What makes a good Depreciation Schedule provider? It’s a timely thing to ponder with tax season just around the corner and the first deadline coming at the end of March. If you have a client needing our help with a Depreciation Schedule for that deadline, you can make an enquiry here.

We’ll make sure that deadline – and others – does not get missed. Turnaround time is still proving tricky for some providers. Not us.

Tardiness is not the only way providers can let you down.

Staying in business is certainly one thing you want of your Depreciation Schedule provider – a large player in our industry shut the doors late last year and locked behind those doors all their Depreciation Schedules.

You also want a provider who will update their Depreciations Schedules free. And have those conversations about repairs vs improvements so you don’t have to have them.

And you want to be kept in the loop – especially with deadlines coming up.

Key Points

1. 1. Our turnaround time is fast. We can prepare Depreciation Schedules in 5 working days if an inspection is not required, or 5-10 working days if an inspection is required. Got an urgent job? Let us know – we’ll work to your deadline. 
2. 2. If you’ve been let down by another provider, get in touch. You can rely on our experience in the industry of almost 25 years.
3. 3. When your clients make a change to their property, we’ll talk them through how to treat those changes so you don’t have to. And we’ll update their Schedule free of charge. 
4. 4. We’ll keep you informed every step along the way to make sure your client is prepared and ready with their Depreciation Schedule before they come to see you at tax time. 

Turn around time matters – and Depreciator is fast

The first question some clients ask us is, ‘How quickly can you do this?’

‘Quicker than the company you just spoke to’, is our usual reply. We know by their question that someone has told them their job will take weeks, or perhaps months, to complete.

And if there’s a deadline you need to hit, we can work to that deadline. Just let us know.

Why are we so fast?

We’ve been doing this a long time – close to 25 years now – and we have very good systems and good people. Some of them have been with us from the start. As have many of you. We’re all older and greyer and just want things to work.

The other reason we are fast is that we don’t insist on inspecting every property – even though the margins are higher if we do. We have written about this before here.

If you have a client who builds a new house and has a comprehensive contract from the builder and a record of anything they have added, there is no need to inspect that property. The legislation that governs us states that if costs are known, they must be used. So a client paying anybody to inspect that property is madness.

Then there are apartments in buildings we have previously inspected. If the client has sufficient information (and they always do) on their apartment, there is no need for us to go back into that building.

What about a 20 year old project home with no renovations? They’re popular with investors and can still throw off decent depreciation ($3,000 – $4,000 per year), but again they can usually be done without an inspection.

But of course, if a client wants us to inspect a property, we will gladly do that – and charge more.

And there are the properties we insist on inspecting: apartments in buildings we have not been into previously; complicated houses where architects have clearly been involved; older houses with substantial renovations. You get the drift.

You can rely on Depreciator’s almost 25 years of experience

This is the time of year when new providers pop up thinking this depreciation caper must be terribly easy – a licence to print money.

Then just as quickly they disappear.

But late last year a large provider disappeared, which was a surprise. We found out because some of their clients came to us asking us to update the Depreciation Schedules done originally by that provider.

Luckily, they had copies of those Depreciation Schedules and we could glean enough from them to enable us to create new ones. But if those clients did not have the original, they would have to pay someone to start again.

We also have accountants contacting us when they get a new client asking, hopefully, if we were the ones who provided the client with the Depreciation Schedule their previous accountant was using. Often we were, given how long we have been around and how many we have done.

If we don’t have it, we wish them luck in their search.

Free updates and sensible conversations are all part of the service

Given we are nimble enough to be able to update Depreciation Schedules put together by another provider, you would expect us to be very good at updating our own. And we are.

We also don’t charge for unlimited updates, which makes us unusual. We have written about that here before.

To be honest, updating a Depreciation Schedule is fairly easy with our systems. What can be more tricky is working out whether costs incurred by a client belong in a Depreciation Schedule or can be expensed.

That’s where we really come into our own. We’ll have those long conversations with your client so you don’t have to.

Every single day we get clients sending us a spreadsheet of work they have done to their rental property. We’ll have a chat about the timing and nature of the work and tell them how we think it could be treated. We then tell them to run our thoughts past their accountant before we update the Depreciation Schedule.

Never, ever, has an accountant disagreed with our opinion. All are grateful we spent the time with their client.  

We’ll keep you informed to make sure your client’s Depreciation Schedule is ready to go come tax time

When accountants refer a client to us, they naturally think all is well and the job is proceeding. And that is often the case. 

Referrers receive an email telling them that we have received the referral and we’re onto it.

We’ll call that client within the hour and often they are expecting the call. Sometimes they want us to explain what this depreciation thing is all about, which we do. 

Then we will quiz them on the property and perhaps look at photos online and let them know how much depreciation might be in the property and what our fee will be.

We get on famously. 

And then the client goes quiet on us – it’s a bit like being ghosted on a first date.

We’ll keep trying because we know you need that Depreciation Schedule and at some point we’ll email you and suggest you perhaps give the client a poke.

Better that then have them come to see you to get their tax done without that Depreciation Schedule.    

Enquire now for a property-specific assessment

Has this article reminded you about a client’s investment property? Residential properties, commercial properties, even farms, we do them all.

If you want us to talk to a client about a Depreciation Schedule, make a no-obligation enquiry and rely on our 20-plus years of experience in estimating depreciation returns.