Advice on Accountant

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Mrs Vanecamp

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I am a director of a single member company. I have no involvement in the business nor do i receive a salary.

I rang the company accountant (who I have never met) to arrange the signing of the AR and accounts.

He told me that he has already submitted these to the CRO with printed signatures. When I told him that the CRO don't accept printed signatures he became aggessive.

I now suspect that he forged my signature on these documents.

Is this standard practice for accountants? Should I take this further or am I making a big deal out of nothing?
 
Mrs Vanecamp said:
.

Is this standard practice for accountants? Should I take this further or am I making a big deal out of nothing?
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No its not.

Go to www.cro.ie, click on company search and order a copy of the submission for €2.50.

If you suspect he has done anything illegal or unethical (which sounds likely) consider a complaint to his professional body.

Find a new accountant if you have no confidence in this guy (which also sounds likely) .
 
"I have no involvement in the business ................"

Apart from the question raised, this bit interests me. Given that there are significant responsibilities associated with being a Director should'nt people be more careful of being directors at all, unless they have a significant involvement in the business?

mf
 
mf1 said:
"I have no involvement in the business ................"
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I didn't see that bit :eek: The OP's beef might be more with their fellow director(s) who presumably have signed the accounts and annual return, than with the accountant who prepared them.
 
Well it's a one man operation, a professional service really, for which I'm not qualified. I was just doing a relation a favour, I don't think the accountant counted on me knowing any of my responsibilities as a director.
 
Mrs Vanecamp said:
I don't think the accountant counted on me knowing any of my responsibilities as a director.
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In fairness, unless the accountant is also acting as auditor of the company (highly unlikely given that 80%+ of companies can now be audit-exempt) this is not their responsibility, particularly if (as is standard practice) the other director(s) have certified to the accountant that a properly-constituted AGM took place to approve the accounts.
 
Well I did make that point to him, that as he wasn't auditing the accounts all the responsibility fell on the directors and he took offence at the suggestion that anything could be wrong with them.

My problem is that my name was must have been signed to something that I haven't seen as there are only 2 directors.
 
I'm a director of a two director limited company and the CRO wouldn't accept our Annual Return without both signatures. Even though we file electronically the signature page still has to be "manually" signed. I know this because we were getting close to the deadline and the other director wasn't available to sign. We sent the form in anyway knowing it would come straight back requesting the signature..but with the all important date stamp to say it had been recieved prior to the deadline date. ;)
 
I've just bought the AR and Accounts from the CRO and my name has been forged.

The ODCE tell me this is a criminal offence and I should go to the gardai but I don't know if this is a road I want to go down.

If I report him to his accounting body will it go the same way?
 
Mrs Vanecamp said:
I've just bought the AR and Accounts from the CRO and my name has been forged.

The ODCE tell me this is a criminal offence and I should go to the gardai but I don't know if this is a road I want to go down.

If I report him to his accounting body will it go the same way?
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Of course it will. Do you think the accounting body are going to cover up an allegation of criminal behaviour?

Do bear in mind that if, on the other hand, the signature was forged by your fellow director, or someone belonging to them, you will be exposing them to almost certain criminal prosecution.
 
I am just curious as to why someone thought it necessary to forge the OP's signature. Was the AR amost overdue, was someone under pressure to file and was the OP unavailable ( no excuse obviously ) . Has the OP asked the other director about this. Is the other director the 100% shareholder of a single member company , namely the relative the OP was "doing a favour" for and what do they have to say about it?
 
Yes, that's something that I would like to know too, I work only about 5 miles away from his office and I probably would have had no problem in signing the accounts if I had a chance to look over them and he corrected his totting error on the Balance sheet.

The other director is in South America at the moment and I can't contact him so I don't know how much he knows
 
Mrs Vanecamp said:
Yes, that's something that I would like to know too, I work only about 5 miles away from his office and I probably would have had no problem in signing the accounts if I had a chance to look over them and he corrected his totting error on the Balance sheet.

The other director is in South America at the moment and I can't contact him so I don't know how much he knows
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Was his signature forged too? Was he away when the accounts were due? If he was and the accounts were forged without both your knowledge that is very serious. It maybe that the accountant was under pressure form your fellow director to get them in and he may have "authorised" him to forge his signature. either way the accountant was stupid to do it and it is very serious.

In my laymans opinion you should at least resign as director and write to the other director and the auditors stating that the reason you are resigning is because your signature was forged on the accounts.
 
The last contact that I had from him was from a ship's email address so any reply would have gone to a general address.

I'm trying to get an answer from the accountant as to who put my name on the acounts but so far he hasn't returned my calls, last time I spoke to him he said he had submitted the accounts with "Printed signatures"
 
Mrs Vanecamp said:
The last contact that I had from him was from a ship's email address so any reply would have gone to a general address.

I'm trying to get an answer from the accountant as to who put my name on the acounts but so far he hasn't returned my calls, last time I spoke to him he said he had submitted the accounts with "Printed signatures"
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If he has been specifically authorised to do so by the other director, and if the other director purported to him that this authorisation was on behalf of the directors as a group, then its quite likely that the accountant has done nothing wrong.

Its hard to imagine any sane accountant putting their career and professional standing at risk by forging signatures. This is why I am guessing that the relevant authorisation is in place. If this is the case, then you have a problem with your fellow director.

You are going to be in the dark on this at least until and unless you can make contact with the other director and as such its difficult to comment further based on the limited facts available.

If I were in your shoes I would be emailing, texting, faxing and phoning both him and the people running the ship he is on.
 
Are you saying that it was ok for him to sign my name to the accounts even though I didn't see them as long as he had been given the authority to do so?

That seems to contravene the requirement for 2 seperate signatures?
 
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