Should accountants restrict your access to Xero

Should accountants, refuse a business owners request to give full access to a 3rd party user?

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A business owner has just appointed accountants to do his books using Xero. He asked them to give full access to a colleague / team member who was going to be carrying out some accounting procedures. The accountants have restricted the business owners access so that he cannot invite users and have also restricted his access to any accounting reports. The accountants have also refused to give anything other than 'read only' access to the Team Member despite being requested to give full access by the business owner. The accountants hold the Xero subscription and are intending on recharging as part of a monthly package.

Are the accountants behaving professionally by refusing the business owners requests?  

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By Moonbeam
21st Apr 2019 15:33

This is such an oddly worded query. Are you the business owner in question? Anyone who is unhappy about the way a contract is going needs to have a full and frank discussion with the other party. Has this been done yet? Perhaps you are the one who is being denied access.
It seems clear that the accountants don't want someone else doing transactions on Xero apart from themselves. That may be because of the way the contract was set up. If they are going to be liable for all data entry I can see their point of view.
If the business owner wants some other arrangement he/she may have to renegotiate the contract and might find that the new accountants would rather walk away than allow someone they don't know to do data entry.
You give an impression of a noose being round the business person's neck. Maybe they aren't very good at talking things through with people, which is exactly what needs to happen now.
My advice is never to sign up for anything before you understand fully what is involved. If something comes up subsequently that you aren't happy with, behave in a friendly and professional manner with the other party and see if you can't both compromise, or at least better understand each others' position.
Dale Carnegie once advised "start in a friendly way".
If only my parents had read his book!

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RLI
By lionofludesch
21st Apr 2019 16:07

Depends.

I wouldn't want anybody playing around with entries I'd made. On the other hand, it would be nice if the owner would put some routine entries onto the records.

Impossible to say from the information given.

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By Kaylee100
23rd Apr 2019 13:05

It doesn't bother me as you can see which login made which entry but I restrict access if I think a client will make a pigs ear of something. Mind you, even then, if they asked for access I would allow it and mention (somewhat tactfully) that they shouldn't make entries without being sure they are correct as it often costs more to put right than do in the first place.

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By cdufour
23rd Apr 2019 14:27

Ok - this is the background.
The business owner is a CIS sub-contractor for a contractor who is my client. The subbie has worked exclusively for my client (who is also his friend) for a number of years.
I run the weekly sub-contractor payment runs and noticed that he was approaching the VAT threshold so I advised him to get VAT registered.
He appointed some accountants local to where he lives and phoned me to ask how I wanted him to deal with the weekly VAT invoices he now needed to raise and he also mentioned the accountants had set him up on Xero.
I use Xero for my client and I generate the ‘bill’ from the subbies each week and I told him it was easy for me to send over the bill Xero to Xero to raise a draft invoice on his system. All he needed to do was approve the invoice and send it back to me - job done - nice and efficiently - minimum amount of work for both sides and I could even do that but for him if he wanted.
He was more than happy with my suggestion so I asked him to invite me into his Xero. It then transpired that he had been set up without sufficient access to invite users (or to see reports) so he asked the accountants to set me up with full access.
The accountants then set me up as a user but with ‘read only’ access and refused to increase the privileges and phoned the business owner (whilst he was on site) and berated him over the phone for even suggesting that any ‘3rd parties’ were given access.
The business owner’s bookkeeping requirements are minimal as he is a CIS contractor working for one contractor and mostly works away from home so the main requirement would now be to raise VAT invoices, the burden of which, I could have eased for him.
This is the first time I have ever encountered this stance from accountants and was a little surprised at their attitude.
I have since tried to smooth the troubled waters by contacting the accountants and explaining what I was trying to achieve - ie the most efficient, cost effective way to assist the business owner and asked them to let me know how this can be best achieved whilst still adhering to their internal procedures.
So far they haven’t responded.

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Replying to cdufour:
RLI
By lionofludesch
23rd Apr 2019 14:37

cdufour wrote:

So far they haven’t responded.

And is that because the accountants want to charge him for the work ?

Xero is probably not his cheapest, most cost-effective route.

Having said that, if I were a client, my accountant would only berate me once. I find that most subcontractors have the most effective vocabulary to make their concerns crystal clear.

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