Coman & Co Anmeldelser 67

Coman & Co have been my accountants since 2014. I have always found Ray to be very helpful and generous in explaining financial/accountancy terms and processes when I’ve struggled to understand. While that’s still a journey for me to travel (!), it’s very reassuring to know that there is someone whose knowledge and expertise I can trust, and who offers good advice when I’m not sure what to do.

Ray at Coman and Co has been such a valuable source of financial help and advice to me that I wouldn't know where to begin! He's just been brilliant and I can't thank him enough.

We have been working with Coman&Co for a few years. The company's director - Ray, helped us with the annual tax returns. Always polite and prompt and very knowledgable.
It's worth mentioning the very transparent rate card. We never were surprised with any extra fees that were not agreed prior to the service. Very reasonable rate which is important for such a small business we run. Highly recommend!

Coman and co took a lot of the pressure and uncertainty out of the situation. After new year, I set up an ecommerce business on amazon and ebay: rejuvenate aromatherapy soap. It started to do better than I thought and my european sellers were asking for vat details. He was helpful in getting it all set up for vat, and talking me through the accounting software xero. Now he does the year end accounts and helps with paying a directors salary and dividend for tax purposes.

Ray was prompt and responsive. I asked him to make two or three changes and he did this without question, turning everything around in about a day. Professional, easy to work with and knowledgable. I definitely recommend him.

I have used Ray Coman at Coman&Co intermittently over the last 6 years during which time I have switched between being employed to self-employed. I have always found him to be very helpful and have valued his advice. We have had several face to face meetings and his rates have been reasonable. I would recommend Coman&Co.

I decided to open a ltd company and wanted to speak to local accountants first, noting they are much cheaper than large nationwide firms.

Within the initial consultation Coman&Co was perfectly friendly and helpful. I spoke to the director who seemed to know his stuff regarding taxes and also showed an interest in technology which was relevant to my proposed company. We had a fruitful and friendly discussion so I happily agreed to use his services.

One of those services was a registered office address, which is useful for keeping my home address off the public Companies House database as I was to be running this company from home. This detail will become important later.

The first problem occurred when I did not receive my company’s authentication code. For those unaware, when you register a company you get sent an authentication code from Companies House which allows you to manage your company online. Companies House describes this as a “PIN code for your company.” It is important information for a company director to have as it essentially allows whoever possesses it to control the company.

As it is so sensitive it is sent only by post to the company’s registered address. It is usual for an agent offering a registered address service to direct vital Companies House post to the director either physically or virtually.

Coman&Co emailed me scanned copies of other documents such as the company tax number but notably missing was the vital authentication code. Without it I had no control over my own company.

I assumed it must have been lost in the post, or perhaps due to its sensitive nature it wasn’t routine to send it via email. So I emailed asking when he expected it to turn up and when I’d receive it. In response he simply told me “that code is for me not you.”

Yes you read that correctly. He told me that the “PIN code for the company”, the code that allows you full control over a company via Companies House, was only for the accountant, not the director of the company.

Only after sending multiple emails did he finally send me a scanned copy of the letter containing the authorisation code with no explanation for why it is “not for me” or why he refused to send it to me in the first place. The letter was dated 13 days before he emailed it to me, so it is certain he did have the information and for whatever reason simply held onto it and did not wish to share it with me.

Without that code I would have been unable to manage my company through Companies House, e.g. submitting essential documents such as confirmation statements, without going through Coman&Co as a middleman - and presumably running up extra fees as a result.

Fast forward to about a month down the line and I am unfortunately having trouble getting my idea off the ground.

At this point I am considering whether or not to close the ltd company and what the next best steps would be, for example should I set up as a sole trader instead, or modify my business plan? I was told by others to ask my accountant for advice in this matter.

So I did. I made clear I was not certain I wanted to close my company yet, but was looking for advice about what to do next. I also asked if I should contact HMRC if I did choose to strike off the company or if Companies House would do this automatically as I was unsure.

The only response I got was being told which form to fill in and send off to Companies House to shut down my company and notification that he had already archived my company on his system and removed me from his client list. He provided no further guidance or advice.

I then asked him one more time if I needed to tell HMRC about closing my company. This email got no response at all.

The next time I heard from him was about a week later while I was on holiday. He sent me what I felt was a threatening email containing multiple typos letting me know that unless I could provide evidence I had submitted a document to dissolve my company within 15 days he would change the public records for my company to my home address which I had made clear I wanted to be kept private.

The reasoning he gave for this was that I had supposedly been presenting his office as a trading address for my company. The “evidence” he presented for this claim was an obvious spam letter telling me I had been “pre-approved” for a credit card. It was from a company I’d never heard of before in my life.

This was clearly automated spam that had obviously been sent using data harvested from the public Companies House database and anyone offering a registered address service should expect spam mail and would know to throw it away. One must expect that any address listed in a public database such as that held by Companies House must receive spam routinely.

At first I thought this must be some kind of phishing email and could not possibly be genuine. Surely my accountant is not emailing me out of the blue to threaten me because of a spam letter?

But no, unfortunately the email was genuine. Coman&Co used a spam letter as a pretence to threaten to publicise my personal information after explicitly being told how important it was to me that it stay private. This is despite the fact I had already submitted the correct form to dissolve the company and it had been accepted by Companies House. This is a matter of public record he could have easily checked himself. It was and still is listed on the Companies House website. It was accepted by Companies House and therefore on public record for 4 days before he sent the email.

I also take issue with the fact that, going by the wording of the email I received, he was effectively giving me only the options to either close my company or have my personal details exposed. I was clear in my previous emails that I was unsure I even wanted my company closed at all, but this did not seem to matter to him judging by his communication with me.

Luckily I was able to quickly change the company’s registered address to another and change the company authorisation code thereby locking him out from having any control over the company.

I then sent an email letting him know I had done this and instructed him that I had no longer authorised him to make any action on behalf of me or my company at all.

All I can say is good riddance. Originally when I made my next move, whether it was setting up as a sole trader or opening a new ltd company, I was going to stick with Coman&Co. Obviously that is not happening after this terrible experience. When I make my next move I will make use of a large professional accountancy firm. I will certainly pay a premium but now I know why! You get what you pay for.

Safe to say I did not enjoy my experience with this company and cannot recommend it.