Easily Spooked? Accountant horror stories (Part 2)

You must be made of steel if you’re coming back for even more scary stories. In Part 2, brace yourself to hear tales of missing data, haunting tax ghosts, and software that will give you the spooks.

If you missed part one, you can check it out here.

The mystery of the missing payroll data

Three months into his new job as a payroll processor at a busy start-up company in London, Robert was making a good impression. He ran a tight ship when it came to making sure employees were paid on time, every time.

On one busy afternoon, Robert noticed his computer was acting strange. He decided to restart it, but when the system rebooted and he reopened the payroll software, he was spooked when he couldn’t find the file he was working on five minutes prior to it. Panicking, he alerted his boss.

How did this happen? Well, the week before, Robert clicked on an email and downloaded important documents he thought were from an employee, but were actually a form of malware. Unbeknownst to him, the malware ran rampant through his computer, corrupting his software and leaking data to unauthorised users.

This poses the question of just how safe your clients’ payroll data is when almost everything stored on PCs is accessible at our fingertips? Robert wanted to make sure that this would never happen again, and convinced his boss to get a cloud-extension to his payroll software that automatically backed up the payroll data to the cloud. Now, employees’ payroll data is backed up and stored away securely every 15 minutes, fully restorable at any time.

The accountant that was haunted by taxes

While we all love having the wits scared out of us now and again, Frank had fears that hit a little too close to home. He struggled with nightmares about making mistakes at work, and like many accountants, he stored a lot of his information on either a USB stick or a folder on his PC. It was a scattered and unorganised method, but hey, it worked for him. One dark and gloomy evening, his nightmare became a reality – one of his biggest clients rang to say that they had paid the wrong amount of taxes to HMRC. Frank stopped in his tracks; surely the client’s tax was done correctly? He frantically looked around the office for the client’s files as evidence, but they were nowhere to be found. Without the physical evidence in front of him, belief alone just didn’t cut it.

Frank ended up losing that client. From that moment on, he knew his practice needed a big change. He heard about AccountancyManager – an award-winning practice management software and decided to give it a go. After all, it tracked all staff and client activity – from which tasks have been assigned to their progress, and when clients have opened emails. It was exactly what Frank needed. Nowadays, his firm runs like a dream. Frank knows exactly who is working on what and when, with full guarantee that his practice has followed the correct procedures every step of the way.

Comfort over cloud?

In March of 2021, James, just like every accountant, was busy getting ready for the tax season deadline. He was feeling on top of things, as most of his clients’ paperwork was ready to be submitted. Unfortunately, one late evening, James’ accounting software suddenly crashed. In a panic, he shut his computer down and turned it on again, only to find all of his client work and data had suddenly vanished. James had been using this accounting software for the last 15 years. He knew the desktop package was a bit outdated, but it never bothered him. Unfortunately, this decision cost him dearly. He never saved any of his clients’ data onto the many external hard drives around the office, and all the progress he made on his clients’ returns disappeared.

It’s easy to get comfortable with what you know. However, if James considered a more modern and secure cloud accounting software package such as Surf Accounts Production that stored his data securely in the cloud, he could’ve avoided this mess (and the sleepless nights that followed re-doing all of his work).

The tax season thriller

For many people, the end of Halloween marks the beginning of winter; frosty mornings, darker evenings, with the anticipation of Christmas in the air. For accountants, it only means one thing – tax season. With only a handful of clients when he first started out, Sam managed just fine with spreadsheets and online filing. However, things spiralled over the years, with countless sleepless nights spent on his PC, frantically scrambling for client files. Sam was under a lot of pressure to meet his clients’ tax return deadlines, but with such a small team, some could easily slip through the cracks.

He knew something had to change. It was Halloween night of 2019 when Sam was browsing on his phone, and stumbled across something that chased the demons from the shadows. He found a tool that could save him 25 minutes per client with trial balance mapping. Was he dreaming, or was this his ghostly accounting ancestors guiding him? Either way, it came in the form of tax compliance software, more specifically, BTCSoftware. Since he began using it in his practice, Sam no longer worries about forgetting key dates – his tax software reminds him of any upcoming deadlines. He now sleeps soundly during tax season, with all of his nightmares put to rest.

Avoid scary situations in your practice with Bright’s accounting solutions, including payroll, bookkeeping, accounts production, practice management and tax compliance software. Book a demo today to find out more.

This content may have been developed with the assistance of AI tools. Content is reviewed by a member of the Bright team before publication. Guidance on legislation can be obtained from your industry body.