Accountant fees.

M

Meath Lady

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Would like to get ideas from other self employed people what fees they pay their Accountant. I'm self employed in a small business where I contract to mainly one firm and invoice them on a weekly /bi weekly basis. I complete my own vat return. I also have rented property . My wife is a paye worker. I give my accountant all my bank statements and paperwork in an orderly fashion, complete my own med 1 , itemise all rent received and all expenses. His fee is 1400 euro which I think is extremely high. Any opinions , comments
 

It sounds high to me (unless you're using the 'Big 4').

Something around €1,000 plus VAT would be reasonable in my view (unless there's 'accounts prep' involved in which case €1,400 sounds reasonable).
 
Ours are 500 plus vat a year. Like yourselves, we have a small partnership with no employees apart from me and my husband. We would send roughly 80 invoices a year. We don't have a rental property though. I do the vat during the year and keep the records exactly how the accountant said to, so I'd imagine we are a fairly similar.
 

If its that straight forward, I'd imagine a fee of around €750.00 plus VAT would be reasonable, however (and please don't take this the wrong way), there might be reasons why its not staight forward, talk to the accountant and see if there is a reason for the charge, clients often don't see the value of our work.



Just to add, are you a sole trader or a proprietary director of a limited company, just the sentence "I'm self employed in a small business" has me wondering.
 
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Then I would suggest talking to the accountant, there might be a reason for the fee being at that level.

I know that I'd be happy to discuss my fee levels with any of my clients, I assume your account would feel the same.
 
It's sounds like the accountant may be doing 'accounts prep' (the OP said he provides the accountant with bank statements). Straight away, this sounds like more work than simply the preparation and submission of a basic income tax return. The query regarding the fees is too vague - We just don't know the time input that's required. It could be significant or it could be insignificant.
 

In that case, Pat it might be no harm to amend your earlier post accordingly.
 
"It's unwise to pay too much, but it's also unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much you lose a little money, that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.
The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it's well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough money to pay for something better."
 
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