Overcharged for Subpar Service

We have had a really bad experience with Cloudworx Accounting in Cape Town. We started our first business a few years ago and went on board with Cloudworx as our accounting firm. Initially, Cloudworx helped us out with a reduced monthly subscription to get us going. We appreciated this but, we were naive back then and what we didn't know was that when we started paying the full subscription amount they were highly overcharging us. Apparently, the reason for this was that we had a 'unique requirement' and I found out that we were paying more than other larger companies. This is what the CEO told me himself. To put our situation in perspective, we were a tiny agency with two people working from home barely being able to pay ourselves a normal salary. I don't see why we needed 'unique requirements' when we could have brought down costs instead. I know now that we never needed this. On top of this, we found out that for an entire year, we were paying for a Premium Xero plan when we didn't need to. There were so many mistakes made by Cloudworx while we were one of their clients. Just some of them: Our Proviosnal Tax was miscalculated resulting in us having to pay a huge amount for the Provisional Tax period when we did not need to, a director was never registered for Personal Income Tax when they were supposed to, and the kicker - our Annual Financial Statements were completely overlooked and never submitted to SARS meaning that they weren't even keeping us compliant, one of the most basic jobs of an accountant. And all this, while they were charging us a huge monthly subscription amount which was always taken perfectly on time with no hassle. Through all of this they never once sat down with us and had a chat about how we could bring down general costs.

The worst of all is how badly I was treated by the CEO once we decided to move to another Accounting firm. He was really not accommodating and being passive-aggressive towards me when asking him to facilitate the handover. I feel that this company and the CEO think that they are better than the rest and that's how they can justify these prices. (That's my opinion) I can tell you they aren't. I was told by the CEO in a conversation about us leaving their firm, that if we do move, the other company will do 'half a job'. Well, I can tell you that it was the best decision we have made in the history of our small business. At a fraction of the price of Cloudworx, we have had so much more. We have brought costs down dramatically and actually put a strategy in place going forward.

This has been my experience with Cloudworx and I needed to share it.