AC Dorren & Co

Chartered Management Accountant

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Client's Charter

A C Dorren & Co. is determined to maintain a reputation of having the highest ethical and professional standards with the government agencies it deals with and within the local business community. To ensure that we achieve the same high standards for you we set out here the basis on which we will act for you.

• Your responsibilities
• Our responsibilities
• The scope of the work to be undertaken
• The way our fees are calculated
• Best service
• Termination
• Confidentiality

This charter addresses many different issues, some of which may not apply you, and therefore, on accepting office we will send you a Letter of Engagement that describes how we will work together.

1. YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES AS PRINCIPALS

1. As a principal of your business (e.g. director, partner or proprietor), or simply as an ordinary taxpayer for Self Assessment tax purposes, the law imparts certain responsibilities and fiduciary duties upon you.
2. For example, as principal of your business, you alone are legally responsible for ensuring that it maintains proper accounting records and for preparing financial statements that give a true and fair view of the affairs of the business. If you are a director or company secretary your responsibilities are more onerous.
3. As an ordinary taxpayer you are legally charged with notifying the Inland Revenue of all taxable income you receive each fiscal year (i.e. between 6 April and the following 5 April). Many people are mistaken in believing that you only have to tell the Revenue about income if you receive a tax return.
4. The reason we remind you of your legal responsibilities, is that our relationship can only work if you understand that we presume that you make full and accurate disclosures of your financial affairs to us. We can only give you the best professional advice if we are in possession of all the facts.
5. It is the sole responsibility of the principal to ensure that we receive the accurate and complete information that will allow us to complete our task.
6. We shall make all reasonable efforts to keep you informed and advise you of your statutory duties. It is a principle of law that, as an individual, you cannot avoid your responsibilities by passing them onto a third party such as this firm.

2. OUR RESPONSIBILITIES

1. We shall plan and carry out the work you ask us to undertake with the minimum of delay. We shall normally advise you of a completion date and work towards meeting it. We will notify you at the earliest opportunity if we need further information to complete our task and any effects on the completion date.
2. We recommend that you keep all records and papers for at least six years from the end of the accounting period to which they relate. A tax inquiry can be opened by either the Inland Revenue or HM Customs & Excise, which may require you to produce these records. This firm will not retain copies of these files, so it is important that you take steps to protect and keep safe your primary records.
3. When this firm has been instructed to carry out other kinds of work, we will normally provide a summarised report of how we have arrived at our conclusions.
4. We will inform you in writing of any potential accounting irregularities or other potential business-related problems that comes to our attention. We shall normally offer advice as to how you should rectify the situation.

3. THE SCOPE OF THE WORK TO BE UNDERTAKEN

1. In our letter of engagement we will set out precisely the nature and limits of the work you have asked us to undertake.
2. We will ask your permission to approach such third parties as may be appropriate for information that we consider necessary to deal with your affairs.
3. We will normally ask you to complete the Inland Revenue form 64-8. This is your authority for the Inland Revenue to discuss your tax affairs with this firm acting as your agent.
4. We have a professional and moral responsibility not to allow our name to be associated with accounts that may be misleading. Should we become aware, for any reason, that the accounts may be misleading, we will withdraw from the engagement and notify you in writing of the reasons.
5. As part of our normal procedures, we may request you to provide written confirmation of any information or explanations given orally by you during the course of our work.

4. FEES

1. We shall always agree in writing and before commencing the work, the basis upon which this firm will charge you.
2. Our fees are revised on an annual basis to become effective from the first day of June each year. You will be advised in writing of any planned increases in fee levels during May of that year.
3. The fees you will be charged are calculated by reference to the time our staff spend completing the work agreed in Section 3.1. The level of charges will reflect the level of professional competence required for the type of work.
4. Much of the professional work we undertake is quoted on a fixed fee basis. We will be pleased to explain the basis of the work to be undertaken for our fixed fee service.
5. This firm does not normally recharge minor disbursements incurred in the course of completing the work you have asked us to undertake. We however reserve the right to recover exceptional disbursements at cost.
6. If the completion of our work requires members of this firm to travel, then any reasonable overnight expenditure will be recharged to you at cost. We reserve the right to charge 45p per mile for such journeys by car. Other travel expenditure will be recharged at cost. We shall always agree with you in writing and in advance, the costs of any travel we plan to undertake.
7. If, in the circumstances described in section 3.4, or for any other reason, it becomes necessary for us to withdraw from the engagement, our fees for work performed up to that date will become payable by you. We reserve the right to draw down any outstanding fees from any of the funds you have paid over in advance. We shall refund any surplus funds paid in advance within 30 days of advising you that we are withdrawing from the engagement.
8. Our fees do not cover the additional work that would be needed if you require us to assist you in defending a tax investigation into your business or personal affairs by one of the Crown authorities. The cost of defending a tax investigation may be very expensive, especially if expert tax and legal advisors become involved. There are many specialist insurance policies that are specifically designed to cover the costs of a tax investigation. We shall be pleased to advise on this matter.
9. Please note that this firm does not accept introduction or referral commissions of any kind. The advice we give is based on our own independent investigations and assessments of third party products or services.

5. BEST SERVICE

1. If at any time you would like to discuss with us how our service to you could be improved, or if you are dissatisfied with the service you are receiving, please inform us as soon as possible, preferably in writing.
2. We undertake to look into any complaint carefully and promptly. We will do all we reasonably can to explain our position on the matter to you. If we have given you a less than satisfactory service we undertake to do everything we reasonably can to put it right.
3. Our work is guaranteed and ultimately you are the sole judge of our performance. If, in any month, anything we do falls short of your expectations, we will respect your right to a refund of our monthly fee.

6. TERMINATION

1. You may terminate our engagement at any time, by informing us of your wishes in writing.
2. We reserve the right to resign from acting for you, giving you three months notice of our intentions. Our resignation will be made in writing to your last known address, or the Registered Office in the case of a company. We shall inform you of our reasons for resigning from office.
3. As explained in Section 3.4, should we become aware, for any reason, that the accounting records contain irregularities for which we are unable to obtain satisfactory explanations from you or other third parties, we will withdraw from the engagement immediately. In such cases we will notify you in writing of the reasons.
4. In all cases we will make all reasonable efforts to supply your new professional adviser with the information they may request from us. We reserve the right to charge for the provision of such information.
5. In the event of the termination of our engagement, we shall return all of your documents and records that you have supplied to us.
6. The working papers and files created by this firm will remain our own property and will not ordinarily be passed on to any third party.

7. CONFIDENTIALITY

1. In accordance with best practice, we shall not disclose to another third party, any information of your personal and business affairs that can reasonably be considered confidential.
2. We will normally require your express permission before we will disclose any details of your business or personal affairs to any third party. To save unnecessary correspondence, we shall request that you give us permission to disclose details of your business affairs to the following third parties if requested to do so:
   1. Your bankers.
   2. The Inland Revenue.
   3. HM Customs and Excise.
   4. Any lender requesting a loan or mortgage confirmation letter.
   5. Any third party requesting a trade reference.
   6. Any third party with the legal right to require us to disclose such information.

As previously mentioned, we shall issue every client with a new letter of engagement that sets out the specific terms of reference for the work to be undertaken.