Knowledge base
These AI guides for accountants show Australian accounting firms where AI and automation give back partner and admin time: weekly WIP and utilisation reporting, chasing client documents at tax time, onboarding new clients and answering calls. They are written for partners and practice managers at 10–100 person firms working in systems such as Xero Practice Manager and MYOB.
Last updated:
Reviewed 23 September 2026
An AI agent can chase client documents at tax time by sending each client a personalised checklist, following up on a schedule the firm approves, checking what arrives and passing stubborn cases to a person. It suits accounting firms with hundreds of individual and trust returns. Staff stop writing reminders, and every message is approved and logged.
Reviewed 23 September 2026
An AI receptionist for accountants answers calls and web chats when staff can't, takes complete messages, books appointments and routes urgent matters to a person. It suits accounting firms that miss calls after hours or during busy season. It must never give tax advice, and it should tell every caller they are speaking with an AI.
Reviewed 23 September 2026
To automate client onboarding for accounting firms, standardise the steps from enquiry to first job, then let software collect details, prepare engagement letters, request ID, prompt ATO agent nomination and create the client in Xero Practice Manager. Partners still approve acceptance, scope, fees and anything sent to the client, and AML/CTF judgements stay human.
Reviewed 23 September 2026
To automate WIP and utilisation reporting, agree written definitions for each metric, fix timesheet and billing habits in Xero Practice Manager or Actionstep, then connect the data to a report that refreshes on a schedule and reconciles to the source. Partners get the same trusted figures every Monday without anyone exporting or re-keying spreadsheets.
These guides cover the accounting-firm work where AI and automation take repetitive tasks off partners and admin staff: reporting, chasing, onboarding and front-desk calls. They are written in the language of practice, such as jobs, WIP, lock-up, recoverability and BAS season, and they refer to the systems firms already run, including Xero, Xero Practice Manager (now part of Xero Partner Hub), MYOB and Microsoft 365.
Start with reporting if partners do not trust the numbers, and with chasing if tax season is the pain. How to automate your weekly WIP and utilisation report explains how to replace the Monday export-and-spreadsheet routine with a report that refreshes on its own from Xero Practice Manager.
For tax time, how AI agents can chase client documents explains how an agent follows up missing records until they arrive, with staff approving what goes out and every reminder logged.
AI agents suit follow-up work that is repetitive but needs a person’s judgement at the edges. The Document Chaser sends reminders for missing documents and records replies. The Debtor Follow-up sends scheduled reminders on overdue invoices. The After-hours Receptionist answers calls, takes messages and books appointments. Onboarding automation collects client details and prepares the job.
In each case the firm sets the guardrails: human approval before anything leaves the firm, and a full audit log of every action. The guide to automating client onboarding in an accounting firm shows the pattern from first enquiry to a job ready in the practice-management system.
Each guide stands on its own and is free to read. The reporting guides connect to Practice Reporting, our signature product: a weekly utilisation, WIP and cashflow report built on your systems and run for you every week.
For the wider picture, including lock-up, recoverability and the BAS season workload, see how we work with accounting firms. It sets out the three services we recommend first and the agents that suit accounting practices.
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A weekly utilisation, WIP and cashflow report built on your existing systems and delivered to partners every week, with no manual re-keying.
Questions
Start with the task that costs the most partner and admin time each week. Often that is the partners' report: if someone rebuilds WIP, utilisation and lock-up figures from exports every Monday, automating it gives that time back every week. If tax season is the bigger pain, a document-chasing agent that follows up missing records is the alternative. Pick one, prove it, then add the next.
Only with the right tool, settings and rules. Tax file numbers, financial statements and identity documents should not go into personal or free AI accounts, and a registered agent needs a client's permission before disclosing their information to a third party, unless there is a legal duty to. Use a business plan the firm administers, or a private assistant, with an acceptable-use policy. This is general information, not tax advice.
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