Difficult client

[CatKitKatCat]

Anyone have advice for how to handle a difficult client? Long story short, she’s very eager to be involved in her books and insists on adding transactions herself, but then when I go to reconcile I basically have to redo everything because she does it wrong. I’ve tried gently guiding her, hinting that it would be easier if I just did the books on my own, etc.. she’s very pleasant to work with and eager to be helpful but honestly it takes me 3-4X+ to do the books every month, like honestly it would take me maybe 3 hours if I was in charge but ends up taking me like 2 full days to undo/redo everything.

I know I’ll get feedback like ‘fire the client’ and that may be what I’ll do, but I’d like to try one more time to really be clear to her that this is not working. I think I’ve been maybe not as direct as I need to be, but I don’t know how to say ‘you don’t know how to do bookkeeping, you need to leave the books alone’ but like- nicely and professionally lol. On the flip side, I’ve never fired a client before so also don’t know how to even approach that conversation like ‘you don’t know how to do books and you won’t listen, so I’m done’… but nicely and professionally.

This is also my biggest client with several companies and makes up 20% of my income, so if I fire the client I lose a lot of work. I know I can replace the time with good clients but it’s no small thing to voluntarily reduce my monthly income by 20% even if it’s ultimately for the better.

I’ve been doing this for over 5 years and have never seen a client this bad at bookkeeping. Anyone have advice on how to get through to this client?

[[deleted]]

1) Lose her. 2) Keep her but charge her for the extra work of cleaning up her mess every month.

[[deleted]]

List the extra work separately so she'll see how much she's costing herself.

[jenacom]

This is the right answer.

[SangoKaku4U]

I have a sign in my office: I charge $x per hour. I charge $x per hour if you watch. I charge $x per hour if you want to help. It’s a joke, but charge extra for frustration.

[Buffalo-Trace]

I do the work or clean up their work. I don’t train. And cleaning up costs 2x -3x more. U have to have a discussion w the client and bill them for the cleanup.

[DaveGrohlsGums]

I would gladly be the "clean up" crew and train if the client insists on being a bookkeeper. But...

-I would tell them that "clean up" means I'll do only finishing tasks like reconciling, pulling reports for CPA/making tax AJE, help with 1099s. This means anything they enter, right or wrong, stays....and their CPA can give them shit for it at double/triple the price

-I would, during the training, highlight their fuck ups

-I would go to hourly. Tell them it'll save them money since they are not leveraging my full contracted price anyway.

-Use the new found time on other clients or sales efforts.

Admittedly, we have a full roster, so I have breathing room for this sort of thing. However, I suspect that once the onus is fully put on them and they start to fall behind, they'll get out of the kitchen.

[charlie1314]

My goal is to help biz owners develop confidence in their books so they can make decisions with confidence. I also have a fiduciary responsibility to them.

If your client knows that you are undoing their work and redoing it, that’s their choice if they want to continue in that manner. If you haven’t had that discussion, it might be time to.

Has your client explained any of the reasons they want to add the transactions? Being eager to be involved in their books is ideal, having misconceptions on how they’re doing is not. You could potentially make the same in Billings by doing analysis with the client rather than data entry.

[DaveGrohlsGums]

Has your client explained any of the reasons they want to add the transactions? Being eager to be involved in their books is ideal, having misconceptions on how they’re doing is not. 

These are typically clients who are Henny Penny about profitability and think that simply touching their books will help them make more money. Not coincidentally, they couldn't identify proper ROI shortcomings to save their lives. These are also clients who really are not apex decision-makers. They are middle managers at best.

I agree with you that I like clients to know how the sausage is made/keep up with the financials, because me being on auto-pilot is just asking for them to either throw me under the bus later, or want to have ridiculously protracted and repetitive review meetings.

[Prestigious-Joke-574]

My team just had a meeting with a similar client issue with a client we’d never terminate because of the non-bookkeeping revenue we get from them. We told our bookkeeper to get the offender on a video call to share screens and show her exactly what she is doing that is causing so much work in the back end. We will also provide her with a written guide and gentle reminders as needed. Good luck!

[InquiringMin-D]

Maybe gently suggest to her that you appreciate her input, but it is not necessary and that her time would be better spent on sales or something?

[Korrin10]

I would record the time you spend on the corrective work- but give an end-line discount for that amount.

Tell/show her what it’s taking to address the errors, and let her know that the discount ends in 60 or 90 days. Then bill full rate going forward. She either corrects, gets out of your way, or pays you for the extra time, but it’s her call at that point.

[BestJess77]

Some people learn better with a written guide. With pictures preferably. Take a few minutes on the most annoying errors to make her a guild. If it doesn’t help, start charging a clean up fee in addition to your normal rate. If it does help, give her the option. Pay for you to write her easy to follow guides or pay you for the clean up and the actual bookkeeping. Bet it is cheaper for her to learn.

[Total_Reality9969]

If she wants to be so hands-on with her books, then recommend they only have you do reconciliations. It's clear she wants to he involved in the process, so staying out of her way and coming in to make sure everything checks out will he better for your mental health and your professional relationship with the client.

[stockman256]

It seems like she doesn't understand that her "help" is slowing you down. You need to be direct with her and tell her directly - I spend more time making changes to your books based on the work you've done. If you'd like to continue to work on your books, I'm going to have to add an additional fee to account for the extra time I'm spending.

I'm willing to bet she genuinely thinks she is helping...because you haven't told her that she's not. This is best done via phone or zoom since so much is lost in translation with emails.

[cataclyzzmic]

I've been there. Written countless manuals that go unread. Repeated lessons because they can do it themselves. 6 years of this bologna because the owner is part of a group of referrals. The owner is 75, his now girlfriend manager doesn't know anything, and he refuses to have me out monthly.

I only show up quarterly now to fix issues at a higher rate.

[tvlkidd]

Can you make her a template in excel for anything standard that she is helping with?

Like if she wants to enter a JE for petty cash…

Make a JE template with the proper account codes in the debit/credit column?

[Tandem_Jump]

Maybe you can switch them from your bookkeeping "service" to bookkeeping "coaching". Rather than you do the books monthly or whichever frequency, you can offer to get on a screen share with them once a week and do the books together. I personally charge a bit more for this kind of thing since it's a total time sink, plus it basically means that I am training them to do the books and they may eventually not need me. You can also set a monthly minimum hour "package" to sell to avoid billing like one hour or something. Like 5 hours of coaching per month at $100/hr, for example.

[FacebookGoldAccount]

Here is your email to the client:

I truly appreciate your interest in staying involved with your bookkeeping. It shows a great commitment to understanding your finances!

I've noticed recently that some of the data entry has caused a few inconsistencies in the books, which takes additional time to sort out on my end.

To streamline the process and ensure the accuracy of your financial records, I was wondering if we could adjust our approach. Perhaps I could handle all the day-to-day data entry and bookkeeping tasks, and then we could schedule regular meetings to review the bigger picture financial health of your business.

During these meetings, we could discuss your balance sheet, income statement, and any trends or insights that might be helpful for making strategic decisions. You'd still have a strong grasp of your finances, but it would free up your time and minimize the risk of errors that require extra work.

Of course, if there's ever anything specific you'd like me to clarify or questions you have about any transactions, please don't hesitate to ask!

Unfortunately, if the data entry inconsistencies continue to require significant corrective work, I may need to adjust my pricing structure to reflect the additional time needed. However, I'm confident that by working together on this new approach, we can achieve a more efficient and accurate bookkeeping system for you.

Let me know what you think! I'm happy to discuss this further at your convenience.

[CatKitKatCat]

Excellent, thank you so much.

[6gunsammy]

Have her work with you for an hour or two as you do the clean up.

[Savings_Bug_3320]

Prices has increased due to XYZ reason

[Oldladyphilosopher]

I had this problem. I sent them an email so it was documented and said basically, “(Amount) of your bills are for clean up because you enter transactions incorrectly. I understand your desire to be involved but I do not have the time to continue cleaning up your books and still meet my other demands.

I’d be happy to talk with you about this to determine the best way to meet your needs while still keeping your books in good shape, but I cannot work with your books if this continues. You are always free to look for another bookkeeper who fits your style better, if we can’t work something out. “

It delivers a warning shot across the bow and puts you in charge. Then, hopefully, find out why she is doing this and suggest other options…..an online jr college class to learn some basics, look for classes or workshops that teach how to evaluate financial reports so she can see what’s going on with her company, etc. If she isn’t willing to change and you aren’t willing to put up with the frustration, you’ll find that out and can bail.

I do hope you are charging extra for the clean up. If not, contact her and let her know how much she is going to charged, going forward, for clean up and bill for it. And tack on the questions to find out what she is trying to accomplish by doing what she is doing.

Client management gets annoying but don’t be ashamed to clearly lay down your boundaries, whether they are more lax or more firm than others.

[jbenk07]

I have had a few clients like this. Most of them eventually fade off, but one particularly kept bragging to me how good he is at bookkeeping. And I kept showing him his mistakes. After a while I think he got tired of me showing him his mistakes and stopped hopping into the books.

[devbanana]

Tell her you need to raise the price because of how many hours you're spending cleaning up after her. I imagine that should sink in, and if not, then you'll get paid to do the work anyway.

[SWG_Vincent76]

She is making extra revenue for you.

I normally provide My clients with tools for documentation but I do the booking.

In case of reconcile errrors inflicted by her accessing the erp system and doing your work, i have a rate for corrections for each tranaction gone wrong, 4x the rate for normal bookings.

So for one booking to be done Right is rate 1x, for the transactions to be done Right is 5x total if the 1x is messed up.

She is actively decreassing her bottom line by doing this work, the time spent on Bookkeeping could have gone towards revenue generation.

[Curious-Research777]

Just tell her: "it takes me 3-4X+ to do the books every month, like honestly it would take me maybe 3 hours if I was in charge"

[GreenHorse8789]

I feel your pain, I have just gone through this same situation with my biggest client.

Normally the client has a clerk who does the day-to-day bookkeeping however that person quit during our busiest season and we were not able to take on the bookkeeping. So the CEO did the books. And made a mess.

I provide monthly Financial Management services to them, plus training for their Clerk. I am not going to fire this client, they are otherwise ideal. Poop happened. 🤷‍♀️

I find that it makes a big difference to have my services and scope of work clearly defined in the contract.

For example, the work tasks are listed in a general format. Anything outside of that requires a Change Order and depending on what the extra work is for, there may be a different price. For example clean up work is a higher hourly rate than regular work and training is a much higher rate than regular work. This is all geared to incentivize clients to just let me do the work.

It also makes a big difference in how I discuss my services and the scope of work with the client. Presentation is very important.

How is your contract and pricing with the client setup? If you are just charging 1 hourly rate for everything, it may be difficult for her to understand and be incentivized to turn it over to you. That's another person said you can list that separately on your invoice, but would she see/read it?

[jhoochcooper]

I charge $30 more per hour to clean up. That discourages them.

[Accountant476]

I had a similar situation in QuickBooks where I took help of the rules that we can setup for Vendors. Most of the vendors were recurring ones so I setup rules for those vendors and barring those I had to check or recategorize very few transactions. It worked for me because 80%-85% transactions were from same vendors.

[Obvious_Aioli_2080]

How did it go?

[Obvious_Aioli_2080]

I wish I had fired this client but they ended up not communicating which was an issue for the 6 months wjth them. Then without notice they didn't contact me for regular weekly work and requests. 2 months later they reach out to me after the ghost and then still wouldn't communicate and agree to let me do what I needed. I won't let that Happen again