annoyed me a couple of times, because I know accounting systems. You wouldnt unreconcile masses of stuffs to make a system balance for a 10p difference, you'd just enter a correcting journal. They dont want to do that.

So if you want an accountant that knows what they are doing, with a intelligent web based system that looks after you then I can heartily recommend them. If you want someone you can see face to face, and dump a big load of receipts and invoices on their desk they are not for you. But do the traditional accountants do this now days, or do you pay them, and still have to do all the work in a spreadsheet?

Crunch costs £59.50 + vat a month.

[iamintoit]

northernladuk

Which is why you should go for an accountant specialising in contractors.

Yes, you're absolutely right northernladuk.

That's actually the right solution!

[Clare@InTouch]

How many of you who are with SJD or Nixon actually find they are proactive in saving you money tax wise? Do they do the work or do you have to do their job for them and pay them extra too?

Ive been with Crunch 3 years now, and it has evolved nicely into a very powerful accounting portal. It invoices effortlessly, all you do is right click on the previous invoice and select that you wish to repeat this invoice, it then allows you to make any changes. It then automatically e-mails the invoice to your client. A recent update allows it to automatically chase money (via e-mail again) from your clients, though I have not tried this feature yet.

Expenses are handled a similar way, and a recent update allowed repeating expenses to be entered into the system automatically. Your mobile bill, accountants fees etc.

One small point though, if something goes wrong with the system they are more likely to spend hours trying to explain to you how you can correct it, rather than just going in and making the change themselves. This has annoyed me a couple of times, because I know accounting systems. You wouldnt unreconcile masses of stuffs to make a system balance for a 10p difference, you'd just enter a correcting journal. They dont want to do that.

So if you want an accountant that knows what they are doing, with a intelligent web based system that looks after you then I can heartily recommend them. If you want someone you can see face to face, and dump a big load of receipts and invoices on their desk they are not for you. But do the traditional accountants do this now days, or do you pay them, and still have to do all the work in a spreadsheet?

Crunch costs £59.50 + vat a month.

It depends on how savvy you are yourself and how much research you want to do - I've lost count of the amount of clients who didn't know they could claim certain things before we told them about it, so the tax they saved could more than make up for the extra amount they pay in fees in many cases.

[iamintoit]

Interesting

How many of you who are with SJD or Nixon actually find they are proactive in saving you money tax wise? Do they do the work or do you have to do their job for them and pay them extra too?

Ive been with Crunch 3 years now, and it has evolved nicely into a very powerful accounting portal. It invoices effortlessly, all you do is right click on the previous invoice and select that you wish to repeat this invoice, it then allows you to make any changes. It then automatically e-mails the invoice to your client. A recent update allows it to automatically chase money (via e-mail again) from your clients, though I have not tried this feature yet.

Expenses are handled a similar way, and a recent update allowed repeating expenses to be entered into the system automatically. Your mobile bill, accountants fees etc.

One small point though, if something goes wrong with the system they are more likely to spend hours trying to explain to you how you can correct it, rather than just going in and making the change themselves. This has annoyed me a couple of times, because I know accounting systems. You wouldnt unreconcile masses of stuffs to make a system balance for a 10p difference, you'd just enter a correcting journal. They dont want to do that.

So if you want an accountant that knows what they are doing, with a intelligent web based system that looks after you then I can heartily recommend them. If you want someone you can see face to face, and dump a big load of receipts and invoices on their desk they are not for you. But do the traditional accountants do this now days, or do you pay them, and still have to do all the work in a spreadsheet?

Crunch costs £59.50 + vat a month.

---

As far as the rate that Crunch charge is concerned, it seems pretty standard. A penny here or there maybe, not a huge difference.

Compromising on the software part is not acceptable and wasting time on it, is out of question. Today, in this competitive contracting market, who's got the time to understand the technicalities.

As a contractor, I would want simple and most importantly time+tax saving and hassle free accountant. You may not get all from your accountant, but your try should be in choosing an accountant that takes care of most of them!

[iamintoit]

My view

It depends on how savvy you are yourself and how much research you want to do - I've lost count of the amount of clients who didn't know they could claim certain things before we told them about it, so the tax they saved could more than make up for the extra amount they pay in fees in many cases.

If I were to appoint an accountant, I would not bother being savvy. I would rather want peace of mind. My accountant should be the one who should be taking care of all of that.

Why would I spend my hard earned £££s if I had to do it all by myself.

[escapeUK]

It depends on how savvy you are yourself and how much research you want to do - I've lost count of the amount of clients who didn't know they could claim certain things before we told them about it, so the tax they saved could more than make up for the extra amount they pay in fees in many cases.

Well, as a for instance I just logged into Crunch and clicked on Help, and right at the top there is a topic that says

"What expenses can I claim? What are the expense categories?"

One essential way to achieve maximum tax efficiency is to claim all of the expenses to which you are entitled. Each expense you claim reduces your tax bill by 20% of the value of the expense! If you spend £100 on travel to a business meeting, your tax bill will be reduced by £20. However, be careful to only claim legitimate items: according to HMRC, expenses must be “wholly and exclusively” for business use.

This is intended to be a comprehensive list of business expenses that can be claimed. However, expenses are a fantastically complicated area of accountancy, and HMRC rulings are numerous. Therefore, this list is not, and can never be exhaustive.

A list of about 70 categories is below this, with extra clarification about what exactly qualifies.

So I dont really agree you have to be super savy to do it this way.