The Art of Numbers

I found Lena through a search engine and initially thought I would be looked after because she sounded like she knew what she was talking about and would be dedicated, accurate and detailed. I had just been burned badly by an accountant who was fraudulent, inaccurate and had misrepresented the books so I was quite nervous and had trust issues and just wanted to get my books straight. Lena was engaged to do 3 months of reconciliation ($350 per month) + fix/ tidy up previous 3 months reconciliations ($440) + do 2 BAS’s ($165 each). This was already WAY overpriced- doing my reconciliations should only be an hours’ worth per month and market rate should be $60-$80 per hour and as I had so little reconciliations, it should have only taken that long. I was so desperate to get the accounts sorted I agreed to these ridiculous prices in faith of professional and accurate results. To my horror and utter disappointment, I experienced the very worst service, care, professionalism, knowledge and intent from Lena, yet again burned by another apathetic and poorly run accountant.

I slowly discovered over time and after our engagement just how neglectful Lena was and how it impacted my business, loosing thousands of dollars because of her lack of care. Not only did she give me the wrong advice around set ups of my accounting framework (changing it to accruals over cash, which every other decent bookkeeper and accountant said is wrong due to the size of my business), she also DID NOT fix the work I paid her so much money to do, so by January when I ended the agreement, the cleared accounts and reconciliations were wrong. I was applying for a small business grant in April which relied on the numbers from January, which I told her about. She simply said she forgot to clear that major account (meant for Dec) and I would need to re-do the December BAS, but she refused to do it and said my new bookkeeper would have to- even though I paid her thousands to do a job, she said ‘whoops, I forgot about it, it was holidays in January and things get forgotten’- and said I would have to pay for someone else to fix it. Because she refused to re-do the Dec BAS she then advised I should clear the account in Jan and it wouldn’t impact me. My new bookkeeper didn’t have the context as to where she was clearing this certain account, but we took Lena’s word and cleared it for Jan as she wouldn’t re-do the December BAS. Once that happened I couldn’t apply for the grant anymore because it affected my January numbers which were being compared to the previous year for the 3k grant. I was already affected by COVID, then paying thousands to Lena, then loosing 3k because of her negligence. The way I see it I could re-coup losses of almost $5k from Lena- not to mention the stress and further distrust she has instilled in me.

Lena, I wish you had operated with integrity, honesty and taken responsibility for your mistakes rather than running off with my money. Once I said I was ending the ongoing services, your tone changed and I could see the real side to you. You play a good act pretending you care about people. I genuinely want to partner with good suppliers and consultants, but I would not recommend you on my worst enemy. It’s a shame that you found me at a vulnerable time when I needed good professional care and therefore now any relationship you had tried to build is soured.