Professional Clearance From Previous Accountant's

moneymotivated

Afternoon

I am AAT qualified and also in the process of completing my chartered accountancy exams (3 more left)....

I am not a MIP, I am employed at a chartered accountancy firm...

---

Ok now that you know that info I was wondering if anyone could help!:

A friend of mine is a sole trader and has asked me (personally, not through the firm I work for) to help him do his VAT and file his self assessment each year.

At present he uses a chartered accountancy firm but the fees are too high and he is trying to cut costs, so will be leaving them.

He has given me his last years accounts that were done by the accountants (they did a P & L and Balance Sheet) along with the 2009/10 tax computation.


Am I allowed to write to the accountancy firm to ask for the workings on how they got to their figures (e.g accruals/prepays and other balance sheet items, and the adjusted profit figure used in the tax comp).

And do I need to mention about professional clearance etc???

The reason I am getting a bit confused is I am only going to be HELPING him do the returns, he will be submitting them himself etc.

So can he just write the previous accountant's a letter saying he will be doing it by himself in the future and would like the workings from last years accounts so he can follow them this year??

I feel like I have gone round the houses a bit here but hope I kind of make sense!!

Thanks in advance for all responses.

MM

Monsoon

Given that you dont have a practicing certificate I would be inclined to get your friend to write the professional clearance letter to obtain the information himself.

Obviously leave out the "if there is any reason why I can't act" part!

Make sure he phrases the rest of the letter in a similar way to a normal prof clearance letter and be explicit in what info you want from the CA, i.e. schedules of accruals, non-trade creditors etc.

I can't see why this letter would be refused as long as all fees have been paid up.

moneymotivated

Thanks for the reply Monsoon,

I thought this would be the case, seeing as I am not practicing like you said.

All the fees are paid up so I shall draft a letter for him now.

Thanks again

MM