Changing chartered accountants

I keep harping to everyone about getting a good CA when you start your business. Looks like I should have been taking my own advice.

When we started out, the first CA we got was someone who came in through family contacts. He had been doing the income tax returns for some family members, and we thought it's a good idea to give my company work to him as well. When we were running a small operation, and ledger entries were a dozen a month, it was all good. But as we started to grow, this person proved unequal to the task. Minor hassles such as taking all our files and papers over to his office suddenly became major hurdles in getting the work done. What used to be one box file, was now a dozen and then some.

We started to look around for another CA, and just when we found one, we were told that we needed a no-objection certificate from the first guy in order to start dealing with the new one! Sheesh! Now this was a really delicate matter. Not only was the first chap doing my accounts, but he was also doing those of many more family members now. This meant he was privy to a lot of accounting information.

Anyways, the break came recently and in a very unexpected manner. We moved a couple of family member accounts away from him, since he lives at one end of town, and we at the other. That was an excellent reason to tell him that the entire process of dealing with someone who rarely visits us at home or office was proving to be too cumbersome. The next day he called us to say that he was upset at this decision, and had therefore decided not to do the rest of our accounts either. Of course, this decision comes at a very precise moment - 31st October is the last date to file our company income tax returns.

Thankfully, we have a good accountant working for us. Recently when doing the returns for my father, his insight into some of the laws related to stock investments resulted in a significant tax savings. This was something the CA should have been doing! Again the fees of a CA or the salary to an accountant is usually well worth it in terms of the savings they bring in and the accounting discipline that helps keep a better handle on one's cash flow.

The same situation occured with the Company Secretary. After promising to bring our documents up to date (we had been very lax on this front), and even taking half his fees in advance, he never showed up again. This is the same guy who had done our initial registration. Finally, we got a new CS to work for us, and filed in all our returns with the Registrar of Companies, and ended up paying a lot of back arrears and penalties as well. Yikes!