If you are looking for an accountant for your small business who is extremely organized, responsive to your calls, accurate, completes important projects on time, keeps his appointments, and maintains confidentiality of your business concerns, then don't hire Robin Wentzel.
I made the mistake of hiring this accounting firm and after 1 year and thousands of dollars paid, this is result:
1. Not one monthly reconciliation report... because many items are left unreconciled.
A/R items not reconciled. Even though he took my entire yearly file and charged me some unholy hourly rates to scan every page, he did not reconcile those items that are scanned. This is the main reason I have an accountant-- so I can be on top of who owes me money and know if I am getting paid for my work. Such a major fail. When I ask RW about the A/R, he said yes that is part of the daily entry work they do for me. Except none of it has been done!
2. File transfer from QB to Xero not completed in full. Several months of data are still missing. This transfer took 4 months to complete for some reason and then this was the result.
3. Tax returns completed 2 months later than agreed date and with ERRORS. When I brought the errors to Robin's attention and asked him to correct and refile. What did I get? No response. Yes I'm saying he made such gross errors that it needs to be refiled and he does not even reply after I informed him of this. That is irresponsible beyond belief!
4. GET taxes filed months late and only after many, many requests. He actually argued with me that that was not within his "scope" for a few days before he finally read our contract and agreed that it was his job as a small biz accountant to complete this basic function. Then completed it with errors. And I don't mean small.. I mean way off like he doesn't understand what he is doing. He had to redo that, but I'm still not confident that this is accurate. Who has to pay those late penalties? Yep I do.
5. Missed appointments and return calls. When Robin Wentzel tells you he'll call you back tomorrow, don't believe him. He's not big on apologies or admitting that he's made a mistake or trying to correct it.
6. Almost all my income is miscategorised. There are only 3 categories and very consistent in the sources so there is no reason for this careless negligence. These miscategorizations will cause me to pay much higher taxes than I should if not corrected.
7. Tried to double my rates mid year. When we met I told him very clearly what my priorities were and my budget. He never completed that priority work (tax filings and A/R) and then wants more and more money. If he actually had my books in order and could run a report he could see that the rate he was trying to gouge from me was not in my budget. And if he actually bothered to read the scope of his own contract, he would recognize that he owes me money for work not completed.
8. I can no longer run reports because this file is such a mess.
9. Lack of confidentiality. I had to ask Robin to keep my business information confidential because another business owner told me he was talking about my setup to them. I've had to listen to him talk about his other clients on many occasions as well. (Hello chocolate company on Maui!) His response "Of course!" as if it was a given that he would keep my info confidential, and as it should be. But he continued with his gossip every time we met.
I chose Robin Wentzel because he was Xero certified, but beware because Xero does not endorse or screen those listed on their site for competence. It doesn't seem possible that someone could really do this bad of a job, but none of this is exaggerated. The guy actually does not even respond to any calls or messages from me and hasn't for the last 3 months of our contract. I can see that no one from his firm has even logged into my file in months. Really? Just run away? Don't even pretend to try to complete the work I have paid you for or correct the numerous errors you have made? That's low.
The bottom line is that Robin Wentzel thinks his time is more valuable than yours... and he's extremely disorganized, and just sucks at his job. I wish I had not given it an entire year. I just really wanted to make this work, but my small business has actually taken a step backward in accounting because of the incompetence of this person. Before RW I could at least run some basic reports. I'm sorry to small business in Hawaii because it is hard to find someone reliable. I have gotten the help of someone at a very reasonable hourly rate in my office and we have gotten more done in a month than this CPA has done in a year. The clean up has just begun.
One thing I can tell you if you are a small biz owner, always own your own accounting file. Never let any accountant be the master administrator of your file. You buy the software or plan, you control who read more