Whose name the receipt carries
Ask for the official receipt for any government fee paid on your behalf. If it is issued in your company's name, the fee passed through as it stood and remains a valid accounting document in your books. If it cannot be produced, the figure on the invoice is not necessarily what the authority received.
Separating the fee from the charge
An invoice that merges the government fee and the office's charge into one line conceals the margin, and makes an offer that looks cheaper more expensive in fact. Ask for two separate lines on every invoice, then compare the charge line alone between offices.
The limits of the authorisation
An authorisation is not an open surrender. Ask exactly which transactions it extends to, how it is withdrawn, and how long withdrawal takes. A disciplined office answers in one sentence, treats the authorisation as confined to what was agreed, and treats it as withdrawable at any time.
Passport custody
Ask: do you hold our employees' passports? The right answer is that documents are received for the transaction alone and returned with the completed document. Any arrangement resting on passports staying with a third party for an open period is an arrangement to refuse.
The written quotation
For anything outside the routine, such as a ceiling increase, a violation, or striking off a registration, ask for a written quotation before work begins, setting out scope, period and cost. An office that starts the work and settles the cost afterwards cannot be held to anything.
Who holds the calendar
This is the question that decides it. An office that only executes what you ask for leaves the burden of remembering with you, so it falls to you to notice a permit expiring and a registration nearing its term. An office that carries the calendar warns you before the dates and bears the consequence of a missed one. The difference between the two is not price. It is where responsibility sits.
These are general tests, fit for comparing any two offices and specific to none. The answer to each should come in one sentence, not in a presentation.