Partnership · Accountancy and tax firms
We take over, on the client’s side, the collection of supporting documents, the invoicing and the chasing. Your team receives files that are ready to work on, on the agreed date, without anyone running after a receipt. Two arrangements: you recommend us, or you subcontract to us.
First conversation, no charge
Twenty minutes, by video or at your offices. Answer within one working day.
Your mail application should open with the message below. If it does not, copy the text and send it to jcgm@actonbrotherslondon.com.
Upstream of your work
The part of the work your firm carries out and rarely bills.
A client whose invoicing is in order is a client whose accounts are in order.
So that a reminder from you is a rarity, not a routine.
Two arrangements
The simplest arrangement, and the easiest to explain to a professional body.
This is the arrangement we suggest to begin with. Nothing changes in your billing, and your independence is plain to see for anyone who asks.
When the firm prefers to remain the client’s only contact, and to bill the work at its own price.
Either way, bookkeeping, review, statutory accounts and advice stay with the firm. We work upstream, on the documents and on the client’s administration.
What a firm needs to be able to tell its client before pointing anyone our way.
Our monthly packages run from 390 to 1 190 euros depending on the volume of documents handled, plus a 450 euro set up fee that covers catching up the existing backlog. The full schedule fits on one page and we will send it to you on request.
Getting started
01
By video or at your offices. You describe the client profiles that take up the most of your team’s time, we say plainly where we are useful and where we are not.
02
Scope, arrangement, confidentiality, and who answers for what. Two pages, which your professional body can read without discomfort.
03
We start with a single client, the one who causes you the most chasing. Three months later you have the answer, and it costs you nothing to stop there.
Who you deal with
Jean-Christian Girerd runs Acton Brothers Ltd and its subsidiary Djeeling Group, with a team and local contacts in each of our cities. He works between London, Paris and Brussels, in French and in English.
Discretion is part of the service: a file stays between us and the advisers it calls for, and nothing leaves that circle.
Your firm has one named contact, who knows every file you have entrusted to us, from end to end.
Frequently asked questions
No. Bookkeeping, review, statutory accounts, tax returns and advice stay with the firm. We work upstream, on the client’s documents and administration, and we hand you the file.
Those whose backlog is administrative, not financial. A client who has stopped paying their suppliers will not pay our retainer either, and the recommendation would rebound on the firm. We say so before the first meeting rather than after, and we check it at the scoping stage.
Not by a commission, and we do not offer one: the profession’s codes of conduct forbid an accountant from receiving commissions or brokerage. The firm is paid elsewhere, and lawfully. Under subcontracting you bill your client at the price you set and you keep the margin on the work we carry out for you: the engagement is yours and you answer for it. Under recommendation you receive nothing from us, but our own clients looking for an accountant are pointed to you.
Documents reach us from the client, or from the firm with the client’s written agreement. A confidentiality agreement is signed before any access is granted, with named access you can withdraw at any time. Nothing is kept once the engagement ends, other than where the law requires.
We answer for our own work, within the limits set by the agreement. The firm keeps responsibility for its own engagements. The agreement says so in plain words, before anything starts.
Self-employed professionals, small and medium businesses, and company directors whose documents arrive late, incomplete, or in a carrier bag. In other words, the clients your team spends the most unbilled time on.
Yes. Twenty minutes, by video or in person, with the agreement handed round so that everyone can read it. We can also do it for a single firm and its team.
Next step
Monday to Friday, 9am to 7pm (Paris time)
