Dear Colleagues,
Seeing a lot of mails on bogus firms, fee for tax audit, appeal to seniors for outsourcing work to juniors, withdrawal of bank audits etc, I thought I should air some of my thoughts and views on above.
Friends, it is a time for some introspection. Why all these happening? It is easy to blame RBI, ICAI, Seniors, Dummy CA’s etc. But in my opinion, the faults lie within us only. We, the Chartered Accountants only destroyed our profession.
It is by 2 counts:
(1) Deterioration of quality of our work and service delivery
(2) Our inability to say ‘No’ when we should say ‘No’
Before throwing brickbats on me, I request you to read through this mail in full.
Everybody, including us, know the quality of Chartered Accountants has gone down. Why? I have seen my seniors who are very strict, quality conscious, professional and above all, they had the courage to demand fees which they get. But the new generation seen opposite. (I am not old, I am in practice for the last 12 years only). Now, we do not have that confidence to demand fee because, we are not confident of the quality of our service. If we want to say that this is the work I have done and this is the fee I need, first of all, we should be confident about what we have done and what we are asking for.
If we need that confidence, we need to execute the work that way. We should be upto date with laws and regulations, institute pronouncements etc. Importantly, we should apply the same in our work. If it something is against law, tell the client that it is. Do not hide anything. Encourage your client to disclose full details, pay whatever tax due. And say NO when you find something which is unacceptable to your professional standards.
Not only the execution, but you should demonstrate to the client the way you do the work professionally. This is not by any lectures to the client. Your office, dress code, your dealings with the clients, interaction of your staff with your clients, how you involve your staff in the work, maintenance of files, maintenance of working papers, (fill up a check list, fill up a list of audit queries and when the clients come for final discussion, you open that file, clear all the queries referring to the checklists), presentation in the final accounts, the way you give them the signed copies (are you just giving 4 or 5 pages of printout or are you giving the same, neatly printed, with sufficient number of copies, with a covering letter and in a folder with your firm name on the top, together with a printed bill in duplicate). Then, always give a bill and accept the payment only by cheque (as far as possible), issue a receipt for the amount received then and there. Always give audit queries in writing and get the management representation. (You may have to help the client to prepare the same!).
Always remember the words of Shiv Khera: “ Winners do things differently”.
There will be instances when clients say that Mr. So and So is charging less fee etc. You say, “Okay, let he charge lower fee. They charge for what they gave and I charge for what I give. The quality is different. You will get tea from a street vendor for Rs. 5/-. You can also get a tea from a Five Star Hotel for Rs. 75/-. But if your stomach is upset because of the tea, you cannot go back to the street vendor. Either he will not be there or he will shout such a way that, you will think that the fault is with you. But you can anytime go back ask the 5 star hotel about the deficiency in service, or at least you can sue them.”
The choice is with client. BUT, the Quality should be different. If you give a better service, client will come to you, by paying that extra for that extra value addition. This is from my experience.
In the short run, you may lose 2 or 3 clients. Don’t bother. You will get good clients who are good paymasters at the same time, we will be having less risk of signing. Whoever sticks on with you, will be good clients only. Do not try to earn easy bucks. Stick on to quality, stick on to professionalism, stick on to ethics, stick on to principles; you will be the ultimate winner. Please remember, success will not come overnight. Plan + hard work = success.
Why RBI does not have confidence in us? I have seen Chartered Accountants signing balance sheets of 3 branches in two days. What kind of audit is that? Can you sign the balance sheet of a branch without verifying at least the basics? In my opinion, if yourself and 2 of your reasonably experienced staff do the work, it will take at least 6 days to complete a small branch of say 25 crores advance. That means 18 man days. If you get 3 branches, you should get ready for that much time. Without this effort, if we start signing the balance sheet in one day’s time, RBI or to that matter any regulator will think why such an audit be done. You are not contributing anything or you are not adding any value. So why should the bank pay you? Why are you afraid of the Regional Manager and his deadline? You should co-operate with the bank for timely completion of the audit. But that does not mean that you should dilute your quality. After all, we are appointed to audit and not merely putting a signature. And we are getting the audit fee from the public money and we are answerable to public only; not to the Regional Manager of a bank.
The same is the case of IT Department also. How many assessments are made where there are a lot of disallowances, which the tax auditor has failed to detect and qualify? If your audit report is not helping the Assessing Officer to do the assessment, then, what is the use of the audit?
Ultimately, everything boils down to one thing. How we see ourselves? How do we do our duty?
As Swami Vivekananda said: “Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think yourself strong, strong you will be.”
We are Chartered Accountants, one of the noblest professions in the world. We have passed one of the toughest examinations in the world. We are authorised to certify the accounts and nobody else is so authorised by the law. If we do not certify, the clients has no other go.
So who are our enemies? It is only us, the Chartered Accountants. If we are not getting adequate fee, either it because of our low quality or some of our brothers, another Chartered Accountant is ready to sell himself cheap. If Govt does not trust us, it is only our own fault.
There is nothing in this world which cannot be won by hard work and dedication. As Gita says, Do your duty, your rewards will follow.
You earn your fee! Do not simply collect it!
CAclubindia
