Accountant Fees

D

daff72

Guest
I am looking for advice on the following situation. Got a price off an accountant to prepare and return two years tax forms. It was explained to him what was involved before he took the job on. Due to delays out of his control it was a while before it all got resolved. We did end up getting a decent sum out of revenue which was good. However the accountant has now come back to us and has practially gone from quoting us 450 to asking for 800 plus vat. The plus vat bit is annoying firstly as he had quoted 450 and i would expect an accountant to include vat costs in quotes. Also he is adding on extra costs for what he said was all the extra work involved. I appreciate that there was more work involved than perhaps he had anticipated but dont like the way he has come back to us and doubled his price. What are my rights on this, should I just pay him what he is looking for an leave it at that or should I stand my ground and stick by his original quote. Can't help but wonder if there had been less work involved would there have been a reduction on his part - i think not.
 
And if you had not received the Tax refund would you have expected him to do it FOC. You get what you pay for in this life.
 
Rip off Ireland has taken a hike.

Accountants must pay secretaries, office space, computers, stationary and Insurance (Professional and Buildings). If a person is seeking good professional opinion they must accept that it has to be paid for. And I'm not an Accountant.
 
The price seems reasonable given the work involved. I got charged €300 + VAT by an accountant who sent a boilerplate letter to an Ulster Bank contact of his, asking them to set up a company bank account for my company. On the phone the accountant had said to me that a "chat" would be free and never informed me that a bill would follow. Expensive lesson for me.
 
Ask for the bill to be quantified - hours worked at applicable charge out rate. did you sign a letter of engagement before the work was done. This is a letter from the accountant to you setting out each of your rights and responsibilites as well as detailing the charges structure of the accountants firm. The bill however does not seem too unreasonable. If there were delays not caused by the accountant then he should not suffer. Also all quotes - business to business - are generally done before VAT - €400 means €400 plus VAT.
 
mercman said:
Rip off Ireland has taken a hike.

Accountants must pay secretaries, office space, computers, stationary and Insurance
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As regards secretaries, if 5 minutes work needs to be typed it can be done by the accountant himself / herself. The rest of us need office space , a computer ( big deal, dell sent me an offer of them for 300 euro each recently ), stationary ( big deal , the rest of us do too )....it does not justify some accountants charging eg 800 euro per hour. Foreign accountants are amazed at what some accountants charged here, at least during the celtic tiger.
 
IMO delays always causes more work as the job has to be picked up and put down - this all entails some element of re learning what has been done and what needs to be done - phone calls reminding people - checking for deadlines - etc
 
rabbit said:
As regards secretaries, if 5 minutes work needs to be typed it can be done by the accountant himself / herself. The rest of us need office space , a computer ( big deal, dell sent me an offer of them for 300 euro each recently ), stationary ( big deal , the rest of us do too )....it does not justify some accountants charging eg 800 euro per hour. Foreign accountants are amazed at what some accountants charged here, at least during the celtic tiger.
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You're not being fair here.

The OP was quoted a price which would have been a guideline. By their own account they're not familiar with the charging structure of professional firms (given the ambiguity of the VAT issue). €800 for two tax basic tax returns sounds reasonable. We don't even know the level of complexity involved. Did the accountant have to chase banks and stockbrokers for the relevant information? Were the income and expenditure accounts or Case V rental income computations to do?

And citing €800 an hour fees isn't particularly relevant. Only a tiny amount of individuals would charge that, and it would be for extremely specialised high level work where such a charge would be appropriate.
 
Also he is adding on extra costs for what he said was all the extra work involved. I appreciate that there was more work involved than perhaps he had anticipated but dont like the way he has come back to us and doubled his price.
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My understanding is that the accountant underestimated the work involved in the initial quote. This is the accountant's problem, not the OP's problem (at least it shouldn't be).

The OP should only pay what was quoted for the work. It was a quote, not an estimate.
 
leghorn said:
My understanding is that the accountant underestimated the work involved in the initial quote. This is the accountant's problem, not the OP's problem (at least it shouldn't be).

The OP should only pay what was quoted for the work. It was a quote, not an estimate.
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That's the salient point. I very much doubt it was a quote. It was most likely a guideline which was caveated in the appropriate fashion, i.e. if additional work was required it would be billed at X, Y or Z per hour. The OP stated that there were delays which weren't caused by the accountant. By all means the OP can and should ask for a breakdown of the fee, but based on the (admittedly limited) amount of information posted it sounds like the fee was based on "good time".
 
We need more information from the OP - was it a quote or an estimate?
 
I think its great value for two years accounts, I pay that amount for one year but i must also add that my accountant is charging me that for the last four years approx. I am delighted with this charge but i pay him on the nail for his services, which is probably why my accounts are still the same price. It usually pays to pay promptly for professional services, as my solicitor never rubs it in either.
 
€450 for a tax return is very low. We used to get people asking for quotes for tax work (it's only this, or only that and when you would get the file there were loads of extra work)

Did the Accountant give a written quote or was it verbal.

It is also silly to say that if an Accountant has a Secretary then the Accountant should do the typing, not the Secretary. In most practices, an Accountant would be on a higher charge out hourly rate than a Secretary.
 
€450 sounds very very cheap. sounds like you got value for money at €800 + Vat. simplyjoe made a good point that the job has to be returned to a number of times and the relearning all has to be taken into account.
 
"It's unwise to pay too much, but it's also unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much you lose a little money, that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.​

The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it's well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough money to pay for something better." - John Ruskin​
 
daff72 said:
should I stand my ground and stick by his original quote.
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Stand your ground + pay him his original quote. A lot of accountants seem to charge more than they quote. Foreign accountants are amazed at what some accountants here charge and get away with....all part of rip off Ireland is the kindest explanation.
 
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