Terms of Business

Go Accounting and Business Ltd (trading as GAAB) is registered in England and Wales. The following business terms apply to all engagements accepted by Go Accounting and Business Ltd. All work is carried out under these terms except where changes are expressly agreed upon in writing.

1. Applicable Law

1.1. Our engagement letter, the schedules of services and our standard terms and conditions of business are governed by and should be construed in accordance with English law. Each party agrees that the courts of England will have exclusive jurisdiction in relation to any claim, dispute or difference concerning this engagement letter and any matter arising from it on any basis.

1.2. We will not accept responsibility if you act on advice previously given by us without confirming with us that the advice is still valid considering any change in the law or your circumstances. We will accept no liability for losses arising from changes in the law, or the interpretation thereof, that occur after the date on which the advice is given.

2. Client Identification

2.1. As with other professional services firms, we must identify our clients for the purposes of UK anti-money laundering legislation. We may request from you and retain such information and documentation as we require for these purposes and/or make searches of appropriate databases. If we are not able to obtain satisfactory evidence of your identity, we will not be able to proceed with the engagement.

3. Clients’ Money

3.1. We may, from time to time, hold money on your behalf. The money will be held in trust in a client bank account, which is segregated from the firm’s funds. The account will be operated, and all funds dealt with, in accordance with applicable professional regulations.

3.2. To avoid excessive administration, interest will only be paid to you if the amount earned on the balances held on your behalf in any calendar year exceeds £100.00. Subject to any tax legislation, interest will be paid gross.

3.3. We will return monies held on your behalf promptly, as soon as there is no longer any reason to retain those funds.

4. Commissions & Other Benefits

4.1. In some cases, we may receive commissions or other benefits from third parties in connection with services we provide to you. If this happens, we will notify you in writing within three months of the amount and terms of payment and receipt of any such commissions or benefits. You agree that we can retain the commission or other benefits without being liable to account to you for any such amounts.

5. Confidentiality

5.1. Unless we are authorised by you to disclose information on your behalf, we confirm that if you give us confidential information we will, at all times during and after this engagement, keep it confidential, except as required by law or as provided for in regulatory, ethical or other professional pronouncements applicable to us or our engagement.

5.2. You agree that, if we act for other clients who are or who become your competitors, to comply with our duty of confidentiality it will be sufficient for us to take such steps as we think appropriate to preserve the confidentiality of information given to us by you, both during and after this engagement.

5.3. We may, on occasions, subcontract work on your affairs to other tax or accounting professionals. The subcontractors will be bound by our client confidentiality terms.

5.4. Where we use external and cloud-based systems, we will ensure confidentiality of your information is maintained.

6. Conflicts of Interest

6.1. We will inform you if we become aware of any conflict of interest in our relationship with you or in our relationship with you and another client, unless we are unable to do so because of our confidentiality obligations.

6.2. If there is a conflict of interest that is capable of being addressed successfully by the adoption of suitable safeguards to protect your interests, we will adopt those safeguards. During and after our engagement, you agree that we reserve the right to act for other clients whose interests are or may compete with or be adverse to yours, subject to our obligations of confidentiality.

7. Data Protection

7.1. In this clause, “data protection legislation” means all applicable privacy and data protection legislation and regulations including PECR, the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, and any applicable national laws, regulations and secondary legislation in the UK relating to the processing of personal data and the privacy of electronic communications, as amended, replaced or updated from time to time.

7.2. We shall each be considered an independent data controller in relation to the client personal data. Each of us will comply with all requirements and obligations applicable to us under the data protection legislation in respect of the client personal data.

7.3. You shall only disclose client personal data to us where you have provided the necessary information to the relevant data subjects regarding its use, you have a lawful basis upon which to do so, and you have complied with the necessary requirements under the data protection legislation to enable you to do so.

7.4. We shall only process the client personal data in order to provide our services to you, to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations, and where it is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests and those interests are not overridden by the data subjects’ own privacy rights.

7.5. We shall maintain commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures, including administrative, physical and technical safeguards, to protect against unauthorised or unlawful processing of the client personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, the client personal data.

8. Proceeds of Crime & Anti-Money Laundering

8.1. The firm is required by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (as amended) to maintain identification procedures for clients and beneficial owners of clients, maintain records of identification evidence and the work undertaken for the client, and report in accordance with the relevant legislation and regulations.

8.2. We have a duty under section 330 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to report to the National Crime Agency (NCA) if we know, or have reasonable cause to suspect, that another person is involved in money laundering. Failure on our part to make a report where we have knowledge or reasonable grounds for suspicion would constitute a criminal offence.

8.3. We are obliged by law to report any instances of money laundering to the NCA without your knowledge or consent. In consequence, neither the firm’s directors nor staff may enter into any correspondence or discussions with you regarding such matters.

9. Disengagement

9.1. If we resign or are asked to resign, we will usually issue a disengagement letter to ensure that our respective responsibilities are clear.

9.2. If we have no contact with you for a period of 12 months or more, we may issue to your last known address a disengagement letter and thereafter cease to act.

9.3. It is at our discretion to terminate our engagement under any circumstances we deem appropriate.

10. Electronic & Other Communication

10.1. Unless you instruct us otherwise, we may, if appropriate, communicate with you and with third parties by email or other electronic means. The recipient is responsible for virus checking emails and any attachments.

10.2. With electronic communication, there is a risk of non-receipt, delayed receipt, inadvertent misdirection or interception by third parties. We use virus-scanning software to reduce the risk of viruses and similar damaging items being transmitted in emails or by electronic storage devices. Nevertheless, electronic communication is not totally secure and we cannot be held responsible for damage or loss caused by viruses or for communications which are corrupted or altered after dispatch.

10.3. Any communication by us with you sent through the postal system is deemed to arrive at your postal address two working days after the day the document was sent.

11. Fees & Payment Terms

11.1. Our fees may depend not only upon the time spent on your affairs but also on the level of skill and responsibility and the importance and value of the advice we provide, as well as the level of risk.

11.2. If we provide you with an estimate of our fees for any specific work, the estimate will not be contractually binding unless we explicitly state that will be the case.

11.3. If requested, we may indicate a fixed fee for the provision of specific services or an indicative range of fees for a particular assignment. If it becomes apparent to us, due to unforeseen circumstances, that a fee quote is inadequate, we reserve the right to notify you of a revised figure and to seek your agreement thereto.

11.4. We will bill upon completion of the work and our invoices are due for payment on the due date as shown on the invoice. Our fees are exclusive of VAT which will be added where it is chargeable. Any disbursements we incur on your behalf, and expenses incurred in the course of carrying out our work for you, will be added to our invoices where appropriate.

11.5. We reserve the right to charge interest on late paid invoices at the rate of 8% above bank base rates under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. We also reserve the right to suspend our services or to cease to act for you, having given written notice, if payment of any fees is unduly delayed.

11.6. If you do not accept that an invoiced fee is fair and reasonable, you must notify us within 14 days of receipt, failing which, you will be deemed to have accepted that payment is due.

12. Limitation of Liability

12.1. We will provide services as outlined in the engagement letter and will not be liable for any loss, damage or expense arising from your failure to supply accurate and complete information or from any errors in such information.

12.2. You will not hold us, our directors and staff, responsible, to the fullest extent permitted by law, for any loss suffered by you arising from any misrepresentation (intentional or unintentional) supplied to us orally or in writing in connection with this agreement. You have agreed that you will not bring any claim in connection with services we provide to you against any of our directors or employees personally.

12.3. Our work is not, unless there is a legal or regulatory requirement, to be made available to third parties without our written permission and we will accept no responsibility to third parties for any aspect of our professional services or work that is made available to them.

12.4. As part of your engagement with this firm, you agree that this firm’s aggregate liability, whether to you or any other party, of whatever nature, whether in contract, tort or otherwise, for any losses whatsoever and howsoever caused arising from or in any way connected with this engagement shall not exceed twenty times the gross fees received by the firm in the previous 12 months prior to any claim being received.

13. Timing of Our Services

13.1. If you provide us with all information and explanations on a timely basis in accordance with our requirements, we will plan to undertake the work within a reasonable period of time to meet any regulatory deadlines. However, failure to complete our services before any such regulatory deadline would not, of itself, constitute a breach of our agreement if we have not been provided with all relevant information within agreed timescales.

14. Help Us Give You the Best Service

14.1. We are committed to providing you with a high-quality service that is both efficient and effective. If at any point you would like to discuss how our service to you could be improved, or if you are dissatisfied with the service you are receiving, please let us know by contacting us at info@gaab.co.uk or by calling 0161 820 8228.

14.2. We will consider carefully any complaint you may make about our service as soon as we receive it and do all we can to explain the position to you. We will acknowledge your correspondence within five business days of its receipt and endeavour to deal with your complaint within eight weeks.

15. Intellectual Property Rights

15.1. We will retain all intellectual property rights in any document prepared by us during the course of carrying out the engagement except where the law specifically states otherwise.

15.2. You are not permitted to use our name in any statement or document you may issue unless our prior written consent has been obtained. The only exception to this restriction would be statements or documents that, in accordance with applicable law, are to be made public.

16. Interpretation

16.1. If any provision of our engagement letter or terms of business is held to be void, that provision will be deemed not to form part of this contract. In the event of any conflict between these terms of business and the engagement letter or appendices, the relevant provision in the engagement letter or schedules will take precedence.

17. Internal Disputes Within a Client

17.1. If we become aware of a dispute between the parties who own the business or who are in some way involved in its ownership and management, it should be noted that our client is the business and we would not provide information or services to one party without the express knowledge and permission of all parties.

18. Lien

18.1. Insofar as we are permitted to do so by law or by professional guidelines, we reserve the right to exercise a lien over all funds, documents and records in our possession relating to all engagements for you until all outstanding fees and disbursements are paid in full.

19. Period of Engagement & Termination

19.1. Unless otherwise agreed in our engagement letter, our work will begin when we receive implicit or explicit acceptance of that letter. Except as stated in that letter, we will not be responsible for periods before that date.

19.2. Each of us may terminate our agreement by giving not less than 3 months’ notice in writing to the other party, except if you fail to co-operate with us or we have reason to believe that you have provided us, Companies House or HMRC with misleading information, in which case we may terminate this agreement immediately. Termination will be without prejudice to any rights that may have accrued to either of us before termination.

19.3. We reserve the right to terminate the engagement between us with immediate effect in the event of: your insolvency, bankruptcy or other arrangement being reached with creditors; a change in the law which means we can no longer act; failure to pay our fees by the due dates; or either party being in breach of their obligations if this is not corrected within 30 days of being asked to do so.

20. Professional Rules & Statutory Obligations

20.1. We will observe and act in accordance with applicable professional regulations and codes of ethics. In particular you give us the authority to correct errors made by HMRC if we become aware of them. We will not be liable for any loss, damage or cost arising from our compliance with statutory or regulatory obligations.

21. Quality Control

21.1. As part of our ongoing commitment to provide a quality service, our files are periodically reviewed. These reviewers are highly experienced professionals and are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as our directors and staff.

21.2. When dealing with HMRC on your behalf we are required to be honest and to take reasonable care to ensure that your returns are correct. To enable us to do this, you are required to be honest with us and to provide us with all necessary information in a timely manner.

22. Retention of Papers

22.1. You have a legal responsibility to retain documents and records relevant to your financial affairs. During the course of our work we may collect information from you and others relevant to your tax and financial affairs. We will return any original documents to you if requested. Documents and records relevant to your tax affairs are required by law to be retained as follows:

• Individuals, trustees and partnerships: with trading or rental income — five years and 10 months after the end of the tax year; otherwise — 22 months after the end of the tax year.
• Companies, LLPs, and other corporate entities: six years from the end of the accounting period.

22.2. Although certain documents may legally belong to you, we may destroy correspondence and other papers that we store electronically or otherwise that are more than seven years old, except documents we think may be of continuing significance. You must tell us if you wish us to keep any document for any longer period.