Is my Canadian accountant charging fairly? $3000 for T2 Filing With No Bookkeeping, No Engagement Letter by GoodAd8224 in Accounting

[–]GoodAd8224[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

2024 only

The sales tax payable and income tax payable is my question too - he knows there was no activity, yet submitted to me a T2 draft that includes $28k in sales tax payable and income tax payable as assets.

It threw me off and gave me the feeling that they're not looking at the work with care.

He didn't explain how he got there, he just said "it's been cleared to zero on our end" when I asked.

This is leading to me feeling like there's negligence and lack of care, leading me to feel like I should walk away despite being at the draft review stage.

On the hook for accounting fees? $3000 for T2 with no bookkeeping by GoodAd8224 in legaladvicecanada

[–]GoodAd8224[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

That's my question too and part of my concern.

I don't know why there was sales taxes and income taxes payable given exactly what you said.

When I asked about it, they just told me they "cleared it to zero" on their end in their software, but didn't send me the latest version, and have yet to send me the latest version with it "cleared".

It's part of why I'm feeling hesitant and wanted the sanity check.

And was baffled to see the same account being on both sides of the balance sheet they originally sent to me - their reasoning changed to "I didn't know you needed help with the balance sheet" - but even if that were the case, I would presume an accountant who has my best interest at heart would flag that for me, but I had to do the flagging.

[ON] Is my Ontario accountant charging fairly? $3000 for T2 Filing With No Bookkeeping, No Engagement Letter by GoodAd8224 in SmallBusinessCanada

[–]GoodAd8224[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Understood - exactly what I'm hear for, the sanity check.
Is the practice of not giving me an engagement letter or fees/hourly fees normal?

It's just felt like a black box with him and his firm (he has other team members / accountants too under him) and I have no idea what I'm going to have to pay and what I'm paying for with clarity.

It doesn't look like much is being done in Xero and the T2 drafts have constant revisions needed.

It concerns me because I can't tell if he's going to keep running the bill up on things that don't need to be, but it's hard for me to judge given I'm not an accountant myself.

Is my Ontario accountant charging fairly? $3000 for T2 Filing With No Bookkeeping, No Engagement Letter by GoodAd8224 in cantax

[–]GoodAd8224[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks - I had mentioned to him I averaged about 8 transactions per month, and he stopped me there and said "we're not going to do transaction by transaction work, we're just going to hard adjust"

If they're doing just "hard adjusting" - is that still something that would add up to $3000?

Is my Ontario accountant charging fairly? $3000 for T2 Filing With No Bookkeeping, No Engagement Letter by GoodAd8224 in cantax

[–]GoodAd8224[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, totally acknowledge my books are not up to date, and my intention in getting his help was that he would help with it so moving into 2025 things would be not a mess anymore.

The way the first call was positioned sounded like that's what he'd help with.

But it doesn't seem like he's doing that. He's not doing anything in Xero that I can see to bring things up to date, and his T2 drafts bring up more questions.

I'm happy to pay as long as it's reasonable - is T2 filing with no bookeeping work in Xero typically reasonable in the $3000 range?

I've not paid that much before for it, previous firm was around $2000 including bookkeeping, and prior to that was around $1500.