Invite your accountant to Xero for free.
Why this matters
If your Xero plan lets you add your accountant at no extra cost, leaving them outside the system creates avoidable inefficiency. Without access, they work from exported PDFs and email threads, bill you for the friction, and may catch errors months late.
What "done" looks like
- Your accountant or bookkeeper has accepted an invite with the Adviser role
- You've agreed who does what: you reconcile weekly, they review monthly or quarterly
- Questions get resolved inside Xero with proper journals, not in email attachments
- Year-end tax prep starts from clean, already-reviewed books
How to do it
- Open Settings > Users in Xero and click Invite a user.
- Choose the Adviser role. It unlocks accountant tools like manual journals and report packs that standard roles don't have.
- Leave user management and billing off unless you explicitly want them administering the account.
- Agree a cadence: monthly or quarterly covers most small businesses.
- Ask them to flag coding errors instead of silently fixing them so your own coding improves.
- No accountant yet? Xero's advisor directory lists certified accountants and bookkeepers by region.
Common mistakes
- Emailing spreadsheet exports instead of granting access. You may pay hourly for re-keying your own data.
- Granting a full admin role with billing and user management when Adviser is all they need.
- Inviting them but never setting a review rhythm, so access sits unused until a tax deadline.
Real-world examples
- If accountant access is included in your plan at no extra cost, inviting them adds no user fee.
- Live access lets an external accountant or bookkeeper collaborate with you inside Xero.
From a founder's point of view
Handing an accountant live access feels exposing at first. They'll see every miscoded coffee. That's exactly the value: errors surface while they're trivial, and year-end stops being an archaeology project.
Rule of thumb
If your accountant asks you to export and email a report, your access setup may be creating unnecessary work. They may be able to view it directly instead.
