Choosing an English-speaking accountant in the Netherlands

You run a Dutch company and you do not work in Dutch every day. At some point the annual accounts (jaarrekening) have to be prepared, and the question is whether to do it yourself or bring in an accountant who can work with you in English. This article is about that choice: when you actually need an accountant, what to ask, the three routes and what they cost.

When you need an accountant, and when you do not

For a small or micro company, an accountant is not mandatory. You may prepare the annual accounts yourself and file them with KVK. An accountant is required for an audit (controleverklaring) when your company is large enough to fall under the statutory audit obligation. The background on the rules and deadlines is on Dutch annual accounts.

If you run a BV, the obligations are a little wider — the annual accounts must be adopted and published — and they are set out on annual accounts for a BV.

In practice the reason to bring someone in is rarely the law. It is a bank that asks for a statement before it lends, an investor or a buyer who wants the figures checked, or simply not wanting to do it yourself. Those are all valid reasons, but they lead to different questions — and to a different fee.

What to look for when choosing

Most accounting offices look similar on a website. The differences show up in the practical details. Ask about these five things:

• •Whether they actually work in English: not just the website, but the emails, the explanations and the person you speak to.
• •Whether they work with your accounting package or with Excel, so the figures do not have to be rebuilt from scratch.
• •What they do at the filing: do they file the annual accounts with KVK for you, and who signs them?
• •Whether they charge a fixed fee or an hourly rate, and what is included in each.
• •Whether they prepare the annual accounts themselves or only review them — those are different jobs with different fees.

What filing with KVK involves, and who is allowed to do it, is explained on filing annual accounts with KVK.

The three routes

There are three realistic routes. They differ in what you hand over, what you pay and how much control you keep.

1. 1.An English-speaking accounting office. You hand over your records and receive the annual accounts, the filing and usually the tax returns. This suits you if you want the whole thing off your desk and want to discuss it in English. Of the three routes, it costs the most.
2. 2.A Dutch bookkeeper with English service. Woodlands Administration, the administrative office behind this website, prepares and files annual accounts for entrepreneurs and small companies, and works in both English and Dutch. This suits you if you want a professional to handle the filing without a language barrier — see the Woodlands Administration option.
3. 3.Do it yourself. You enter your figures in the wizard, the tool checks whether the balance sheet closes and the equity reconciles, and you download the PDFs, including the documents for KVK. This suits you if your records are in order, you do not need a statement, and you want to keep the cost low.

The routes can be combined: plenty of entrepreneurs do the figures themselves and have someone check the result before it is filed.

What it costs and what you pay for

There is no single figure. An office charges by the hour or a fixed fee, and the amount depends on the size of your records, your legal form, whether there are complications such as inventory or a participation, and whether a statement is required. Ask what is included, not just what it costs: a quote for the annual accounts alone is not comparable to one that also covers the tax return and the filing.

The tool on this website costs € 49.95 excl. VAT per financial year, one-off, with no subscription. You fill in your figures and preview the annual accounts first; you pay when you download the final PDFs. What an office charges depends on the work involved, so ask them for a quote with the scope in writing.

A checklist for choosing an office

Five questions you can ask before you sign:

1. 1.Do you work in English in practice, including the questions that come up along the way?
2. 2.Do you work with my accounting package, or do I have to change?
3. 3.Do you prepare the annual accounts as well as file them with KVK, and who signs?
4. 4.Is your fee fixed or hourly, and what exactly is included?
5. 5.Can you tell me in advance what you need from me, and when?

The answer to the last question tells you most. An office that can list what it needs from you has done this before; an office that answers vaguely will come back with questions later.