Results 1 to 7 of 7

Thread: Some advice needed

  1. #1
    Full Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    Carletonville, RSA
    Posts
    25
    Thanks
    9
    Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts

    Some advice needed

    hi
    This might be a little difficult to get through but here goes : I have a supermarket and have an accountant like everyone else, but the thing that ticks me is their billing.
    After coughing up hard earned money for about 5 years for their services i decided to do homework and slowly started taking things away from them, like Paye and uif is done by me now, vat is done by me now(submitted on efiling and paid).

    Now the shock, they asked me they needed to do the paye recons, and gave me instructions on how they wanted it to be presented to them, names, id's etc, all in a specific format. Which i did and now to my suprise i get an account for R2350.00 + vat for doing my recons.

    Now my question is if i decide to take on easy file myself, do i need to inform them? Since i take it they using it too, wont it "clash" or something??

    Im all ears....

  2. #2
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Durban, South Africa
    Posts
    22,648
    Thanks
    3,304
    Thanked 2,676 Times in 2,257 Posts
    Blog Entries
    12
    Quote Originally Posted by pedrob View Post
    Now my question is if i decide to take on easy file myself, do i need to inform them? Since i take it they using it too, wont it "clash" or something??
    I'd think you should inform them! Apart from potential problems at SARS come submission time, there's absolutely no sense in both of you putting in the work.

    Are you concerned your accountants might be offended?

  3. #3
    Full Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Eastern Cape
    Posts
    41
    Thanks
    1
    Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts
    I agree with Dave, you need to inform them. If you don't they can still expect payment from you! (This just happened to one of our clients). Without his knowledge they expected a month's notice, so he had to still pay the account

  4. #4
    Diamond Member Blurock's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Durban
    Posts
    4,151
    Thanks
    758
    Thanked 886 Times in 735 Posts
    Blog Entries
    7
    I don't mind paying if I get value for money. Do you have the time to do the recons yourself? Do you have the time and inclination to correspond or have meetings with SARS when things go wrong? Do you have enough knowledge to be able to argue with a sometimes irrational SARS official?

    What you should be asking is what value does the accountants deliver. You can always negotiate a fee with them. It is much like paying the carpenter. Not for hitting the nail into the floorboard, but knowing where to place the nail...
    Excellence is not a skill; its an attitude...

  5. #5
    Gold Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Vanderbijlpark
    Posts
    886
    Thanks
    83
    Thanked 381 Times in 298 Posts
    Quote Originally Posted by pedrob View Post
    hi

    Now the shock, they asked me they needed to do the paye recons, and gave me instructions on how they wanted it to be presented to them, names, id's etc, all in a specific format. Which i did and now to my suprise i get an account for R2350.00 + vat for doing my recons.

    Now my question is if i decide to take on easy file myself, do i need to inform them? Since i take it they using it too, wont it "clash" or something??

    Im all ears....
    I'm assuming this was to enable them to do the emp501/601/701 irp5 job? I think that is what you are referring to and if so, the fee would depend on whether you are using an electronic or manual payroll and how many employees you have.

    Supermarkets tend to have more staff than most, because casual staff for this exercise are no different than permanent staff. If I am right and it was for this job, have a look at all the issues and posts on the tax section of this forum and you might just think they were cheap

  6. #6
    Full Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    Carletonville, RSA
    Posts
    25
    Thanks
    9
    Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
    thanks for all the feedback

    I have 14 employees and remember that i had to present it to them the way they wanted, ie, all the staff in order with their ids, adresses and everything in as specific format, i am runninga online payroll. Spoke to the accountants "lady" who is in charge of easy file dept and she told me that the way i did it for them let them easily do the recons, i even balanced the emp201's with the monthly payslips for them. Surely shoouldnt they be charging me for time spent on my work? At that price it seems like they worked about 10 hours on it, which she insists they did not!!

  7. #7
    Gold Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Vanderbijlpark
    Posts
    886
    Thanks
    83
    Thanked 381 Times in 298 Posts
    Ok 14 is really not that many to manually capture. Even worse if the online system generates the data for you, as most of them do!

    All firms have their own fee structure. My firm would have charged a total of R1560 plus VAT. That's for a recon of less than 100 employees @ R1000 plus R40 per employee and includes printed copies of all recons and IRP5's/IT3's, and recorded on CD for won records. But like I said, all firms to their own.

    I know of some folk who spent a very long time on this, due to easyfile issues (SARS). This year we had zero issues; everything worked fine. Had we experienced the issues of many who commented in the tax section, we would have been down the drain in respect of this service, as I don't expect clients to carry the can.

    In general, the terms of your accountant's engagement are renewed annually. Make sure that besides their statutory function, they are doing what you want them to do - it's actually a requirement in the standards. There is also nothing wrong with asking them to price those additional services.

Similar Threads

  1. [Question] CORPORATE SABOTAGE - ADVICE NEEDED
    By KEITHO in forum General Business Forum
    Replies: 7
    Last Post: 17-May-12, 10:29 AM
  2. geyser problems - some advice needed please
    By SilverNodashi in forum General Chat Forum
    Replies: 12
    Last Post: 21-Apr-11, 09:25 AM
  3. Advice needed
    By Victim E in forum Labour Relations and Legislation Forum
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 04-Apr-11, 06:20 PM
  4. Advice needed on change in strategy...
    By RKS Computer Solutions in forum Marketing Forum
    Replies: 7
    Last Post: 19-Sep-07, 09:55 PM

Did you like this article? Share it with your favourite social network.

Did you like this article? Share it with your favourite social network.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •