Bookkeeper holding Financial info hostage??? Advice please

[Shane H.]

-->> My own disclaimer - I understand any replies/comments etc are not legal, tax or financial advice and I should seek out my own professionals and hold anyone responding harmless

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So cliff's notes version - I am an owner in an Assisted Living business - we do just over 6 figures in revenue per month - so not gigantic but nothing to sneeze at either - When I bought the business fall 2017 I found a local bookkeeper that had her own business managing books and outsourcing payroll - she did great - we hummed along and middle to late summer 2018 she completely changed her business focus and I started having problems with her follow through - work was getting done and payroll was completed on time so we moved on as I wasnt ready for the stress of moving to another bookkeeper.  

(For those that ask why not hire in house - I just dont have the scale YET to hire our own in house - when I get another facility up and going i will - as I want to pay someone doing the books well so I get someone good)

Anyways Jan 2019 through 1 of my former staff and 1 present staff when they went to do their taxes we found out the bookkeeper screwed up on withholding for these staff and it may cost me around $5k or more - we also found other mistakes recently like sending out payroll deductions (garnishments) on an employee who was on our payroll but hadn't worked for us in 3 mos since they had a child and were  on a leave of absence.  And the last 2-3 mos if you even wanted to talk to her you had to use an app to schedule a call - if I ever called I was always sent to voicemail and my text messages were hardly returned.  We paid her over $18k in fees last year.  

So I found someone else local that is a larger company and let her know via email that I was switching accountants and that I'd be happy to pay her for her time in getting things switched over - wrote in the email even praising her for what she did when she came on board with  us etc - ABSOLUTELY nothing negative

Fast forward to today - she deleted all of our prior payroll information and wont give us access - has not fully deleted herself out of our QBO and in my eyes is holding it hostage and then hit my bank account for an ACH yesterday for nearly $200 with no invoice or explanation for what the charge was for then sent me what I am seeing as an extortion demand for $750 for her to talk to my new accountant on the phone about transitioning next week 2 days before our next paychecks are to be issued.  (I told her today I was perfectly fine with paying the $750 however after the transition was completed and information handed over - she said she was canceling our call we had set up and she would do nothing until I paid first).

Complete bs and low brow move and completely shows her true character.  I have practiced EXTREME constraint today and wish I could show her text messages and snarky emails - I learned a long time ago that when dealing with people like this if you get angry in your responses it only eggs them on even more so I've been taking the "more bees with honey approach" but it's not working very well.

Does anyone have any advice?  I am getting nowhere with Quickbooks - they will not release our account all the way to me even though I'm not a master admin - since the bookkeeper did not release me from her wholesale billing account I cant "delete" her off of our QB access and QB says there is nothing I can do - seems to be crap since that is my information I paid for.

Tsheets worked fine with me and she did release some of the other apps we used for automation to us but this one she is leaving half done in my mind to hold me hostage - I do not believe she did this on accident as she knows QB backwards and forwards - I have another business QB account and she released it to me fully and correctly.  

I'll be speaking to an atty tomorrow but this has wasted 6-8 hours of my time today and I'm sure plenty m ore the rest of the week - and will make it WAY more time consuming for our new bookkeeper to get payroll set up.  

Here is here last text message to me which was basically a big middle finger

"Just a heads up for the future - if you ever cancel these kind of services, have them in place before you do.  Thats a tough lesson but it is what it is."

For Christ sake -- I had most of it set up but who would think Quickbooks would let someone hold your account hostage - the only way I can get her off if she doesnt "fully release it" is legal action or to backup the information then start a desktop account then start a new online account - Can you imagine how much time that will take?

LESSON OF THE DAY FOLKS ---- IF YOU EVER OUTSOURCE BOOKKEEPING -- NEVER LET THEM SELL YOU SOFTWARE ACCESS FROM THEIR WHOLESALE ACCOUNTS - MY BIG SCREW UP WAS doing this and underestimating the level of crazy.