Hello all!
I was a small business owner and unfortunately my store has ceased trade due to lease running up. After 6 years of trading I entrusted my business partner and never really looked at our finances at the early commencement of the business as I was soley busy managing store operations. Now the business has ceased trading I have now discovered my business partner has been
a) laundering money through our business from their other businesses which they own.
b) siphoning money from our business account
c) misusing credit card for personal use & funding purchases for his other businesses
The even worse thing is our accountant is also one of the share holders. This partnership to me probably should've of been red flags but being a first time business owner I was naive and didn't know at the time as I would now.
So to go into a bit more on how our business is structured it is a 60/40 partnership, myself being the 40%. The other 60 is between 2 people. There are 2 directors within this company 1 being myself. The accountant as I mentioned above is one of the share holders. So everything is intertwined and very messy. The pickle I am in now is everytime I ask for financial documents which I know I am entitled to I get really aggressive responses. If it was any other non-related accountant I'm sure they would've happily given what I ask but in my instance no. I explained several times am I not entitled to the information I'm asking for what is within my rights as a director. Please note we pay the book keeper and an accountant who prepare all our financial documents a sum of $1100 & $1650 per quarter. I have spoken to my friends and they have said that is really really expensive services.
I hope I have explained my story enough and my cry is I'm sure I am not the only person in this situation and I really desperately need help as time is currently not on my side as the 7 year mark when "technically" documents and what not may be harder to obtain if they aren't already.
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