Engagement Agreement and Terms and Conditions for Accountants
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Description
Experience Level: Intermediate
General information for the business: Accountants
Legal topic: Terms & Conditions
Description of legal work: The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) produce guidelines and examples on engagement letters which generally consist of...
• An engagement letter (2 pages)
• Service schedules – one for each different service provided (e.g. tax, payroll, vat, accounts preparation, etc and often different ones for different business entity types - ltd co, sole trader, etc), most of which are lengthy (3 pages each) and often duplicate each other.
• Standard terms and conditions of business, applied to all clients ( 6 pages)
Most accountants with small business clients consider them to be overly cumbersome and confusing to clients.
In addition, there is for example often a situation where the accountant acts for say a Ltd company but also does the personal tax return of the directors (who generally own the company). The ICAEW examples mean the accountant has to issue separate letters and schedules to each, although from the client’s point of view there is one fee paid by the company to cover all the work which makes things unnecessarily complex.
We wanted to produce something simpler for clients that still works and have therefore used the content provided by the ICAEW as a base but put together a simpler system consisting of...
• An engagement agreement (shorter)
• Service schedules – 1 page each
• Standard terms and conditions of business (similar to ICAEW)
• Standard terms and conditions of all tax and accounts services (to remove the duplication in the service schedules provided by the ICAEW) - 4 pages.
We have also done it so that with personal tax return clients they are added to the main Ltd company agreement with both signing the agreement.
We want someone to review what we have done to confirm it still works legally or offer any advice on anything needing to be amended. We’re not overly worried whether ICAEW still agree with it, just that what has been done will be sound legally.
We can supply you with the ICAEW guidance and examples and with what we have done.
Extra notes:
Legal topic: Terms & Conditions
Description of legal work: The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) produce guidelines and examples on engagement letters which generally consist of...
• An engagement letter (2 pages)
• Service schedules – one for each different service provided (e.g. tax, payroll, vat, accounts preparation, etc and often different ones for different business entity types - ltd co, sole trader, etc), most of which are lengthy (3 pages each) and often duplicate each other.
• Standard terms and conditions of business, applied to all clients ( 6 pages)
Most accountants with small business clients consider them to be overly cumbersome and confusing to clients.
In addition, there is for example often a situation where the accountant acts for say a Ltd company but also does the personal tax return of the directors (who generally own the company). The ICAEW examples mean the accountant has to issue separate letters and schedules to each, although from the client’s point of view there is one fee paid by the company to cover all the work which makes things unnecessarily complex.
We wanted to produce something simpler for clients that still works and have therefore used the content provided by the ICAEW as a base but put together a simpler system consisting of...
• An engagement agreement (shorter)
• Service schedules – 1 page each
• Standard terms and conditions of business (similar to ICAEW)
• Standard terms and conditions of all tax and accounts services (to remove the duplication in the service schedules provided by the ICAEW) - 4 pages.
We have also done it so that with personal tax return clients they are added to the main Ltd company agreement with both signing the agreement.
We want someone to review what we have done to confirm it still works legally or offer any advice on anything needing to be amended. We’re not overly worried whether ICAEW still agree with it, just that what has been done will be sound legally.
We can supply you with the ICAEW guidance and examples and with what we have done.
Extra notes:
Keith S.
99% (15)Projects Completed
18
Freelancers worked with
14
Projects awarded
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Last project
6 May 2023
United Kingdom
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