How to Collect Crypto Tax Documents From Clients — A Bookkeeper's Practical Guide

Cryptocurrency tax compliance has gone from a niche specialisation to a standard expectation. The IRS has asked about virtual currency on Form 1040 since 2019, and the 2024 digital asset reporting rules (under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) significantly expanded broker reporting requirements starting in 2025. Most small accounting firms now have at least a few clients with crypto activity — whether they asked for those clients or not.

The document collection challenge is real. Crypto clients often do not know what records they need to provide. The records they do have may be scattered across multiple exchanges, wallets, and DeFi protocols. And the records that exist are often not in formats that integrate cleanly with standard accounting software.

This guide covers what records to request, how to request them in a way that clients can actually act on, and how to handle the situations where records are incomplete or missing.

The IRS reporting landscape for crypto clients

Understanding what the IRS expects helps clarify what documents matter:

Taxable events that require records:

• Sale of cryptocurrency for fiat (cash) — capital gain or loss
• Exchange of one cryptocurrency for another — taxable exchange
• Use of crypto to purchase goods or services — treated as a sale
• Receipt of crypto as payment for services — ordinary income at fair market value on receipt date
• Mining or staking rewards — ordinary income on receipt
• Airdrops — ordinary income on receipt (for some, but contested)
• DeFi interest and lending income

Records needed for each taxable event:

• Date of acquisition
• Cost basis (purchase price plus fees)
• Date of disposal
• Proceeds (sale price minus fees)
• Type of event (sale, exchange, payment, etc.)

61%

of individual tax returns that reported cryptocurrency activity in 2024 had at least one exchange or wallet for which the practitioner could not obtain complete transaction records

Source: AICPA Digital Asset Working Group Survey, 2025

What to request from crypto clients

Tier 1: Exchange CSV exports (required for every client with exchange activity)

Every major centralized exchange provides a transaction history export. These CSVs contain the data needed to calculate gains and losses. Request them for every exchange the client used during the tax year:

Exchange transaction history exports — request for each exchange used

• Coinbase: Account → Statements → Generate Report → Transaction History (CSV)
• Kraken: History → Export → Trades CSV (select full year range)
• Binance.US: Orders → Trade History → Export
• Gemini: Settings → Statements and History → Transaction History CSV
• Robinhood Crypto: Tax Documents → 1099-B or Transaction History CSV
• Any other exchange used — request the transaction history or trading history export

Tier 2: Wallet records (for self-custody wallets)

Clients who hold cryptocurrency in self-custody wallets (hardware wallets, software wallets, MetaMask, etc.) do not have an exchange to export from. The records are on-chain, accessible via block explorers, but often require crypto tax software to aggregate.

What to request:

• Wallet addresses for every wallet the client used during the year (not private keys — just the public wallet address)
• Any records the client has of what they purchased and when they purchased it (wallet transaction records from their software wallet if available)
• Information about any bridging or cross-chain activity (moving crypto between blockchains)

The practical challenge: Many clients with self-custody wallets have incomplete basis records — they know what they hold now but not what they paid for it. This is a documentation problem that cannot be retroactively fixed for prior-year transactions. Advise clients to maintain records going forward.

Tier 3: DeFi and staking records

Decentralized finance activity generates the most complex records: liquidity pool deposits and withdrawals, staking rewards, yield farming income, protocol fees, and governance token distributions. Each of these may be a taxable event.

What to request:

• Names of DeFi protocols used (Uniswap, Aave, Compound, etc.)
• Wallet addresses used for DeFi activity
• Any records from protocol dashboards (most provide historical activity)
• Staking reward history from staking platforms or validators

Crypto tax software (Koinly, CoinTracker, TaxBit, TokenTax) aggregates on-chain records from wallet addresses automatically. For DeFi-active clients, recommending one of these tools significantly reduces the documentation burden.

The crypto client onboarding document request

The most effective approach is a structured questionnaire sent at engagement — before attempting to collect specific records. This establishes what records are needed and surfaces potential problems early. You can easily build and customize your crypto onboarding checklist using our free Document Request Template Generator.

Crypto client intake questionnaire

Vague — creates a back-and-forth

Please send your crypto records for last year — whatever you have available.

Structured — surfaces all required information at once

To prepare your return accurately, I need the following information about your crypto activity in [Year]:

1. Which exchanges did you use? (List all — Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, etc.)
2. Do you hold any crypto in self-custody wallets? If yes, what are your wallet addresses?
3. Did you receive any crypto as payment for work or services?
4. Did you participate in any DeFi protocols, liquidity pools, or staking?
5. Did you mine or receive any airdrops?
6. Did you sell, exchange, or spend any crypto during the year?

Based on your answers, I will send you a specific document checklist.

When clients say they do not have records

This is the most common and most difficult scenario. A client bought Bitcoin in 2019, has traded it across three exchanges, one of which has since closed, and cannot produce the original cost basis.

When client records are incomplete

Determine what can be reconstructed

For exchanges that are still operating, transaction history can usually be exported going back to account opening. For closed exchanges (Mt. Gox, FTX, Celsius), recovery may be partial or impossible.

Use blockchain explorers for on-chain wallets

For wallet addresses the client can provide, blockchain explorers (Etherscan for Ethereum, blockchain.com for Bitcoin) provide a complete public record of all transactions. This can reconstruct transfer history, if not cost basis.

Apply FIFO and document the assumptions

If cost basis cannot be established for specific transactions, FIFO (first in, first out) is the safest default assumption under IRS guidance. Document the assumption explicitly in the return and in your workpapers.

Advise on the Crypto.com scenario

If a client received a 1099 from an exchange showing proceeds but cannot produce cost basis records, the IRS default is $0 cost basis — the entire proceeds become gain. This is the worst-case scenario and should motivate clients to find whatever records exist.

Flag prospectively

If records cannot be reconstructed for prior years, advise the client to implement a record-keeping system going forward. Koinly and similar tools can connect to wallet addresses and exchanges to track all future transactions automatically.

Building a reusable crypto client template

For practices that serve multiple crypto clients, a reusable template with the complete document request — organised by tier (exchange CSV, wallet records, DeFi) — saves significant setup time each season.

The template includes:

• The standard questionnaire (above)
• A checklist section for each exchange (one checklist item per exchange, with specific download instructions)
• A wallet address collection field
• DeFi protocol fields
• A notes field for the client to flag anything unusual

Complex clients need structured collection even more than simple ones

Quire’s reusable document request templates let you build a crypto client checklist once — with separate upload slots for each exchange CSV, each wallet, and each DeFi protocol — and reuse it each season. Clients can see exactly what is needed and check off items as they upload.

Build your crypto client template in Quire