Crypto & digital assets

Decide whether to serve the work

Digital asset clients arrive with the same question every year and the same missing records. A firm that takes them one at a time, reconstructing history in spreadsheets, loses money on every one. A firm that decides to serve the work chooses a tool, sets a standard onboarding that collects every wallet and exchange up front, prices the reconstruction as a project and the annual return as a recurring engagement, and builds the knowledge in one or two people. The other legitimate answer is a referral to a firm that has.

What to look for

Coverage of the exchanges, wallets and chains the firm's clients actually use, with imports that stay current when platforms change. Cost basis methods that match the firm's jurisdiction, and the tax rules for the categories that matter there: disposals, staking and other income, transfers between the client's own wallets treated correctly, fees, lost or stolen assets. A reconciliation view that shows where the history has gaps, because it always has gaps. An accountant portal across clients. Reports in the shape the return needs, and an audit trail from any figure to the transaction.

Then the practical: how the tool handles the client's own transfers so they are not counted as disposals, and how it handles the transactions no import recognises.

Onboarding and the reconstruction

The first year is a reconstruction: every source connected, the history imported, the gaps found and filled with the client, the transfers matched, the categories reviewed. Firms that do this well collect the full list of sources before quoting, quote the reconstruction as a project on the number of transactions and sources, and set the client's expectations that the record will never be perfect. From the second year the engagement is an annual update and a report.

Pricing and how firms recover it

Vendors price the client side per tax year in bands of transaction volume, and the accountant side per client or with a practice plan. The directory records what vendors publish; it does not say what a firm should charge for digital asset work, and nothing here is fee advice. Firms describe pricing the reconstruction as a project and the annual return as a fixed engagement with the tool cost passed through.

Businesses that transact in digital assets

A client that accepts or holds digital assets in the business needs the transactions in the ledger, not only a tax report: revenue recognised, holdings valued, gains and losses posted. Some tools in the category do this, feeding the ledger with summarised entries; most are built for the individual investor's return. Check which one the client needs before choosing.

What to avoid

Reconstructing in a spreadsheet. Quoting before the source list is complete. Any tool that cannot show where the history has gaps. Counting the client's own transfers as disposals. Rules from a different jurisdiction applied by default. And taking the work without deciding to build the capability.