Changing accountants is simpler than people think.
Legal references verified on 21 September 2026.
The mandate can be revoked at any time, without giving a reason. Your accounting records belong to you and cannot be held back over an unpaid invoice. What takes time is not the law: it is taking the file over, and that can be prepared.
Four reasons come up almost every time, and none of them is about price alone.
The figures arrive six months after the year end, when nothing can be fixed any more. Accounts that only serve to produce a balance sheet do not help you decide anything.
A flat fee that climbs without anyone saying what went up, or invoices with no breakdown of hours. The amount is not the problem: the absence of explanation is.
Each new person rediscovers the file and asks the same questions again. Everything learned about your business goes back to zero each time.
A forgotten VAT return, a late filing, an assessment made by default. The fines and the interest are yours, not the firm’s.
Article 400 of the Swiss Code of Obligations requires the agent to hand everything over. That covers:
- Every document you gave them: invoices, statements, contracts, correspondence.
- Everything they received on your behalf while carrying out the mandate.
- Whatever they undertook to produce: annual accounts, returns, reports, filings.
- The data and the backups of your bookkeeping when it is kept in their software.
They are not, on the other hand, required to hand over their internal notes, their drafts or their working papers: those belong to them, and that is normal.
A disputed invoice is no reason to hold your accounts hostage.
This is what holds back the most owners, and it is exactly where the law is clearest. Article 896 of the Civil Code excludes from the right of retention official documents, accounting records, annual accounts and reports: they cannot be realised, so they secure nothing. A disagreement over fees is settled on the invoice, not on your archives. A written request, precise and with a deadline, is enough in almost every case.
There is no bad time, only more comfortable ones.
- The ideal moment: just after an approved year end and a filed VAT return. Nothing is pending and the handover is clean.
- The possible moment: any time. A change mid-year is manageable and costs a few hours of handover, no more.
- The moment to avoid: two weeks before a tax deadline, unless that deadline is precisely the problem.
- What we do: we list what exists, what is missing, and what has to be claimed. You do not have to have that conversation on your own.
Do I need a reason to terminate?
No. The mandate can be revoked at any time and without justification. A notice period sometimes appears in the contract: it concerns the fees, not your right to leave. Termination at an inopportune moment can give rise to compensation, which remains rare for ordinary bookkeeping work.
My former accountant refuses to return my documents.
Write to them, listing precisely what you are claiming and setting a deadline. Accounting records, annual accounts and reports are excluded from the right of retention, which makes a refusal hard to sustain. In the vast majority of cases the letter is enough.
Should I wait until the end of the financial year?
No, and waiting sometimes costs more than leaving. If the backlog is growing or a deadline is approaching with nothing moving, changing now avoids an assessment by default. A handover mid-year takes a few hours more, not a whole year.
How long does taking over a file take?
From a few days when the books are current and available electronically, to several weeks when a year has to be reconstructed from bank statements. We tell you once we have seen what exists, not before.
Tell us what you have, we will tell you what is missing.
A first conversation is enough to know whether the handover is simple or whether documents have to be claimed first. It is free, and it does not commit you to changing.