What to do - accountant messed up

**JohnSilver** · 29-Feb-12, 11:57 AM

Thank you for the pointers BusFast. it helps a lot.

Dave what you said it true but it's really getting difficult for me to get around to everything on my own. and right now I don't know who to trust either.

I finally got my CK2 active with SARS again but it cost a small fortune for a new accountant to re-activate the CK2.
My books are also almost up to date but I'm still waiting for Standard Bank to give me the outstanding bank statements. they always have excuses so to why the process is being delayed. but I'm going to close my account with them as soon as this is sorted out. it would be easier to keep track of everything with just 1 bank account instead of 2.

and I'm going to post more specific questions on their own posts in the forum

**Dave A** · 29-Feb-12, 08:33 PM

Great to hear you're making progress

Yep - driving a business can be a struggle at times, but if it was easy all the time everyone would do it

**BusNavig8** · 02-Mar-12, 11:14 AM

Good advice regarding the business side of things. I understand what happended to you fully because we fix businesses in this category all the time. It is hard to swim in the sea of choas and the financial strain saps all your inner resources.

You can start a new by fixing the mistakes from hereon out...most definately. But for the past.. I would first approach SARS, explain the situation and get "nil returns" issued for the past years so that you do not have to do your books. I would get clearance from CIPC (legal Dept) and get all the FICA issues resolved so that your bank accounts can be unfrozen. That way the additional expenses will not be incurred on all fronts. The chances of suing and recovering money from the previous Bookkeeper is unlikely even though you may well have grounds. The problem with friends doing this function is that no proper mandates are in place so the claim is difficult to prove due to he said she said and who was to do what.

**JohnSilver** · 02-Mar-12, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by BusNavig8

Good advice regarding the business side of things. I understand what happended to you fully because we fix businesses in this category all the time. It is hard to swim in the sea of choas and the financial strain saps all your inner resources.

You can start a new by fixing the mistakes from hereon out...most definately. But for the past.. I would first approach SARS, explain the situation and get "nil returns" issued for the past years so that you do not have to do your books. I would get clearance from CIPC (legal Dept) and get all the FICA issues resolved so that your bank accounts can be unfrozen. That way the additional expenses will not be incurred on all fronts. The chances of suing and recovering money from the previous Bookkeeper is unlikely even though you may well have grounds. The problem with friends doing this function is that no proper mandates are in place so the claim is difficult to prove due to he said she said and who was to do what.

Thank you. Your post is very inspiring but leads to some questions:

- I was under the impression that I still need to get the books up to date, have financials drawn up and submitted to SARS. Your comment about the "nil returns" excites me, a bit, but how do I do that? What exactly do I tell SARS?
- What is CIPC?
- I can't sue my previous bookkeeping purely since I don't have the money or the time to pursue it. The whole deal was done verbally. i.e. there's no contract between her and me and I just don't feel like wasting time with lawyers and courts if it won't even help me at this stage. So that's a no-go.