I get a version of this question every week: "I want to move to you, but my current accountant has all my files. How does this actually work?"Almost nobody enjoys the conversation they think is coming. The good news is — under the professional bodies' rules, that conversation is the previous accountant's job to handle, not yours.
The ethical-clearance letter
When you ask us to take over, we send your existing accountant a letter — usually called an ethical-clearance request or professional-clearance request. It's a one-page email that says: this client has engaged us, please confirm there's no professional reason we shouldn't accept, and please forward the working papers we'll need to do their next return.
Every registered tax agent in Australia is bound by the Tax Practitioners Board's Code of Professional Conduct, and most are also members of a professional body (CA ANZ, CPA Australia, or IPA) whose ethics code — APES 110 — covers the same ground. Both frameworks require your previous accountant to respond, cooperate, and hand over the records we've asked for in good faith.
One nuance worth knowing if you've got fees outstanding at your old firm: the professional rule splits records into two buckets. Source documents you gave them — bank statements, receipts, identity documents, original deeds — are your property and must be returned regardless of any fee dispute. Working papers they created — internal calculations, working schedules, file notes — are their property, and they may exercise a common-law lien over them while your fees are outstanding. The lien is recognised by APES 305 and TPB Information Sheet 02/2011. In practice this rarely affects switching: the new agent reconstructs working papers from source documents and the most-recent lodged returns (which the ATO holds and we can access through agent linkage). The fee dispute then proceeds as a normal commercial matter, separately from the engagement transition.
What we actually need from them
Three things, mostly:
- The last lodged tax returns and the supporting workpapers (depreciation schedules, capital-loss carry-forwards, prior-year deduction breakdowns).
- For business clients: the trial balance, general ledger, and any reconciliations as at the most recent year-end.
- A short note on anything in progress — an audit, an objection, an instalment variation we should know about.
Your part is short
Sign our engagement letter and add us as your tax agent in the ATO portal — or let us add ourselves once we've verified you. That's it. You don't need to ring your old accountant, draft an awkward email, or chase down files. The clearance letter is the formal goodbye and it's expected on both sides.
Most handovers I run finish inside a fortnight. The slowest I've had was a sole practitioner overseas on holiday — six weeks, but the records still came across. If you're thinking about moving and want to know what your switch would look like, send through who you're with and roughly when you last lodged. I'll tell you in a reply email what to expect.