I second that last remark. 2 of my last clients had really messed up books. The CPA did nothing to help correct the problem. In one case an "accountant" assisted the bookkeeper in setting up the COA and establishing the process of journalizing everything. What a mess that was. 4 year old payables and receivables. Had an outstanding employee loan for someone who had passed away. Nobody had bothered to clean these up in years.
IMO, as a non accountancy person, they _are_ the problem. If I goof up, they check the books and don't say naught, they actually are patting me on the head and say Good Boy, Good Boy.
Reason is because that type of service is not factored in the bottom of the barrel fee the client expects to pay.
Funny, you didn't ask, nor were you told, what these businesses are paying their CPAs. You assume the client is cheap and refuses to pay for professional service, and you assume wrongly in the cases I have personal experience with.
You also, not surprisingly, defend the accountants in question based on what their clients pay them. I guess public defenders don't advise their clients on legal issues and acceptable behavior because they aren't being paid for those things.
I think its unprofessional/unethical for a CPA to see a clusterf*ck in the making, manipulate that CF to prepare tax returns yet make no attempt to set things right. I don't mean the CPA has to do all the work but making it known there's a need for change & giving a point in the right direction should be part of the service provided by the knowledgable professional paid thousands to prep those forms.
How long does it take a CPA to make a list of needed changes (a summary of what's wrong if nothing else) and present it to the bookkeeper/client? How is not providing a list of AJEs acceptable? Its not like prepping such a list is going to be a major undertaking. The accountant had to manipulate the data in order to prep the return and he likely put that data in a software program. Printing the changes should be easy.
-- Tara
You are making one huge mistake. The typical QB end user is not the same as those that post to this Newsgroup. Most never do a bank reconcilation or have any idea how one is done, they do not know what a journal entry is or even care. All they want to know is how much do I owe in taxes and how much will it cost to prepare the returns? The typical QB user does not hire a Tara to come in and prepare their records.
One more thing. If you need to acuse me of anything then acuse me of being honest.. I know from first hand experience that there must be hundreds of thousands (perhaps this number is low) of companies that use QB and never receive adjusting journal entries from their accountants or ever reconcile cash. Many do not want to be bothered with or care to incur the costs required.
It is less time consuming for the accountant to make a single journal entry in his/her office to bring the opening balances into sync with last years workpapers.
Which is exactly the point I'm trying to make. That just because you buy something like Books-In-A-Box 2007 doesn't mean that suddenly you know what you're doing, or that the software will know what you're supposed to do. You have to have SOME knowledge, even a 2 day seminar geared toward the small business owner, given by an experienced bookkeeper, is better than nothing at all.
Stephanie
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