Choosing an accountant as a contractor

Every contractor eventually asks whether they need an accountant, usually in the week their first tax return is due. A simple sole-trader year is something you can do yourself, but there are specific moments when professional help pays for itself several times over. This guide covers the decision, what a tax agent changes, and how to choose well when you do engage one.

When doing it yourself is fine

A sole trader with one income stream, straightforward expenses, GST on the payments basis, and money set aside as it's earned has a tax year that myIR was designed to handle. The IR3 mostly confirms numbers you already know, and the guides on this site cover the machinery. If that describes your year and the return doesn't worry you, doing it yourself is a legitimate choice, not a shortcut.

The moments an accountant earns the fee

• The first year, if only once: having a professional set up your rates, deductions, and provisional expectations correctly at the start prevents expensive habits.
• Structure changes: incorporating, bringing in a partner, or winding something down.
• Income past the safe harbour (residual income tax over $60,000), where method choice and timing start carrying real interest consequences.
• Anything cross-border, property-adjacent, or involving a dispute with Inland Revenue.
• The year got away from you. If you're behind on returns or facing arrears, an accountant's experience with instalment arrangements is worth more than the fee.

What a tax agent changes

Beyond advice, engaging an accountant who is a registered tax agent moves your deadlines. The IR3 due date extends from 7 July to, usually, 31 March the following year, and terminal tax moves from 7 February to 7 April. For a contractor whose first-year bill is looming, those extra weeks of terminal-tax breathing room are sometimes reason enough on their own. The calendar shows both tracks.

Choosing one

• Contractor experience first. The questions that matter to you, such as provisional tax methods, home office, vehicle claims, and zero-rated exports, are everyday work for a practice that serves contractors, and less familiar to one that mostly does big-company work. Ask what share of their clients are self-employed.
• Ask how they charge and what the annual engagement includes: returns only, or questions through the year? Fixed fee or hourly? Neither answer is wrong, but you don't want to be surprised later.
• Expect questions back. A good accountant's first meeting digs into your situation. If you get a quote without any questions, they're pricing a generic job rather than yours.
• Referrals from other contractors in your field beat directory searches. An accountant who already serves three people with your work pattern has seen your year before.

How Coffer helps

Coffer is the record-keeping half of that split: every invoice stored as a PDF, plus payment dates, expenses, and tax events in one ordered history you can hand to an accountant without a weekend of assembly. You can invite your accountant to a read-only view of your records, and they can download the reports they need as CSV or PDF. See inviting your accountant.