Intouch Accounting Avis 607

They submitted my tax return with the incorrect UTR, which resulted in penalties being imposed on me by HMRC. Chased InTouch weekly to get this resolved since it was their error; only resulting in lip service and no material action. The 'debt' due to their error has now been passed to a debt collection agency and I am being harassed daily for a non-existent debt due to Intouch's error, which has taken a severe toll on my health. Avoid like the plague.

I’ve been waiting 7 months for my Year End accounts and still nothing!!!
I’m now having to pay another accountant £450 to do them as they are due to be paid. This has already been paid for and is long overdue from yourselves. I am sick of chasing you guys!!!
I’ve filled a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman regarding your conduct and complete lack of service. Your mistakes in the past have resulted in bailiffs’ letter , HMRC fines and incorrect advice given in an effort to hide your own mistakes.
Your Directors clearly couldn’t careless, offers of 50% discounts for continued BAD service.
Since speaking to your director Daniel, the service has actually got even worse. What was the point of the phone call??? Your company has massive internal issues and you simply can’t deliver the service you charge for and neither can your parent company Brooksons one.
Appalling way to treat people, especially after 5 years of business from me.

Hello, can someone help me find my accountant Emma please? I’m about to be charged for another monthly fee and my accountant hasn’t replied to any phone calls or emails for two weeks. I’m no longer trading and trying to arrange for my cessation accounts, so every additional monthly fee I’m charged is a complete waste. Thank you.

I have been with InTouch accounting since 2017. They used to provide an excellent service. However a while ago they merged with Brookson, and have recently introduced a new accounting system. The new system is effectively unusable as I can no longer upload bank transactions. In addition Brookson/InTouch are now very difficult to work with, I have tried to contact them by email over the past few months. I am not getting any replies to my emails. I am very worried about my business accounts as they are getting more and more behind. I am considering transferring to another company, but am not sure what problems this will cause.
My advice would be please steer clear of Brookson/InTouch Accounting.

Just had a call with Stephen Dando my accountant to submit my Self Assessment Tax Return. He was fantastic. So patient with me, answering my many questions with clarity and empathy. Fabulous service. Stephen is an absolute diamond. I feel so relived now that I have completed this and could lot have done it without Stephen’s help. Thank you so much!

Our previous accountant left us in a muddle with our paper work side, and stephen at intouch has been fantastic from the minute they took over our accounts, sorted everything and nothing is ever a bother. Give him a phone or email, everything is done asap, Highly recommend

I've been with intouch since 2020.

Unfortunately the service levels have decreased year on year until it's virtually impossible to speak to an accountant without organising a meeting.

After emailing multiple times over a number of weeks there is no response and the phone number gets you to an answer phone that is full ... need i say more?

After a software migration process for their in house Portal i was left for Months without access to my business accounts which left me behind with my company accounts, I have now left Intouch accountancy for a smaller company who are more responsive and easier to contact.

Never answers the phone, rarely get a response from an email. Have been trying to contact for the last MONTH about our end of year and getting absolutely nowhere, it’s so unprofessional that you can send me an invoice yet don’t even have the decency to respond to any email for the whole month, what am I paying for?!

After being with this company for 7 years. I have just given notice. They started off well at the beginning but the last 4 years have been terrible. Lack of communication from accountant, receiving wage slips late repeatedly, end of year accounts filed at the last minute and for the past 4 months ended up paying PAYE tax late due to reminders not being sent!

Stephen is an absolute superstar, always so helpful with all of my queries!

Please look elsewhere for accountancy services. We signed up to this company for our small family run business and individual tax returns and I wish we hadn't. They were very happy taking their monthly fee but made huge mistakes with our tax returns (as confirmed by HMRC), missed deadlines for filing corporation tax returns, and now when we are trying to move on to a new firm are not responding to requests to send our files over. Incompetent and shoddy.

It pains me to write this review as I had previously experienced many excellent years with Intouch, following on from a previous stint with them for another company even further back.

However, in the last 18-24 months, everything has been going downhill and is showing no signs of recovering. There was suddenly a frequent change of personal accountant which indicates lots of departures (cost-cutting under the Brookson regime I wonder, and/or unhappy work environment from being overworked?!), which is a warning sign that I foolishly ignored as I was mostly self-sufficient for most of my accounting needs.

But when the time came to close my business, a time when I really needed their service to prepare the final accounts etc (a service which costs nearly a grand, I should add!!!), they finally revealed to me just how inept (and likely overworked) they had become.

There was even a change of accountant right at the moment I engaged them for the company closure process, which seemed to add further confusion and delay to the whole process (due in part to some incorrect/confusing advice given to me by the departing accountant).

I battled with my accountant for months and months and months to understand when the mythical final accounts would finally be ready, eventually resorting to raising a formal complaint with Brookson, the parent company, as a last resort.

Finally, a mere 5 days before my returns were due (after which point I would face financial penalties from HMRC), did the accounts finally arrive and disaster averted with HMRC.

The last 9 months have been a hugely stressful experience and so regrettably I am now forced to recommend to all that Intouch, and by extension Brookson, are companies to be avoided at all costs.

I'm not happy in writing such a scathing review as they were great previously, but these days, they are beyond woeful and cannot be recommended for any reason.

5 years ago I would have given Intouch 5 stars. While the online platform was never fancy, it did the job very well. You knew where you stood financially and where you stood with your tax obligations. With that, the accountant I started with was excellent, highly personable, and made me feel confident and secure regarding money matters.
Since the first accountant left Intouch I've been assigned 3 others in the past 3 years. None of whom were bad at their jobs, but with each new accountant came a loss of context regarding my situation which meant there was always some catch up to conduct. However, in the last 9-12 months, service did feel like it took a significant drop where communication was very far from personable. The final kicker was when Intouch forced its customers to move from their (basic but usable) online platform to the Brookson platform. As an IT professional I was in disbelief. It is quite possibly the least useful tool I've encountered in many years. It left me confused, frustrated, and most importantly, it left me totally blind about my financial position and what my tax liabilities were. For those reasons I've recently switched to a new accountant.

Intouch were recommended by a business friend who has also used them. Our first accountant was good - not great, but good. We knew where we stood and having moved from other accountants, she had made the process seamless. She left. We were allocated a new accountant and still, 12 months on, she has never introduced herself. Emails go unanswered, or answered by an administrator. Emails are now completely ignored, requests from third parties ignored, completely incompetent.

Thanks to the Intouch team for their support over the years. I wasn’t previously aware of their financial services team who have recently saved me a significant amount in my mortgage.

Updated: Nov 2024
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I just wanted to update here that Intouch has Definately listened to customers feedback. The phone system has improvements. They have also listened to my concerns regarding portal and moved to a different portal. Corp tax has been submitted on time. Things are not 100% but things are looking up. Please keep improving Intouch ( Revised my rating to 4 star from 1). Will prob review in few months again.

Original Feedback ( 20 Sep 2024):
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I have been intouch customer for over 6 years. Its never been excellent but have provided sufficient services to complete the tasks at hand. Since 2024 the services have nose dived to a level of NO SERVICE. I repeat company does not provide any service however they don't forget to charge 151£ every month. Six of my last emails have not been replied. Many times I tried to call but calls not picked up. I don't know what to do now as my HMRC deadlines very near. I want to change my accountant now but these lot will probably not make that easy. The new system is absolutely rubbish and useless with no features. I fail to understand why someone would throw a running business down the drain like this. Its absolute madness. I am looking for ways to report this company and also collecting evidence for their sheer incompetence.

I would say that the service was awful and I was about to move away from them but then I was provided services by Shaunie and now she is contact point for me. Support and advise that I get from her is superb ie 5 stars. Thanks Shaunie for the wonderful support. It is much appreciated

I've had some issues with this business but they've really listened, and acted on my feedback!

I wrote this review a few months ago:

‘Genuinely astonishingly awful. Shoddy communication, repeatedly late filings…they can’t even manage their own Direct Debits and have repeatedly taken the wrong amounts as payments. The levels of incompetence and poor attention to detail are astounding.

‘Wendy, who onboards you, is absolutely wonderful. Everything after that is dire. Interactions with the accountants have a distinctly Kafkaesque quality. I’ve been with them for nine months and it’s been horrible.

‘Your accounts will end up an unholy mess, HMRC will hound you and InTouch will provide neither explanation or apology, whilst taking double payments from your accounts. Avoid at all costs. You’d be better off with an abacus and a good wind.’

I should have left then, but was heavily pregnant at the time and thought ‘what more harm can they do while I’m not even trading?’

They have since failed to file my company accounts (my ‘personal accountant’ Tony Evans just explained that it’s not actually his job to do my accounting and that they don’t have the resources to do things like file accounts before the deadline). They’ve also fudged my corporation tax. I’m genuinely scared as to the mess my company accounts has become. Don’t be me. Avoid these charlatans.