The return is finished. The partner has reviewed it. The job is ticked off in XPM.
​
Then it sits.

What happens between that moment and the lodgement being signed, paid and closed is the part most firms have never mapped. It gets handled by the support team, it happens in the background, and it rarely shows up in a workflow review. But it is where a surprising amount of your firm's capacity goes, and it is the first thing to break in a peak period.

Write out the steps for a single standard lodgement and most firms land on something like this:

1. The accountant sends the completed documents downstream to support
2. Support opens the PDFs and finds the right Word template for the cover letter
3. Client name, entity details, amounts, PRNs and due dates are copied across by hand
4. Everything is merged into one binding
5. The binding is uploaded to the signing platform, signatories are added, and it goes out
6. The client gets an email and, often, does nothing for a fortnight
7. Support follows up manually. Partial signatures create a second round of chasing
8. The client signs but forgets to pay, or pays against the wrong PRN
9. A penalty notice arrives. Support chases the client, contacts the ATO and reconciles
10. Every one of those steps is logged across three or four systems that do not talk to each other

Nine of those ten steps involve no accounting judgement at all.

Where the time actually goes
When firms time this properly, the cover letter is usually the single biggest block. Roughly fifteen minutes of manual assembly per lodgement, before the document has even reached the client.

The rest is spread across:

• Chasing signatures. Email-only delivery is slow. Grouped entities with multiple signatories are slower again, because a partial signature restarts the follow-up.
• Payment errors. A wrong PRN is a small mistake that generates a long tail of work, and support usually finds out about it weeks later through a penalty notice.
• Status hunting. Answering "where is the Robinson group up to?" means checking the signing platform, the inbox, the practice management system and sometimes the ATO portal.

The arithmetic that makes it worth looking at
Take a firm doing 400 lodgements across a compliance period, at 25 minutes of admin handling each. That is roughly 167 hours, or more than four full weeks of one person's time, spent on document assembly and follow-up.

The number itself is not the problem. The timing is. That work does not spread evenly across the year. It lands in the same weeks your team is already stretched, which is when firms start talking about hiring another admin resource.

Five questions to pressure-test your own handoff
These are worth running through with your support team, regardless of what software you use.

1. How many separate tools does one lodgement touch between internal sign-off and final lodgement? Count the logins, not the vendors.
2. Who builds the cover letter, and how long does it take? Time it properly across ten jobs rather than estimating.
3. How are clients notified? If it is email only, you are relying on the slowest channel you have.
4. What percentage of your documents are executed within 48 hours? Most firms cannot answer this, which is itself the answer.
5. When a client pays against the wrong PRN, how do you find out? If the answer is "the ATO tells us", the feedback loop is months long.

What a tighter handoff looks like
The target state is not complicated. One intake point for the completed document. The cover letter produced from that document rather than rebuilt from a template. Signature and payment sitting in the same flow, with the correct PRN already attached. Reminders that escalate on their own. One screen that shows every lodgement, who has signed, who has paid and what is overdue.

Firms get part of the way there by tightening templates and standardising who does what. The remaining gap is usually the number of disconnected systems the process has to cross.

Where Admiin fits

Admiin is built for this layer of the firm: the support team sitting between completed compliance work and the client who needs to sign and pay.

Here is the same lodgement, run as one workflow.
​

1. Intake. Drag and drop the completed document into Admiin, import it from XPM, or forward it to a custom inbox.
2. Cover letter. Admiin reads the document, pulls out the client and entity details, and generates the letter in the right format. No Word template, no copying figures across.
3. Send. Signature fields and the correct payment amount and PRN are attached automatically. The client receives it by email and SMS, and signs on their phone.
4. Follow-up. Reminders escalate on their own: ahead of the due date, on the day, and after it passes. Around 75% of documents are executed within 48 hours, largely because of the SMS delivery.
5. Payment. The client can pay at the point of signing by card, bank transfer or PayTo, or schedule it for two days before the ATO due date. Identity checks can be triggered from the same workflow.

Ten steps becomes five, and after intake nobody has to drive it. Support watches one dashboard showing every lodgement, who has signed, who has paid and what is overdue.

What one ​firm measured. Across a full month of lodgements, admin handling time dropped from 25 minutes to 4. Same team, considerably more volume through the door.

What it costs. The core workflow is free to use.

What it connects to. Xero Practice Manager, GovReports and Lodgeit. Firms without those can work from drag and drop or email forwarding.

See it for yourself
The fastest way to work out whether this fits your practice is to run one of your own lodgements through it. Sign up free at admiin.com or book a walkthrough with the team.

A huge thanks Admiin for providing us with this article. Want to learn more? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us or directly to the team at Admiin.

At BASE, we've had a front-row seat to this evolution. We've worked alongside businesses of all sizes as they've transitioned from viewing offshore talent as a support function to recognising it as a core driver of growth, innovation, and competitive advantage. 

As we look ahead, I believe there are three key areas Australian businesses need to focus on if they want to maximise the value of their global teams. 

Growing Capability, Not Just Headcount 
One of the biggest shifts we're seeing is a move away from the traditional "cost-saving" conversation. 

The organisations achieving the greatest success globally are asking different questions. Instead of asking, "How can we reduce costs?", they're asking, "How can we build capability faster?" 
Capability is what drives sustainable growth. It's the ability to access specialised skills, create operational resilience, increase customer responsiveness, and accelerate business outcomes. 
Global teams should no longer be viewed as an extension of the business, they are the business. 
This requires a different mindset. Leaders need to invest in training, leadership development, career pathways, and culture across all locations. When global team members are empowered to contribute ideas, solve problems, and lead initiatives, businesses unlock value far beyond labour arbitrage. 

The future belongs to organisations that build integrated global workforces where capability can be developed and deployed wherever talent exists. 

Understanding How Global Teams Really Work 
Having operated extensively in the Philippines, I've learned that success isn't about simply placing people into roles. It's about understanding how people, culture, communication, and leadership interact. 

The Philippines is one of the most important capability markets for Australian businesses, and for good reason. The workforce is highly educated, service-oriented, adaptable, and culturally aligned with our local business practices. 
The businesses that achieve the strongest outcomes are those that invest time in understanding the nuances of managing global teams. 

Successful leaders recognise that communication styles differ. They understand the importance of relationship-building. They create clear expectations while fostering trust and psychological safety. 
Most importantly, they avoid creating a divide between "local" and "offshore" teams. 

 The best global organisations operate as one team, regardless of geography. 

 In the Philippines particularly, we've seen extraordinary results when businesses invest in leadership visibility, cultural connection, and employee engagement. Team members who feel connected to the broader mission of the company consistently deliver higher performance, stronger retention, and greater innovation. 
Global teams work best when they feel global, not outsourced. 
 

What Australian Businesses Should Be Thinking About Right Now 
The next five years will look very different from the last five. 

Artificial intelligence, changing workforce expectations, economic uncertainty, and ongoing talent shortages are reshaping how businesses think about growth. 

For Australian businesses with global teams, or those considering expanding internationally, there are several questions that deserve attention today. 
​

1. Is your global strategy built for scale? 
   Many organisations have grown their offshore teams organically over time. What worked with five people may not work with fifty. Leaders should assess whether their structure, management capability, technology, and processes can support larger and more complex global operations. 
2. Are you developing future leaders globally? 
   Leadership pipelines can no longer be confined to Australia. 
   Some of the strongest leaders within organisations today are emerging from global teams. Businesses that identify, develop, and promote talent internationally will gain a significant advantage. 
3. Are your teams equipped for an AI-enabled future? 
   AI will not replace global teams. It will amplify them. 
   Businesses should be exploring how technology can enhance productivity, automate repetitive work, and allow skilled team members to focus on higher-value activities. The opportunity lies in combining human capability with technology, not choosing one over the other. 
4. Is culture intentionally designed across borders? 
   Culture doesn't happen by accident when teams are distributed. Organisations need to be deliberate about communication, recognition, collaboration, and leadership presence. Employees should experience the same values and sense of belonging regardless of where they sit. 
5. Are you viewing global talent as a strategic asset? 
   The companies that will outperform in the coming decade will be those that see global talent not as a cost centre, but as a strategic advantage. Access to talent is becoming one of the most significant differentiators in business. Organisations that can build, engage, and retain high-performing global teams will be better positioned to navigate change and seize new opportunities. 

 

Looking Ahead 
The conversation around global teams has matured significantly. The question is no longer whether businesses should build global capability, but how effectively they can do it. 

Australia remains one of the most innovative and resilient business environments in the world, but growth will increasingly depend on access to talent, operational flexibility, and the ability to build high-performing teams regardless of geography. 

At BASE, we believe the future belongs to businesses that think globally, lead inclusively, and invest deeply in capability. The organisations that embrace this mindset today won't just solve workforce challenges, they'll create entirely new opportunities for growth tomorrow. 

A huge thanks to Stephen Watts, CEO of BASE Global Solutions for providing us with this article. Want to learn more? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us or directly to the team at BASE Global Solutions.

Many accounting firms are surprisingly hesitant to talk about sales, growth, or business development, even though it sits directly behind long-term advisory work and revenue generation - not only for their business, but also for their clients.

Perhaps it’s because these terms are easily associated with “more customers,” more compliance work, and ultimately more pressure in an already highly demanding and regulated profession.

Sales don't happen by accident. Whether you're retaining existing clients or attracting new opportunities, business development is simply part of running a successful practice.

Numbers have their place, but activity alone doesn't drive growth. What separates high-performing firms is not the volume of conversations they have, but the quality of those conversations.
​
What Makes a Better Client Conversation?

The answer is surprisingly simple: preparation.

The quality of a client or prospect conversation is often set before the meeting even begins. Reviewing prior notes, understanding the client’s business, and identifying relevant developments allows you to move beyond surface-level discussion and create real value.

Preparation doesn’t need to be complex. Even a few minutes reviewing notes, emails, or recent updates can significantly improve the quality of a discussion.

Before any client or prospect call, ask:

• What was discussed last time?
• What’s changed since then?
• What opportunities or risks exist now?
• What outcome would make this conversation valuable?

When you’re prepared, you naturally ask better questions, listen more effectively, and uncover issues that might otherwise go unspoken.

For accounting firms, this often leads to deeper discussions around advisory needs, cash flow, succession planning, and strategic direction - areas clients rarely raise unprompted.

Preparation demonstrates professionalism. It shows clients you understand their world, helps you ask better questions, and leads to more meaningful insights.

Just as importantly, capturing those conversations properly ensures each interaction builds on the last.

When preparation and note-taking become part of your business development discipline, conversations become sharper, relationships deepen, and conversion rates improve.

In professional services, it’s the quality of the conversation, not the volume, that drives growth in revenue and depth of relationship.

Preparation Doesn’t Stop at the Meeting

Few things frustrate clients more than repeating information they’ve already shared.

Every interaction whether a review meeting, prospect call, or advisory discussion should feel like a continuation of the relationship.

Good notes help teams:

• Understand client goals and context
• Track key decisions and commitments
• Maintain continuity across team members
• Identify future opportunities
• Strengthen client understanding over time

Would you leave out a cost centre when preparing a quarterly report..? The same discipline should apply here. Both objective details (what was said, agreed, or committed to) and subjective context (tone, priorities, concerns, level of urgency) matter in building a complete picture.

When information is captured and used well, clients feel heard and relationships naturally strengthen.

Client Fit Over Client Volume

Not every opportunity is the right fit.

Many firms become stretched by pursuing work based on revenue potential rather than strategic alignment.

The strongest firms focus on clients who fit their service model, values, and capability.

This reduces:

• Resource strain
• Scope creep
• Low margin work
• Team frustration

And allows more time to be spent where the firm can genuinely add value. Business needs change over time, so if a client is no longer a good fit, it may be time to respectfully step away, freeing up capacity for better-aligned relationships.

The Hidden Value of Good Notes

Note-taking is often treated as administrative work. In reality, it’s a core business development tool.

Strong notes:

• Improve client experience
• Enable better follow-up conversations
• Support cross-selling and advisory growth
• Improve team alignment
•  Protect institutional knowledge

Most importantly, they ensure relationships don’t depend on one individual. Work smarter, not harder and use digital tools to support this process (as an example, we like Otter.ai for voice-to-text), and ensure notes are stored and accessible in your CRM for full visibility across the Company.

Every interaction documented well becomes future value, sometimes months or years later!

The Takeaway

1. Sustainable growth doesn’t come from doing more but from doing the fundamentals better.
2. When firms prepare properly, capture meaningful notes, and focus on the right clients, conversations improve and so do outcomes.
3. In professional services, quality of conversation will always outperform quantity of activity.

Every year it arrives like clockwork. Around the start of May, the email lands. Xero is increasing its prices, effective 1 July. And every year, the same quiet hum of anxiety moves through accounting and bookkeeping firms across the country. 

How do we tell clients? What if they push back? Do we absorb it, pass it on, or add a margin? 

T​his was the focus of a recent panel hosted by Rechargly, where Trent McLaren sat down with two pragmatic voices in the industry: Cassandra Scott of Cass Scott Business Services, and Chris Wheatley of Scope Accounting. The session set the increase itself to one side. The real question, and the one that matters for your margin, is how your firm is set up to handle it. 

And with the new financial year in action, there is no better time to get it sorted. 

Absorb, pass on, or margin 

There are really only three things you can do with a software price increase. 

You can absorb it, which feels generous but quietly erodes your margin every year as prices keep climbing. 

You can pass it on, the cleanest option. It restores your margin and keeps things simple, but only works if your recurring invoices and engagement letters are set up to support it. 

Or you can margin it, passing the cost on with a markup. This adds revenue, but it needs to be handled transparently. As Cassandra pointed out, retail software prices are visible on vendor websites, so a markup can create distrust if a client goes looking. 

When the panel polled the audience, close to 70 percent planned to pass the increase straight through to clients. A fifth still had not decided. 

Stop discounting your subscriptions 

This is where Cassandra, with more than 20 years in bookkeeping practice, was bluntest. 

The commission a partner earns on a Xero subscription is not a discount to hand back to the client. It is the firm's wholesale margin, covering the admin and processing of managing that subscription on the client's behalf. 

"You go to Woolies and buy their chips, you can't buy them at the wholesale rate," she said. "So why on earth would it be the same here?" 

Chris agreed, and suggested the whole industry needs to change the language it uses. It is not a commission or a discount to be passed on. It is a wholesale rate. As Cassandra framed it, if a client bought the software at retail off the website, that is what they would pay. Through your firm, it should be no different. 

The practical takeaway is simple. If you are still passing your partner discount through to clients, stop. It only hurts more when prices rise. 

You probably do not need to send the email 

Most firms tie themselves in knots over how to communicate a price increase. In many cases, you do not need to communicate it at all. 

The panel's take was that clients tend to hear about an increase from Xero anyway. As Chris put it, they are more likely to read Xero's emails than yours. So the vendor often ends up being the one breaking the news, which means your firm does not have to be. 

Better still, handle it once and never again. Cassandra builds a clause into every letter of engagement stating that if a software vendor raises its prices, those increases are passed on automatically. No permission. No back and forth. The next invoice simply reflects the new amount. 

Will every client read their engagement letter? Probably not. But they signed it. As Cassandra put it, a client cannot come back in six months and say they did not read the terms they agreed to. 

Let your team carry the conversation 

For Chris, who now runs a team of 13, the real risk is becoming the single mouthpiece for every client query. His focus over the past year has been empowering his team to handle these conversations, so a fee question can be answered by anyone in the firm rather than landing on his desk and swallowing a week. 

Both panellists made the same point. We tend to assume clients will react badly, then wind ourselves up over a conversation that usually never happens. Most clients simply accept it. And the few who make a fuss over a few dollars a month are often telling you something useful about whether they are the right fit. 

Unbundle your subscriptions from your fees 

Underneath all of this sits one structural fix: separate your subscription costs from your service fees. 

If software is bundled into a single fixed monthly fee, a price rise quietly chips away at your margin and is hard to track. Split it out, and the subscription becomes its own clean line item, billed monthly. 

It also protects you. If your work billing is irregular, you are not carrying subscription costs for months while you wait to invoice. And if a client closes their doors, you are not left chasing months of costs you have already paid the vendor. 

Chris described his tech stack as a staff member, a direct job cost rather than an optional extra. Cassandra makes the same case to clients. The software saves them money compared to doing the work manually, which makes the cost easy to defend. 

The price increase is not going away. But with the right systems in place, it stops being something you dread and becomes something that quietly takes care of itself. 

The insights in this article were provided by Rechargly, with thanks to panellists Cassandra Scott and Chris Wheatley for sharing their experience. To learn more, reach out to the team at Rechargly. 

A recent episode of Between Two Ledgers (hosted by Content Snare), featuring Amy Holdsworth, returns to a theme that continues to surface across accounting firms: the persistent weight of administrative work, even in environments that are increasingly digital and “streamlined”. 

Despite ongoing investment in systems and automation, many firms still describe a similar reality. Work feels fragmented. Information moves inconsistently. Teams stay busy, but the underlying friction doesn't reduce in proportion to the tools being used. 

What the conversation highlights is that this is rarely a tech problem in isolation. It is more often a reflection of how work is structured and how information is expected to flow through a firm. 

Where administrative work comes from 

A key thread in the discussion is that administrative burden rarely originates from a single process or task. It tends to emerge in the spaces between. 

A client submits information, but it's incomplete.  
A job begins, but context is missing.  
A handover occurs, but not all relevant detail transfers with it... 

Each instance is small on its own but across a full client base, these moments accumulate into a continuous layer of follow-up, clarification, and rework. 

Why adding more software isn’t always the solution 

The conversation also reflects on a familiar pattern across firms: the introduction of additional software in response to operational pressure. 

Practice management platforms, communication tools, document storage systems, and client portals are all intended to reduce friction at different points in the workflow. 

However, unless the underlying structure of information flow is addressed, these systems tend to mirror existing problems rather than resolve them. Information still enters the business in inconsistent formats. Staff still spend time interpreting, reformatting, or chasing missing details, and clients still respond in unstructured ways across multiple channels. 

Information as the central constraint 

A recurring insight from the podcast episode is that information is often the limiting factor in accounting workflows. 

Almost every task depends on receiving, validating, and interpreting client-provided information. When that information is complete and structured, work progresses with minimal interruption. When it is not, the burden shifts back onto the firm to reconcile the gaps. 

This reconciliation process is where much of the hidden administrative load sits. Rarely captured as a standalone task, yet it consumes time across multiple roles and stages of delivery. 

Over time, this shapes not just workload, but the rhythm of how a practice operates day to day. 

Where improvement tends to show up 

Firms that begin to reduce this pressure tend to shift their focus away from adding more systems and toward improving how work enters the business in the first place. 

This includes defining clearer expectations around client inputs, reducing reliance on ad hoc communication, and designing more consistent methods for collecting information at the start of a job. 

It also involves clearer ownership of information at different stages of the workflow, so responsibility for completeness does not shift informally between roles. 

These changes are often subtle in design, but they have a disproportionate impact on how much follow-up work is required downstream. 


The role of Content Snare in this shift 

Content Snare sits less as a traditional productivity tool and more as an example of structured information design in practice. 

Rather than focusing on accelerating existing workflows, its role is to standardise how client information is requested and collected before it ever enters the practice system. 

When information is gathered in a structured, complete, and consistent way at the point of entry, many of the downstream issues that typically generate administrative work are reduced. Fewer follow-ups are needed. Less interpretation is required. The workflow becomes more predictable simply because the inputs are more reliable. 

This framing is central to the discussion in Between Two Ledgers with emphasis on reducing the need for repeated clarification around incomplete inputs, not on replacing the need for human input. 

A shift in how the problem is understood 

Admin overload is often approached as a capacity challenge, where the goal is to process more work with the same or fewer resources. 

In this episode, Amy Holdsworth suggests a different way of viewing it. In many cases, the constraint sits upstream of capacity, in how work is defined and how information is requested and received. 

When that upstream structure is unstable, downstream efficiency has limited room to improve, regardless of how many tools are introduced. 

Once that is addressed, improvements in efficiency tend to follow more naturally, because the work itself becomes more coherent. 

The final scoop 

Accounting firms are rarely limited by capability or intent. The more persistent constraint is often the design of information flow through the business. 

Much of what is experienced as administrative overload is not separate from the work itself, but a direct result of how that work is initiated and sustained. 

When that becomes visible, the opportunity shifts. The focus moves from managing administrative burden to reshaping the conditions that create it. 

Listen to the episode 

To hear the full discussion from Content Snare: Between Two Ledgers featuring Amy Holdsworth, listen to the episode here.
​
A huge thanks to the team at Content Snare for providing us with these insights and for hosting Amy Holdsworth of Clarity Street on their recent ‘Between to Ledgers’ podcast. Want to learn more? Don’t hesitate to reach out to the team at Content Snare. 

Xero has been busy behind the scenes rolling out its new Xero Partner Hub and with it the implementation of Xero’s Tax Manager. For those of you who accessed the Beta of the Xero’s Partner Hub you may have spotted Year End Compliance Tax Forms automatically displaying against existing jobs within your XPM. These Tax Forms are marked “Ready to Start” and are displaying for each member within the group that your firm is responsible for completing their tax work. Below is a friendly rundown of what's changed and why. ​

What's happening 
Xero recently rolled out a new Tax Manager feature (currently in BETA) that lets users start tax returns directly from within a job. Off the back of that update, some firms have started seeing tax forms showing up as “Ready to Start” across jobs they don't relate to at all. For example: 

• Tax forms appearing on internal, non-billable capacity jobs 

• Trust or company tax forms showing up on BAS jobs 

• Large client groups displaying multiple available tax forms on every job, even when only one is actually relevant 

We have received feedback that this is creating confusion for firms that use jobs to manage specific types of work. A BAS job, for instance, should only ever relate to BAS work, so having unrelated tax forms available to start there makes it unclear what's actually meant to be completed.  

Why it's happening 
We raised this directly with Xero Support, and they've confirmed this is not a bug or misconfiguration on your end. By design, Tax Manager currently shows “Ready to Start” returns for every client connected to a jobs’ client via Relationships or client groups, rather than only the returns relevant to that specific job or job type. 
​
The one lever available is a client group’s “taxable” status. Tax Manager only pulls “Ready to Start” returns from client groups marked as taxable, so if an affected group isn't correctly set that way, fixing it may reduce some of the noise. For groups that are correctly marked taxable (which is the norm for most practices), there's currently no setting to limit which forms display on a given job, or to hide the irrelevant ones. 

What Xero is doing about it 
The good news is that this has already been raised as beta feedback by multiple practices, and Xero's product team is actively aware of it. An improvement released in March 2026 scoped “Ready to Start” returns down to taxable client groups only, and further work on tightening client group controls is documented internally as a known pain point, for exactly the reasons above: unrelated tax forms cluttering jobs, difficulty removing incorrectly started forms, and confusion in single-purpose jobs like BAS or internal capacity. 

In the meantime, Xero has confirmed there's no workaround that avoids the underlying issue without other trade-offs and removing client relationships isn't recommended, as it affects other workflows. Xero has said it will continue to push for this to be addressed as the beta progresses toward general availability (on the 01st of September) 

What you can do 

• Check that your client groups' “taxable” status is set correctly, this may reduce some unnecessary forms showing up. 

• Add your firm's experience to the open Xero Product Idea (linked below) so the product team can see the scale of the impact. 

• Take care when starting tax forms from within a job, double-check the form actually relates to that job before proceeding, since it can be difficult to unlink later. 

If you run into this on your own jobs, know that it's a recognised issue on Xero's side, not something to troubleshoot on your end. 

Helpful resources 
Xero Central – How Ready to Start returns work 
Xero Product Idea – Tax Manager: Remove ‘Ready to Start’ tax returns from existing jobs 

Have questions about Xero Tax Manager or how it's affecting your jobs? Get in touch with the Clarity Street team. 

What is Cimplico Workpapers? 

Cimplico Workpapers is a modern cloud-based workpaper solution built for medium and large accounting firms. It's one of several apps Cimplico has built for the accounting industry, and like the rest, it's designed around how things should be done, not how they've always been done. It connects directly to the tools firms already use, including Xero and FYI, and gives practices a structured, standardised approach to workpapers. 

Why firms are making the move 

Consistency in every single workpaper 

Inconsistency in workpapers costs time. Time building out and completing worksheets, time making sense of work someone else has prepared. Multiply that across a team and it adds up quickly. 

In Cimplico Workpapers, every staff member works the same way. Standardised procedures pull straight into the workpaper, and purpose-built calculations mean things like GST recs, tax recs, and hire purchases always function the same way. Every time. No inconsistent layouts, no hidden data, no overwritten cells. Just the numbers, organised the way they should be. 

Efficiency at every step 

Cimplico Workpapers is built to remove the manual work that accumulates across a job: 

• Integrations — a growing suite including Xero, FYI, and ATOSA keeps the tools firms already rely on connected, not siloed 
• Inter-entity reconciliation — balances across related entities are checked automatically, replacing a process that would otherwise mean opening multiple files and comparing figures by hand 
• Carry Forward — prior year data, calculations, and context rolls into the current year workpaper automatically. No re-entering the same information year after year 

Clear visibility over workpaper preparation 

When workpapers are maintained across different folders and filing systems, understanding where a job is at takes effort. And even once you're in the workpaper, piecing together its progress isn't always straightforward. Cimplico Workpapers has visibility built in at every level: 

• Firm dashboard — KPIs across the practice at a glance, with alerts that surface issues early 
• Firm workpaper list — a full view of every workpaper in progress, filterable and customisable 
• Workpaper dashboard — open any workpaper and see exactly what's tracking, what's outstanding, and where attention is needed, all linked to live data 

Processes that are genuinely followed 

Most firms have standards they want applied to every job. The challenge is making sure those standards are consistently followed, regardless of who's preparing the work. 

In Cimplico Workpapers, firms can build out their own templates; structured task lists and sign-off steps that sit directly inside the workpaper, not in a separate document alongside it. Staff work through them as part of the job. Nothing is assumed to have been done; it either has to be completed or marked as N/A. Control and governance that's not a nice to have, it's a need to have. 

A future-proof workpaper solution 

Technology in accounting is moving quickly, and the platforms firms rely on need to move with it. 

Because Cimplico Workpapers was designed from the ground up as a modern cloud platform, not built on top of a legacy tool, the features it can support are a different category entirely. These aren't bolt-ons. They're the result of building something properly from the start and there's more to come. 

See it for yourself 
​
The best way to understand whether Cimplico Workpapers is a fit is to see it in the context of how your firm works Book a demo.

A huge thanks to our friends at Cimplico Workpapers for providing us with the basis of this article. Want to learn more? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us or directly to the team at Cimplico Workpapers.

There's a moment in almost every client meeting that accountants know well. 

Your client is mid-sentence, explaining a messy situation with a supplier or worrying about cash flow going into the next quarter, and instead of being fully present, your eyes drift down to your notepad. You're scribbling. You're abbreviating. Half-listening while your brain races to capture the last sentence before it evaporates. 

You miss the hesitation in their voice. You miss the thing they almost said but didn't. You miss the real question underneath the question. 

This is the quiet problem sitting inside accounting and bookkeeping practices right now, and almost nobody is talking about it. 

The myth of the good meeting 

For decades, taking detailed notes has been the mark of a diligent practitioner. Thorough notes meant you cared. You'd remember the details. 

But the act of note-taking is actively working against the quality of the conversation you're trying to have. 

When you're writing, you're processing the past while your client is living in the present. You're always a few seconds behind, filtering the conversation through "what do I need to remember?" instead of "what does this person actually need?" 

Client relationships are built on trust. Trust gets built when a client feels truly heard. You can't fully listen and write at the same time. Attention is a finite resource, and splitting it between active listening and active recording means both suffer. 

The best client-facing professionals in any field, therapists, executive coaches, top advisors, don't take notes during sessions. They're present first, and they capture details after. Most accounting practices haven't made that shift yet. 

The post-meeting admin nobody talks about 

Even if you accept that note-taking during meetings is imperfect, the traditional workaround creates its own problem. 

You close your laptop. The client leaves. And now you have a 45-minute catch-up on your calendar, a page of half-decipherable shorthand, and three more meetings before lunch. By the time you sit down to flesh out your notes, update the client file, draft the action items, and send a follow-up email, you've spent more time on the admin of the meeting than the meeting itself. 

For a practice with 80 clients and a lean team, multiply that across every review meeting, onboarding call, and advisory session in a year. The hours disappear. Billable time turns into administrative overhead that clients don't see and practices can't charge for. 

And despite all that effort, things still get missed. A verbal commitment here, a concern raised there. It lives in someone's head, or in a note nobody else can find, and the client has to repeat themselves next time. That's a trust problem, and it compounds. 

Why AI changes the equation 

The shift happening in forward-thinking practices right now isn't just about efficiency. It's a rethinking of what a good client meeting actually looks like. 

AI meeting assistants that join your calls and automatically record, transcribe, and summarise what was discussed are becoming standard for practices that want to compete on client experience. The impact hits in two places. 

In the meeting: when you're not responsible for capturing everything, you can actually show up. You ask better follow-up questions. You sit with a moment of silence instead of filling it with writing. You read the room, pick up on what's unsaid, and respond to the person in front of you rather than the transcript you're trying to produce. And because the best tools come with a mobile app, this works whether you're on a video call, in the office, or sitting across from a client at their place of business. Clients feel the difference regardless. 

After the meeting: instead of starting from a page of scrawled notes, you get a near-human accuracy transcript processed in 90 seconds, along with a clean summary of what was discussed, what was agreed, and what needs to happen next. But the real shift is what happens to that information. The best tools integrate directly with the practice management software your team already lives in, pushing summaries and action items straight into Karbon, FYI, or Xero Practice Manager without anyone having to copy, paste, or chase it up. The client file updates itself. What used to take 30 to 45 minutes of post-meeting admin is done before you've made your next coffee. 

The practices that will win the next decade 

The accounting profession is at a genuine inflection point. Compliance work is getting commoditised. The practices growing fastest are the ones moving into advisory, deeper and more strategic relationships with fewer, higher-value clients. 

That shift only works if your clients actually feel like you know them. Like you remember what they told you three months ago. Like you're thinking about their business between meetings, not just during them. 

That level of service is impossible if your team is drowning in meeting admin. It's impossible if your advisors are half-present in every conversation because they're trying to be court reporters at the same time. 

The firms that figure this out first don't just save time. They show up differently. Their clients refer them. They retain staff who aren't burning out on admin. They can take on more clients without adding headcount. 

This isn't really a technology story. It's a client experience story. The technology just makes it possible. 

The question worth asking 

After your next client meeting, ask yourself honestly: were you fully there? Did you hear everything they said, and everything they didn't? 

If the answer is "sort of," you're not alone. But you don't have to accept it as the default. 

Vinyl is the AI meeting assistant built specifically for accounting and bookkeeping practices. It records and transcribes your client meetings with near-human accuracy, delivers a structured summary in 90 seconds, and pushes everything directly into Karbon, FYI, or Xero Practice Manager so nothing gets lost and nobody has to do it manually. There's a mobile app too, so it works however and wherever you meet your clients. 

Your team can stop taking notes and start actually listening. The question is whether you do it before your competitors do. 

A huge thanks to our friends at Vinyl for providing us with the basis of this article. Want to learn more? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us or directly to the team at Vinyl.

Permanent changes to how deeds can be executed and witnessed have been introduced by the Federal government and certain State governments. These changes make electronic signing more widely possible, but rules still vary depending on the jurisdiction. 

Currently, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria have passed permanent changes allowing electronic execution in certain circumstances, while South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and Northern Territory have not. 

What This Means 

While legislation in some states explicitly allows electronic execution of deeds, third parties such as banks or government offices may still hesitate to accept them. In particular, there’s caution around digitally signed deeds for individuals, due to inconsistent legislation across Australia. 

For this reason, Acis continues to recommend wet-ink signatures for deeds wherever possible. This helps avoid delays and ensures broad acceptance. Regardless of whether a deed is signed electronically or on paper, the correct legal process should always be followed in accordance with the relevant jurisdiction, and the signee must be properly identified. 

Current Position by Jurisdiction 

Permanent Changes: Commonwealth, Queensland, New South Wales & Victoria 

• Companies: Electronic execution is permitted, including split execution using multiple counterparts. Where applicable, witnessing can be done remotely via audio-visual link provided specified procedural requirements are followed. 
• Individuals: Electronic signing may be permitted in some states, with witnessing allowed remotely under specific rules. 
• Key legislation: Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), Property Law Act 2023 (QLD), Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW), Property Law Act 1958 (VIC), plus relevant electronic transactions legislation. 

States Without Permanent Changes: ACT, TAS, SA, WA, NT 

• Companies: Electronic execution is permitted, including split execution using multiple counterparts. Where applicable, witnessing can be done remotely via audio-visual link provided specified procedural requirements are followed.
• Individuals: Electronic signing is generally not allowed. A witness must always be present. 
• Key legislation: Respective property law acts in each state/territory. 

Because rules differ across jurisdictions, it’s important to check local requirements before relying on electronic signatures.  

If you're still unsure, you can check with the expert team at Acis. 

Key Takeaways 

• Electronic signing of deeds by individuals is legal in some states but acceptance by third parties may vary. 
• Electronic signing of deeds by companies is governed by the Corporations Act and is permissble nationwide where procedural requirements are followed. 
• Wet-ink signatures are still recommended to ensure broad acceptance by third parties. 
• Proper identification of the signee is essential in all cases. 
• Check jurisdiction-specific legislation and procedures, especially if you operate across multiple states. 

If you have questions about electronic execution or witnessing requirements for deeds, it’s best to seek guidance from legal experts. 

A huge thanks to our friends at Acis for providing us with the basis of this article. Want to learn more? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us or directly to the team at Acis. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly finding its way into accounting practices. From drafting emails to automating repetitive tasks, many firms are experimenting with AI tools to improve efficiency. A newer development is the rise of “vibe coding” where users build small applications or agents using AI prompts rather than traditional coding. 
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While the technology is impressive, it raises an important question for accountants. If an AI-built application mishandles client data or causes a loss, how does that interact with professional indemnity (PI) insurance? 

Where responsibility is likely to sit
From a professional indemnity perspective, the core principle remains unchanged. A PI claim responds where an accountant has breached their professional duty and a third party has suffered a financial loss as a result.

If an accountant chooses to use AI to build or deploy an application and that decision leads to client data being exposed, misused or relied on incorrectly, the liability is unlikely to rest with the AI provider alone. In many cases,
responsibility would sit with the accountant who decided how and where the tool was used, what data it could access, and how it was rolled out.

This is particularly relevant where client information is uploaded, connected, or made accessible to systems that were not designed or approved for that purpose.

AI mistakes are not a surprise 
There is an important distinction emerging in this space. 
Using an AI tool is one thing. Publishing or deploying an AI agent that interacts with systems, data or workflows across a firm is another. 

Simple tools used by individuals for drafting or idea generation generally present a different risk profile to agents that can read files, process data, trigger actions or integrate with other platforms. As agents become more capable, the consequences of design errors or poor controls become more serious. 

PI and technology 
PI insurance does not insure technology itself. It responds to alleged failures in professional services. 

If an AI-related issue results in an allegation that an accountant failed to protect client data, failed to exercise due care, or relied on outputs that should not reasonably have been relied upon, that is where PI exposure may arise. 

This makes risk management around AI use critical. 

Practical risk management steps 
Accounting firms do not need to avoid AI completely. However, sensible controls matter. 

Limit publishing, not experimentation 
Allow individuals to build or test simple agents that make repetitive work easier, but avoid firm-wide deployment without oversight. When an agent is published across a practice, it should be reviewed in the same way as any other system or process change. 

Be clear on access and permissions 
Before rolling out any AI agent, understand exactly what it can access and what it can do. Key questions include what data it can read, what actions it can take, and what external content it connects to or collects. 

Update your AI policy 
Many existing AI policies focus on tools rather than agents. Agents raise different questions, including who can create them, who can approve publication, how they are tested, and what happens if something goes wrong. Policies should evolve as the technology evolves. 

Avoid client data where possible 
Where practical, keep client data out of experimental or untested AI systems. The fewer touch-points between AI and sensitive data, the lower the professional and privacy risk. 

An evolving conversation 
AI in accounting is still developing. The technology is moving quickly and professional standards, client expectations and regulatory guidance are still catching up. What is acceptable today may look very different in a year. 

For most practitioners, the key takeaway is not that AI should never be used. It is that using AI carries the same professional responsibilities as any other tool or system. Thoughtful controls and clear governance help reduce the risk that an efficiency experiment turns into a professional indemnity issue. 

AI does not change the fundamentals of professional responsibility, but it does introduce new ways that things can go wrong. Reviewing your professional indemnity cover alongside your firm’s approach to technology, data and governance can help ensure you are protected if a claim arises. 

Want an obligation-free quote? 
We specialise in providing professional indemnity insurance to Australian accounting professionals. Depending on your circumstances, you could benefit from Accountancy Insurance’s PI Shield scheme. Otherwise, a tailored professional indemnity insurance policy can be created specifically for your needs. 

• Accountants, click here. 
• Bookkeepers/BAS Agents, click here. 
• Tax Agents, click here. 

A huge thanks to Karen McDonald from accountancy insurance for providing us with this tailored article on AI in accounting. Want to learn more? Don’t hesitate to reach out to the team at accountancy insurance.