Engagement letter template for accountants and bookkeepers (NZ), with the AML/CFT, privacy and fee clauses that keep it current.
An eight-section letter (scope table, your responsibilities, ours, fees, information and timing, AML/CFT and privacy, liability and ending, acceptance) plus a ten-point pre-send checklist. PDF and editable Word. Free, no email required.
Do accountants need an engagement letter in NZ, and what should it include?
Your professional body’s standards expect written terms before you start, and the law gives three more reasons. The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 has covered accounting practices since 1 October 2018, so the letter should say you must complete customer due diligence before acting. The Privacy Act 2020 governs the personal information you hold. The Tax Administration Act 1994 puts the 7-year record obligation on the client, and the letter should say so. Beyond the law, the letter is where scope is settled: a table of services marked included or not, the assumptions behind the fee, when records are due, what happens when they are late, the limitation of liability your insurer accepts, and how the engagement ends. Across 6,190 positive publicly posted reviews of NZ accounting and bookkeeping practices, clear explanation is praised in 26% and value for fees in only 7%, while fee complaints appear in about 2% of negative reviews. The letter explains fees once, in writing, instead of every month on the invoice.
The job this document is doing.
- —The client assumed payroll and FBT were included because nobody wrote down that they were not
- —Fees rise because records arrive late, and the client hears about it on the invoice
- —Due diligence is done after the first return is filed, which is the wrong way round
- —A client leaves, fees are unpaid, and there is no clause about clearance or records
Open it and use it today.
- 01Scope of services table: eight common services, included or not, frequency, entities
- 02Client and practice responsibilities as checklists, including the 7-year records rule and the 2-day Inland Revenue correspondence rule
- 03Fees table, out-of-scope hourly rate, payment terms, annual review, lien
- 04Information and timing table matched to Inland Revenue dates
- 05AML/CFT, privacy and records clause; limitation of liability, ending, disputes; acceptance
- 06Pre-send checklist: entities, scope gaps, fee assumptions, CDD, professional clearance, myIR linking, insurer-approved clauses
Free to use and adapt for your own business. Not legal advice: check contract terms against your own terms of trade and, where it matters, with a lawyer.
The law behind it. Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (accountants captured from 1 October 2018); Privacy Act 2020; Tax Administration Act 1994, section 22. Checked on legislation.govt.nz, dia.govt.nz and ird.govt.nz on 9 October 2026. Not legal advice and not a substitute for your professional body’s engagement standards.
Why this document, and not another one.
| Measure (NZ accounting and bookkeeping) | Figure |
|---|---|
| Clear explanation praised, positive reviews | 26.3% |
| Value for fees praised, positive reviews | 7.0% |
| Overcharging or fees mentioned, negative reviews | About 2% |
| Unclear advice mentioned, negative reviews | Under 1% |
From 7,571 publicly posted customer reviews of 484 NZ accounting and bookkeeping practices, collected October 2026. Each review carries a single star rating: 4 or 5 stars counted as positive (n=6,190), 2 stars or fewer as negative (n=328, reported as rank order rather than precision, so negative-review figures are rounded). Praise and complaint traits were coded against a fixed taxonomy; no business is named. Full corpus, method and thresholds: the accounting & bookkeeping methodology page. Full findings: the accounting & bookkeeping research study.
Use it alongside
Bookkeeping pricing and fee proposal template
A two-page proposal: what you understand about the client’s business, the scope line by line, three packages side by side, one-off set-up, exclusions, how fees change, payment terms and acceptance.
Open this resource →A template fixes one document. The diagnostic finds the rest.
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