Bookkeeping yourself or an accountant?

What the law asks of you — and what it doesn't

There is no rule in the Netherlands that requires a business owner to hire a bookkeeper or accountant. What is required: records that the Dutch Belastingdienst can check within a reasonable time, kept for seven years — ten years for data about real estate. How you organise those records is explicitly left to you by the Belastingdienst: in a spreadsheet, in accounting software or through an accountant.

On top of that you file your returns on time: the VAT return per month, quarter or year, and the income tax return every year. Whether you do that yourself or have it done changes nothing about that obligation. An accountant takes over the work, not the responsibility — for the payroll tax return the Belastingdienst even says so literally: you remain responsible for the return yourself.

When you can do it yourself

Doing your own bookkeeping works best for a sole proprietor or freelancer (zzp'er) with a straightforward business: you send invoices, you have expenses, you have no staff and you mainly sell within the Netherlands. Bookkeeping then comes down to recording every invoice and every receipt, matching your bank transactions against them and filing your VAT return every period. Most of it is routine that comes back every month; after one quarter you know it.

The rules a simple freelancer runs into are manageable: the VAT return, what has to be on your invoice, the hours criterion for the self-employed deduction and your annual income tax return. All four are explained in this knowledge base, in five languages. Software that reads your bank transactions and prepares your VAT return per box does the arithmetic; in booxx you then copy those amounts into Mijn Belastingdienst Zakelijk, as long as the direct connection with the Belastingdienst is not yet active.

When an accountant is a good idea

With a bv. A bv is a taxpayer in its own right: it pays corporate income tax on its profit and must deposit annual accounts with the KvK every year, no later than twelve months after the end of the financial year. If you work for your own bv, the bv must withhold and pay payroll taxes on your customary salary (gebruikelijk loon). A small bv can prepare and deposit its annual accounts itself in the KvK portal, but the link between your income and your bv's is the point where most owners bring in an accountant.

With staff. Anyone with employees files a payroll tax return every month or every four weeks. With ten employees or fewer you can do that yourself in Mijn Belastingdienst Zakelijk, but payroll is a trade of its own; most employers have it done. In booxx you import the payroll journal entry that your payroll software or payroll administrator produces, so wages end up in your books without you calculating them.

In a complicated year. If you moved to or left the Netherlands that year, you file an M return for that year instead of the regular income tax return. If you sell a lot to customers in other EU countries, or work as a subcontractor with btw verlegd (reverse-charged VAT), extra boxes and statements come in. All of that can be done yourself, but the first year with such a situation is a good moment to go through it once with an accountant.

If you don't read Dutch yet

For many Polish, Hungarian and Romanian business owners in the Netherlands, that is the real question: not whether bookkeeping is hard, but whether you can do it in a language you don't read. The usual answer is an accountant who speaks your language, and for a bv or staff that is a good choice. Check above all that they work with the Dutch rules: the language of the conversation matters less than the rules your return is based on.

The other route is accounting software in your own language. In booxx the whole application is translated into English, Polish, Hungarian and Romanian, down to the ledger accounts and the explanation of every box on the VAT return, while the bookkeeping underneath follows the Dutch rules. You do it yourself and you read what's there. The Dutch words you come across in letters from the Belastingdienst — voorlopige aanslag, suppletie, naheffingsaanslag — are explained in the glossary of this knowledge base.

The middle way: book it yourself, together with your accountant

Doing it yourself and having an accountant don't exclude each other. The Dutch Belastingdienst names this middle way itself: you can have a tax service provider do everything, but also just part of it, or only ask them for advice. In practice the owner records invoices, receipts and bank transactions throughout the year, and the accountant looks at the first VAT return, the year-end closing and the income tax return. That saves the hours an accountant would otherwise spend retyping receipts.

In booxx that cooperation works without sending files back and forth. You invite your accountant as a team member; there is no limit on the number of users and no price per user. They can ask you a question about a bank transaction, which you answer on your own screen, and if you signed up through their firm's link, that firm can also take over your books if you, as the owner, agree. If you work in Polish and they work in Dutch, each sees the same figures in their own language. If your accountant prefers their own software, they get the audit file (XAF), or the tax export for their tax-return software.

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