If you already have an accountant and you're not sure whether the relationship is actually working for you, this is different from deciding who to hire in the first place — that decision is covered in our guide to vetting a new tax professional. This one is about evaluating someone you're already working with.
Most people have no way to evaluate whether their accountant is doing good work. They hand over documents, get back a return, pay a bill, and assume everything is fine because nothing has exploded. That assumption is sometimes right. It's also sometimes wrong in ways that cost real money over time.
Here's how to actually evaluate the quality of the work you're getting.
Your Return Is Filed Accurately and On Time
This is the floor. It's not the ceiling.
Accurate means what was filed matches your actual financial situation — income reported correctly, deductions supported by documentation, forms completed correctly and consistently with each other. On time means no unnecessary late filing penalties, no surprise extensions that weren't communicated to you.
If your accountant is regularly missing deadlines without warning you, or if you've received IRS notices about errors on filed returns, that's a problem. But accuracy and timeliness are just the baseline — they don't tell you whether you're getting value beyond basic compliance.
You Understand What Was Filed
You sign your tax return. That signature makes you legally responsible for what's in it.
A good accountant explains what was filed and why — in plain language, not tax jargon. Not a line-by-line tutorial but enough that you understand the big picture. What your total income was. What your major deductions were and why they were taken. What you owe or are owed and why.
If you've never understood what was filed on your behalf — if you just sign where they tell you to sign — that's not an ideal situation. It means you have no way to catch errors and no ability to advocate for yourself if the IRS ever asks questions.
Not sure your current accountant is doing enough? A second look at last year's return can tell you a lot.
They Reach Out to You — Not Just the Other Way Around
This is the clearest indicator of whether you have a proactive professional or a reactive one.
A good accountant contacts you when something relevant happens. Tax law changes that affect your situation. A deadline approaching that you need to know about. A year-end planning opportunity while there's still time to act. A question about something in your records that looks unusual.
If every interaction with your accountant starts with you reaching out — if you've never once gotten a message that started with "I was thinking about your situation and wanted to flag something" — you're getting reactive service. That's fine for simple situations. For a growing business it means you're missing planning opportunities.
Your Tax Bill Doesn't Surprise You
A professional who is doing their job keeps you informed throughout the year about where things stand.
If you write a big check to the IRS every April that you weren't expecting, that's a communication failure. A good accountant gives you a sense of your likely tax liability before year end while there's still time to do something about it.
Your Situation Is Actually Being Optimized
Are you paying as much as you legally have to or more than you have to? Are you in the right business structure for your income level? Are you maximizing retirement contributions? Are you capturing every legitimate deduction?
You can get a rough sense of this by having a second professional review your last two or three years of returns. This isn't about catching your accountant doing something wrong — it's about seeing whether there are opportunities being missed.
Many business owners who do this discover they've been overpaying for years. Not through fraud or incompetence necessarily — just through a lack of proactive planning that a different professional would have caught.
They're Accessible When You Need Them
Tax questions don't follow a seasonal schedule. A good accountant responds to questions within a reasonable time — a day or two for non-urgent matters, same day for anything time-sensitive like an IRS notice.
What to Do If You're Not Sure
The simplest thing is to ask directly. Schedule a meeting with your accountant and ask: are there things about my situation that we should be doing differently? Are there deductions I might be missing? Is my business structure still the right one?
A good accountant will engage with these questions seriously. A mediocre one will deflect or give generic answers.
If the conversation leaves you more uncertain rather than less, that's useful information too.
You should understand what was done and why. We treat that as the baseline, along with being accessible year-round rather than just during filing season, and proactive planning as part of the job rather than an extra.