“This company have been dealing with my account since November 23. In July 2024, I asked my accountant to register my company for VAT as I was nearing the threshold. I asked for the company registration date for VAT to be the 6th August 2024. He agreed and a few weeks later, I received a letter from the HMRC ado using me I had been registered for VAT from November 23. That was not what I asked for and now I was due to pay VAT from November 2023 even though I had not been invoicing VAT to my customers until after the 6th August 2024.
My accountant suggested I go back to all my customers and tell them they now needed to pay VAT retrospectively. Yes, and I will be out of business within a month having lost all my clients and received a number of complaints.
I advised I was not doing that. I then got told well I could pay the VAT due. That’s not happening either as why should my company be paying VAT from November 2023-August 2024 because the accountants have messed up. The bill would be around £20K
The next suggestion was to just invoice VAT from August and leave the VAT registration date as November and hope the HMRC never do a VAT inspection. Yeah right, that’s illegal!
I have all this in writing from the accountant. Needless to say, I am now asking a solicitor to claim the outstanding VAT due from November 23- August 24 from this company as they have left me in a huge financial problem.
In addition, I was given the incorrect advice over what VAT scheme to go on and my accountant never responded to any emails.
This company promises the earth to onboard you and then can’t be bothered to deal with your accounts.”
“Sinking ship with senior management leaving first
I have been an Intouch client for over 9 years and have always had a positive experience, even recommending their services to a friend years ago. Unfortunately, since the Brookson acquisition, the service has deteriorated significantly.
Emails go unanswered, phone calls are ignored, and my dedicated contact hasn't responded to me in three months. Despite this, I still receive automated emails from her, which is incredibly frustrating and unprofessional.
The introduction of the new Brookson portal has only exacerbated the issues. My accounts are now in disarray, with balances that are very far from being accurate.
It's disheartening to see a company that once provided solid service decline so rapidly. Seeing how ignorant the whole senior management is regarding the botched migration, and the lack of intervention from their side made me think they deliberately sabotaged Brookson.”
“Since Brookstone took them over the service has gone from brilliant (I’ve been with them for 12 years) to shockingly poor. They no longer answer calls, respond to e mails and their recently launched platform is just such a mess with zero support. This is such a shame as previously their service was brilliant in every way. The past 3 years there has been a steady decline, the past 6 month the decline has become steeper the past past 3 months it is now just not functioning to the point I am wondering if they are going out of business.”
“They have been so bad that when I tried to move to a new accountant, they refused to touch the mess and suggested I report them to the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales.
I'm expecting to go one further and take legal action, because its going to cost me thiusands to get a new accountant to sort the mess they've made.
Horrendous accountancy firm.
Unless you want to have incorrect payments to HMRC, missed deadlines and an accountant that appears to not know how to answer a phone nor return calls, AVOID Intouch at all costs!
I genuinely got to the point of wondering if they had gone bust, that's how hard it is to get them to answer the phone.
I've been with them since 2015. It was all pretty decent until around 2020 when there's then been frequent changes in who my accountant is. And of course their data breach!...
The service has gone drastically downhill.
I've had incorrect figures, incorrect tax amounts to pay, I was no longer getting any pro-active guidance.
Then finally my company was inadvertently struck off/dissolved because a confirmation statement wasn't filed - they didn't follow up on my email, and they ignored/did not pass on any of the multiple warnings/alerts/reminders that Companies House send to them on by company's behalf.
I escalated the inability to speak with my accountant and incorrect tax figures, in a complaint around the turn of last year (2022 into 2023). I was then dealing with the head of accounting, was told they'd be striving to sort things out, and wouldn't be charged for the next 2 months. But they didn't actually then do anything - at all - for the 2 months.
I continue to get the automatically-generated emails or emails from accounting assistants, but they bear no correlation with the conversations I've been having with the head accountant about amending backdated information already filed - thus the amounts and info in these emails is useless.
As at 31 July, I had a tax payment to HMRC to pay, and I don't know how much to pay because they'd been proposing to amend things but hadn't concluded it yet. I asked my accountant twice since 21 July to schedule a call to discuss, he agreed - then didn't schedule it. I was at the point of calling them 4, 5, 6 times today, and each time I either get voicemail or a colleague states he's in a meeting.
6 months later I'm barely any further forward - they proposed a series of corrective actions, applied them in September, but then haven't amended my tax figures.
So now 31 January came and went again this year, and once again, I had no idea how much to pay HMRC. In the end I just had to pay what was on the latest thing they sent me, despite being sure it was wrong.
Sure enough, my wife's overpaid by over £900... Thankfully HMRC have rebated it quickly.
I don't know what to do next - the biggest headache about my company and the accountancy side, is actually my accountant.
They do far more wrong than right, and are generally uncontactable.
I guess a complaint to the regulator now follows, possibly even legal action... but in the meantime wanted to try and make sure nobody else falls into a similar dire situation with this lot.”
“Fantastic service, they made everything easy and smooth and explained it all so clearly. I would 100% recommend to anyone looking to start out as a contractor and needs their hand holding! Thanks Intouch :)”
