My accountant won't give me my financials for a business loan. Now what?

You’ve found the loan, the lender has asked for your financials, and your accountant has gone quiet. Maybe the return isn’t finished. Maybe there’s an unpaid invoice sitting between you. Maybe they just won’t sign anything. Whatever the reason, you can usually still put together a file a lender can work with. The documents that matter most are often ones you can reach without your accountant at all.

This guide sorts what you can pull yourself, what to ask your accountant for and how to explain the gap.

Whose paperwork is it, anyway?

Start by separating three piles.

• Records that are already yours: your bank statements, your ATO account details, invoices you issued, contracts, loan statements and your own bookkeeping files.
• Records you gave your accountant: receipts, ledgers and statements you supplied so they could do the work.
• Records your accountant created: a draft or finished return, workpapers, financial statements and any letter they wrote.

Piles one and two aren’t theirs to keep from you. Pile three is where disputes happen.

Can an accountant hold your documents over unpaid fees?

Mostly not, and never as a reflex. The Tax Practitioners Board’s guidance on claiming a lien over client property says registered tax practitioners will usually not have a right of general lien. A specific lien may cover work they’ve actually prepared for you, such as a draft income tax return or a general ledger. It wouldn’t normally reach documents you handed over only for checking, such as invoices or a sales journal, because those don’t embody the practitioner’s labour. The same guidance recommends getting legal advice before a lien is exercised.

In practice, that means:

• You can ask for your own source documents back, and they should go back.
• The finished work product may be a different conversation if fees are owing.
• A fee dispute is a good reason to talk, and a poor reason to leave a loan sitting.

If you’re unsure which side of the line a document falls on, don’t argue it out over email for weeks. Pull what you can from other places and treat the contested documents as a separate job.

What can you pull without your accountant?

From the ATO

The ATO’s online services show your own tax position. Businesses use Online services for business, which needs a Digital ID (such as myID) and Relationship Authorisation Manager. The ATO’s set-up page walks through it, and Access Manager controls who can act for the business. Sole traders can see personal tax details through myGov.

From there, lenders usually like to see:

• Recent lodged activity statements (BAS) and whether they’re up to date.
• Your income tax account, including what’s lodged and what’s owing.
• Notices of assessment for lodged returns.

Screenshots or downloaded PDFs are often accepted by low doc lenders. If you’ve never set up access, allow time. It’s the step people leave to the last day.

From your bank

Download twelve months of statements for every business account, in PDF or via a bank-link tool if the lender uses one. If you run business through a personal account, separate it as best you can first. Our guide on separating business and personal banking covers how.

From your own records

Pull together invoices, accounting software reports (a profit and loss, a debtor list), contracts and your ABN details. A bookkeeper’s report or an export from your accounting software can fill part of the gap, clearly labelled as management figures rather than finalised accounts.

What should you ask your accountant for?

Keep it small, specific and in writing. People get answers faster to one clear request than to “can you send my stuff”.

1. Your source documents and anything you supplied.
2. The status of any outstanding return, and the date they’ll lodge it.
3. A copy of any lodged returns and notices of assessment.
4. If they’re willing, a short accountant’s letter confirming how long you’ve traded and your general position.

Give a reasonable date, keep a copy and follow up once. If you’ve been waiting weeks with no reply, that’s useful for your own decision about whether to switch.

What do lenders accept instead of the accountant’s letter?

It depends on the paperwork level. A full doc lender needs lodged returns and financials, so a stuck accountant is a real problem there. A low doc lender can work from other evidence, and they often care more about bank statements than a letter. A no doc option looks at property instead.

What you can show	Where it fits
Lodged returns and financials	Full doc
12 months of statements, recent BAS, ATO portal screens	Low doc
Statements plus a signed declaration of income	Low doc, depending on the lender
Property equity, little else	No doc, property-backed

Our paperwork matcher can show you which level suits what you have today. If you’d like a person to read your situation instead, see if you qualify and tell us what’s stuck.

An illustrative example

A plumbing business in Wagga Wagga has traded for six years and wants $60,000 for a second van and fit-out. Its accountant has been slow, a year-end invoice is unpaid, and the latest return isn’t finalised. The owner sets up ATO online access, downloads twelve months of statements and the last four BAS, asks the accountant in writing for the source documents and a lodgement date, and writes a short note explaining the delay. A low doc lender assesses the file on statements and BAS, and the return gets finished in the background. Illustrative only.

How do you explain the gap to a lender?

Short and factual works best. Say which document is missing, why, and when you expect it. For example: “The FY26 return is with my accountant and is due to be lodged by 30 November. Here are my lodged BAS and twelve months of statements.” Don’t blame, don’t hide it and don’t make up a date. Lenders deal with slow lodgements constantly. What worries them is a story that doesn’t add up.

If the lender asks for something you can’t supply, say so early rather than letting the file sit. A quick “I can’t get X, but here’s Y” lets them tell you whether Y is enough. It also saves you chasing a document that was never going to arrive in time.

What if the accountant isn’t responding at all?

Silence is different from a dispute. Send one clear written request, then follow up once by phone. If a few weeks pass with nothing, it’s reasonable to start planning without them. That means getting your ATO access sorted, collecting statements and, if you want to move on, asking a new accountant what they’d need from the old one to take over. Moving can take a while, so don’t make a handover the only plank of your loan plan.

A new accountant can also tell you quickly whether a return is close to finished or hasn’t been started. That one fact changes your options. A return that’s nearly done might only need a few weeks. One that hasn’t been started points you towards low doc now and refinancing later, a path we cover in our guide to getting a loan when tax returns are late.

What not to do

• Don’t submit unsigned or draft figures as final. Label management figures as management figures.
• Don’t guess the numbers. If the lender checks and the ATO shows something different, the application stalls.
• Don’t apply to several lenders at once. Each hard enquiry sits on your credit file. Work out the paperwork first.
• Don’t leave BAS behind. If activity statements are overdue too, lodge them first.

A short checklist before you apply

• ATO access set up and your BAS status checked
• Twelve months of statements for every business account
• Last four BAS or whatever you’ve lodged
• Written request to your accountant, with a date
• A one-line explanation of what’s missing and when it’ll land
• Property details, if you might need a no doc fallback

Your next step

Being stuck on someone else’s timetable is frustrating, and it’s more common than you’d think. If your accountant is the hold-up, tell us what you do have and what’s missing. Enquiring takes about a minute, and asking won’t touch your credit file. We don’t send your details to a pile of lenders. A real person looks at your situation and phones you to talk through the options that fit. Please fill the form in accurately, so we can match you to the right option the first time.

See if you qualify →