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CSV with contractor, home office and recharge accounts mapped to QuickBooks GST codes. Import and code list below.
Download chart of accounts (CSV)Also available
Agency books are mostly people and software, and much of the software is bought from overseas. So two questions decide whether the GST is right: when an offshore charge attracts New Zealand GST, and when a contractor’s pay is a schedular payment with tax withheld. This is a New Zealand agency chart of accounts for QuickBooks Online built around those questions, as a readable reference CSV plus an import CSV for the structure.
Set up GST before mapping
QuickBooks Online does not provision New Zealand GST codes automatically, so you first turn on GST under Taxes, create the GST agency, and add the rates (GST on Income, GST on Expenses, Zero Rated and No GST). The chart-of-accounts import builds the structure, and you assign the codes from the CSV afterwards, because the import has no tax column.
Offshore software and the reverse charge
Agencies buy plenty of tools from suppliers outside New Zealand. Where the overseas vendor is not registered for New Zealand GST, no GST is charged and the cost on software subscriptions is coded Zero Rated. The imported-services reverse charge under section 8(4B) only applies to a GST-registered business making more than a minimal level of exempt or non-taxable supplies; a fully taxable agency is generally outside it. So the account defaults to GST on Expenses for local vendors and lists Zero Rated as the usual alternative, with a note that a practice carrying exempt income may need to self-account. A generic chart simply will not surface that.
Contractors and schedular payments
The chart adds a contractor and freelancer costs account, because agencies run on them. Some of those payments are schedular payments, where the work is a listed activity and the payer withholds tax at source on an IR330C. The note prompts you to check the activity before paying in full, so the withholding is applied where it should be.
Home office, apportioned
The home office account defaults to GST on Expenses but lists No GST as an alternative, since parts of a home office claim, such as mortgage interest, carry no GST. You apportion by floor area and time, or use Inland Revenue’s square-metre rate, and the account keeps the claim together rather than spread through rent and utilities.
Recharges and memberships
Client costs recharged tracks disbursements paid for a client and billed back, so both sides are visible, and professional memberships holds the industry subscriptions consulting and creative firms carry. Both are standard-rated at 15% for New Zealand suppliers. Retainer income billed monthly is itself a standard supply at 15%, so it belongs in services income; only genuine disbursements recharged at cost sit in the recharge account, which stops fee income and pass-through costs from blurring together.
How to use it
- Open the CSV: each account is mapped to its QuickBooks GST code, with alternatives and a note.
- In QuickBooks Online go to Settings, then Import data, then Chart of Accounts, and upload the CSV for the structure.
- Turn on GST, create the New Zealand rates, then bulk-assign the codes from the CSV.
- Agree how offshore subscriptions are coded so the Zero Rated treatment is applied consistently.
Coding each cost correctly as bills arrive is the ongoing work:
- Dext extracts GST and supplier from photographed bills.
- ExpenseFlow reads each receipt and bill, applies the right New Zealand GST treatment including the zero-rated overseas software case, and posts it into QuickBooks Online against the correct account, so offshore subscriptions and contractor costs are coded right at capture.
- Hubdoc pulls recurring software invoices into the file.
On Xero instead? See the NZ agency chart of accounts for Xero. For the detail on imported services and schedular payments, see the New Zealand agency expenses guide.