‘Competence’ seems such a low bar, but it is one that trips up some providers. You or your clients will have stumbled across them. They often pop up at tax time, as predictable as a pimple on prom night. They’ll have a slick website full of half truths and impossible promises. And then they’ll disappear after letting a bunch of people down.

We’ve seen many providers come and go over our 20 plus years in the business. And we have learnt what you need in a Depreciation Schedule provider – beyond just competence.

You need a provider that jumps on referrals and keeps you updated during the process. You can refer a client right now using this link.

You also want a truly national provider that uses qualified people to carry out inspections. But one that won’t inspect a property if there is no need.

How about a provider with the experience to spot and cost renovations that even your clients don’t know about? That’s always a nice surprise.

And a provider that updates their Schedules free of charge? Forever.

It won’t surprise you to learn that only Depreciator does all of the above.

Key Points

1. When you refer a client to Depreciator, we’ll keep you updated all the way through to delivery of the Depreciation Schedule.

2. We use the same construction expert who inspects the property to estimate the Capital Works and value the Assets so we can provide you (and your client) with post-delivery support if you need it.

3. Older properties can have great depreciation claims – even when the renovation was done by previous owners. Our experienced Quantity Surveyors will spot these to help maximise your client’s depreciation.

4. We’ll update your client’s Depreciation Schedules with any improvements for free, saving you time every tax season.

Referrals without the run around

You know the most important part of a referral program?

Keeping referrers in the loop. 

Especially when things are getting busy.

How often have you sent a referral off to a service provider and chased it up a few weeks later only for them to say, ‘Yeah, um, not sure that one reached us. Can you send it again?’

If you need a Depreciation Schedule in a hurry and send a referral to us, we’ll respond immediately and let you know we have received the request. Tick.

Then within an hour, we’ll call your client. Tick.

We’ll work out the most sensible way to tackle their job and in many cases give them an estimate of depreciation in that phone call. Tick.

When the job is underway, we’ll let you know. Tick

And of course, when it is finished, you’ll receive the Depreciation Schedule in your inbox at the same time as the client is sent their copy.

Do you have a client we can help with? You can refer a client here right now. It’s very easy.

Inspections and estimates prepared by the same construction expert

Call us old fashioned, but we like the person who inspects a property to be the person who estimates the historical Capital Works cost and values the Assets.

We’re on our own when it comes to this approach.

Other Depreciation Schedule providers have long used unqualified people on the ground to gather data for others (or perhaps just Excel) to cost up. 

Now, we hasten to add that using unqualified data collectors is not really non compliant. But equally we don’t think it is best practice.

Why?

Clients often have questions about the estimates in their Depreciation Schedules. They might ask what cost we put on the big shed in the backyard. Or the fancy kitchen vs the bathroom put in a few years ago by a previous owner. 

It helps us help your client if we can go back to the person who visited the property and get their breakdown. Even on jobs we don’t need to inspect, a Quantity Surveyor still works on the costs. Best practice, again.

Depreciation specialists who can estimate previous owner renovations

You’d be surprised to read that many clients buy properties and have no idea whether they have had renovations.

It’s a question we always ask with second hand properties – there can be a lot of depreciation in renovations. We’ve written about this before here. 

Last week, we had a client make an enquiry with us thinking there was no depreciation to claim in their property – they said they were humouring their accountant by asking.

We had a look online and could see that the original property was indeed too old – 1960s bungalow.

But the one we were looking at had a second storey that was clearly not original. And a pool. The kitchen and bathrooms were less than 20 years old. And there was a shed most blokes would kill for.

All up, previous owners had spent close to $200K on improvements and the annual Capital Works deduction was around $5,000. Not bad for a 60 year old house the client thought was not worth doing.

Every day of the week, we look at dozens of properties online for clients to see if it’s worth doing a Depreciation Schedule. If it doesn’t stack up, we let them know. Not every provider does that.

Free updates – forever

You would be amazed at how many clients ask us to update their Depreciation Schedules. Some come back to us every year with additions.

You would be even more amazed to know that we don’t charge for Schedule updates. The client gets an updated Depreciation Schedule free, and if you referred that client, you get one, too.

But that’s not all we do for you. Clients often email us a spreadsheet (if we’re lucky) of everything they have done to their rental property over the last year or two. It’s the electronic equivalent of a shoe box of receipts – a shiver just went up your spine, didn’t it..

We are very good at determining the line between repairs and improvements – we understand the ATO’s definition of repairs very well and have written about it often, most recently here.

We know when the client started to rent out the property and we chat to them about what they did. Then we give them our opinion – we don’t advise –  but we tell them what their accountant will likely determine.

Then we update their Dep Schedule with what we think constitutes improvements and suggest they take the rest to you for you to expense. That’s going to save you a fair bit of time in some cases.

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.