Bennett Atkinson & Associates

My small business used Bennett/​Atkinson for bookkeeping and tax reporting services for the last two years. I also received Quickbooks instruction from an employee here. CAUTION: Most of the work done here is completed by a seemingly revolving door of «assistants» (not associates in the true sense of the word) who are not certified in Quickbooks and not closely monitored by the CPA’s. We were charged over $ 100 per hour (the «discounted» price) for Quickbooks instruction… later we were told by an Actual Accountant that the instruction I received was completely incorrect. Now I have to go back and re-​do several months of work. This was one of he many ways Bennett Atkinson has cost our business many times over what we paid for their inflated services. The various employees and CPA (Debbie) who handled the work repeatedly displayed a lack of attention to detail and straight-​up rudeness when my partner and I sought clarification or had concerns. This behavior culminated in Debbie Bennett forgetting to make a crucial journal entry on our books that resulted in a $ 100,000+ dollar mistake on our tax return. We immediately realized something was wrong, but despite bringing it up several times to Debbie we were shrugged off and given excuses such as «this is our busiest season» and «i don’t have time to explain this to you right now.» Not really any way to talk to a repeat customer paying a significant amount for tax services… Finally I was forced to take time out of running my business to make appointments and consult with several other CPA’s about the glaring mistake on our 2014 return. After they confirmed the mistake, I wrote an insistent email to Debbie bringing it to her attention. She responded contemptuously denying the mistake after first agreeing it had been made. This still made no sense to me, and I was further suspicious due to her flip-​flopping on the subject. Several weeks passed and as we were caught up in OUR busy season I received an email out of the blue from Debbie. This email confirming that I had been correct all along about the mistake. Too little too late at this point. We lost an important business loan as a result of the 2014 tax return displaying incorrect data about our business’ cashflow, and were now facing countless hours of lost time in figuring out how to fix this mistake, re-​signing paperwork, more meetings at Bennett/​Atkinson to discuss how to remedy the situation. We were not compensated in any way by the accounting firm, and I believe that was highly inappropriate and at the least they should have comp’d the cost of the first mistake tax return. I am taking to Unilocal now with my story not to receive any further compensation from Bennett/​Atkinson, but because my partner and I are still feeling the negative effects of our dealings with the firm. In this society that throws so many punches at small business owners as it is, having your financial health compromised by this firm who values quantity over quality shouldn’t have to be yet another one.