Time taken to do financials

so how long is a piece of string looks like your disputing the charge did you get a quote from the accountant they could be charging $300-$400 per hour so it does not matter how many hours it takes and secondly a few transactions could be a hell of a lot of transactoins that you dont know about like getting share valuations for example.

next time ask the accountant the charge beforehand

Hi Andrew, sorry for the delay.

I'm interested in the number of hours because I asked their rate up front and was given an hourly range depending on how complicated the work is.

After a first meeting and them learning the audit had been prearranged to be done elsewhere, they suggested by email that money could be saved money by doing the audit via their guy.

I asked how much they would charge for the audit, the figure was indeed slightly cheaper than the other auditor, but they also estimated how much the preparation of the financials/statements/returns was going to cost.

This worked out to be 12 hours at their top rate previously quoted, or 20 hours at their minimum rate.

The figure was roughly the same as the previous SMSF manager's service who had a continuing advisory service throughout the year, handled all communications and mailouts, plus did the financials, tax returns, member statements plus were a large Sydney firm, not a small regional accounting firm like the current mob.

Going by the previous year's financials etc, I have trouble seeing how this can take an expert say 15 hours to do a pretty simple fund. Because this is for my parent's SMSF which the accountant knows will be being dissolved soon due to a financial settlement for separation, I'd just like to know it's not another vulture taking advantage of dire circumstances.

Edited by jontyc - 10/December/2011 at 23:55