Trychydts in English

We started a new enterprise with Mum recently. If you are not an accountant, you definitely need one in Hungary. Tax law is far too complex to be understood by mundane people.

While mum was back to the States, I visited accounting portals and asked for tenders. Our “firm” is absolutely miniscule, we have no employees and very small circulation. We can take our bills and receipts to the accountant personally. In my letters, I emphasized these, and stressed that our first priority is cost effectiveness. The bids started to flow in.

It turned out that the realistic cost of this kind of job is between 5,000 to 10,000 HUF. We got plenty of good offers with slightly different conditions. That’s why I was astonished when some stated in their letters that the minimum cost — for which they are happy to do our accounting — is 22,000 HUF. Sometimes the offer contained payroll calculations for up to three employees. They obviously didn’t bother to read my letter. The winner was a guy, who stated that he is ready to take this job for a “realistic price”: 50,000 HUF.

Of course, it is a free market, but I also think that accounting is a sensitive business. I definitely expect my accountant to use my money the most effective way. Her salary is no exception. If she doesn’t know what the realistic price for that kind of job, then she is not a good accountant. If our company is too small for her, than she shouldn’t send an offer.

Maybe they hoped that I was silly enough to turn only to them, and ready to accept any kind of price. What I definitely do not want from an accountant is to regard me as an idiot.

The story doesn’t end here.

We had three really good offers, so we started with them first. Mum called the first one. She lived off the map, but in her letter she stated that she comes to Budapest frequently. On the phone she said that she would come to Budapest only on next week. Ahem. One out.

The second one presented herself at Mum’s one hour after the call. She was so drunk that she fell at the staircase, so she showed up with bleeding face. She was also working illegally, “mainly for the Chinese”, as she said. We decided we want someone who is sober and who can give us bills, otherwise we cannot write down her salary as an expense. Two out.

The third one lives twenty minutes from Mum, she has good sense of humor and two cats. She explained us everything clearly, she is ready to work via the Internet and she obviously has a lot of experience with small firms.

Now only one thing remains: to teach Mum doing remissions on our bank’s on-line banking system.