Everything you need to know about Xero Practice Manager
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If you want to become an expert running an accounting practice, this book is for you.
Over 900 copies sold worldwide.
Extended Table of Contents
Introduction | 7 | |
Foreword | 8 | |
Chapter 1: Why Xero | 10 | |
A grim past | 11 | |
Single ledger | 11 | |
Ledgers linked to jobs | 12 | |
Connected apps | 12 | |
Big-4 level insights available for everybody | 12 | |
Chapter 2: Industry Billing Models | 14 | |
Types of billing engagements | 15 | |
Billable fees | 16 | |
Quoted fees | 16 | |
Fixed-price agreements | 16 | |
Method 1: In-advanced | 17 | |
Method 2: Contract-period | 18 |
Method 3: In-period | 19 | |
Selecting a method | 21 | |
Chapter 3: Revenue Streams | 22 | |
Services | 23 | |
Revenue steams | 23 | |
Compliance | 23 | |
Advisory | 24 | |
Chapter 4: Practice Settings | 26 | |
Practice settings | 27 | |
Task vs staff billable rates | 27 | |
Allocation | 28 | |
Cost admin | 28 | |
Time | 28 | |
Ordering | 29 | |
Staff settings | 30 | |
Base rates | 30 | |
Overhead apportionment | 30 | |
Best of both worlds | 31 | |
Billable rates | 32 | |
Considerations for billable rates | 32 | |
Task settings | 34 | |
Keep it simple | 34 | |
Sub-tasks in XPM | 34 | |
Secret cause | 35 | |
Must-have tasks | 35 | |
Must-not tasks | 35 | |
Task-based reporting | 37 | |
Job costs | 38 | |
Client settings | 38 | |
Clients vs client groups | 38 | |
Setting up client groups | 39 | |
Client vs contacts | 39 | |
Business structures | 39 | |
Client types | 40 | |
Tax agent | 40 | |
Job settings | 40 | |
Job categories | 40 | |
Filtering your WIP balance | 40 | |
Revenue streams | 41 | |
Job states | 43 | |
Job templates | 45 | |
Xero integration settings | 45 | |
Income and cost of sale accounts | 45 | |
Clients, suppliers and contact person | 46 | |
Invoices | 46 | |
Invoice details: Invoice format | 46 | |
Option A: Job or miscellaneous invoice total | 46 | |
Option B: Individual tasks and costs | 47 | |
Option C: Time sheet notes | 48 | |
Which option is best? | 48 | |
Invoice payments | 48 | |
Purchase receipts | 49 | |
KPI/WIP reporting | 49 | |
Custom templates: Document designs | 49 | |
Where invoices are sent from | 50 | |
Invoice designs | 50 | |
Quote designs | 50 | |
Tax letters | 51 | |
Invoice statements | 51 | |
Purchase orders | 51 | |
Chapter 5: Integrations | 52 | |
Xero + XPM | 54 | |
Clients and suppliers | 54 | |
Purchase orders | 55 | |
Invoices | 55 | |
Practice Ignition + XPM | 55 | |
Link Reporting + XPM | 56 | |
Chapter 6: Creating Engagements | 57 | |
What is an engagement? | 58 | |
Advice on engagements | 58 | |
Chapter 7: Setting up Engagements | 61 | |
General guidelines for setting up engagements | 62 | |
Overview of jobs | 62 | |
Types of annual engagements | 63 | |
Selecting the client | 64 | |
Start dates and durations of jobs | 64 | |
Signing up new clients to fixed-price agreements | 65 | |
In-period tasks for fixed-price agreements | 66 | |
Job budgets | 67 | |
Allocating job managers | 67 | |
General questions from clients | 67 | |
Option 1: New job | 68 | |
Option 2: General queries task | 68 | |
Option 3: General queries job | 68 | |
Internal jobs | 68 | |
Setting up engagements in XPM | 70 | |
Job templates | 70 | |
Xero subscriptions of job templates | 71 | |
Setting up time-charge agreements | 72 | |
Setting up fixed-price agreements | 73 | |
Summary | 74 | |
Setting up engagements in Practice Ignition | 74 | |
Benefits of using Practice Ignition | 74 | |
How to set up Practice Ignition | 75 | |
General settings in Practice Ignition | 75 | |
Creating your engagement letter terms | 76 | |
Adding payment services to Practice Ignition | 77 | |
Linking staff members in Practice Ignition | 77 | |
Setting up integrations with Practice Ignition | 77 | |
Setting up services in Practice Ignition | 78 | |
Creating proposals for annual engagements | 80 | |
Creating proposals for one-off engagements | 82 | |
How to roll out Practice Ignition for your practice | 82 | |
Summary | 83 | |
Chapter 8: Project Management | 84 | |
Setting up jobs | 85 | |
Job budgets | 85 | |
Estimated times | 86 | |
Job managers | 87 | |
Managing jobs | 87 | |
Job set-up process templates | 87 | |
Time sheet methods, frequency and importance | 87 | |
Reviewing time sheet completion | 91 | |
Updating job states | 92 | |
Internal time | 93 | |
Travel time | 94 | |
Identifying non-billable time sheets | 94 | |
Job and task notifications | 95 | |
Managing your job list | 95 | |
1. Jobs I'm managing | 95 | |
2. Jobs in progress custom report | 96 | |
3. Open job report | 96 | |
Job close-out | 97 | |
Mark tasks as completed | 97 | |
Costs are marked as actuals | 97 | |
All invoices are captured | 97 | |
WIP wash-up | 98 | |
Change job state to completed | 98 | |
Chapter 9: Outsourcing and Disbursements | 99 | |
Outsourcing vs subcontracting | 100 | |
Outsourced services | 100 | |
Estimating outsourced service provider fees | 101 | |
Estimating outsourced costs | 103 | |
Capturing outsourced service provider fees | 104 | |
Subcontracted services | 104 | |
Adding subcontractors to your XPM | 105 | |
Outsourcing decision tree | 105 | |
Managing Xero subscriptions | 106 | |
Managing the Xero accounts payable | 107 | |
Managing customer repeating invoices | 108 | |
Managing actual subscription costs | 108 | |
Managing disbursements | 109 | |
Staff reimbursement of expenses | 110 | |
Chapter 10: Invoicing | 111 | |
Time-charge agreements | 112 | |
Invoice sync with Xero | 113 | |
Option A: Job or miscellaneous invoice total | 113 | |
Option B: Individual tasks and costs | 114 | |
Option C: Time sheet notes | 114 | |
Which option is best? | 114 | |
Invoicing in XPM | 115 | |
Progress invoice | 115 | |
Final invoice | 116 | |
Remove from invoice list | 116 | |
Methods of invoicing | 117 | |
Time and cost invoices (with write-offs to be applied to specific time sheets) | 117 | |
Time and cost invoices (with write-offs to be apportioned across all time sheets) | 117 | |
Quoted invoices (with write-offs to be applied to specific time sheets) | 118 | |
Quoted invoices (with write-offs to be apportioned across all time sheets) | 119 | |
Fixed-price agreements | 120 | |
Understanding the invoice sync with XPM | 120 | |
Setting up the invoice sync with XPM | 120 | |
What if invoices have not synced correctly? | 121 | |
Practice Ignition | 123 | |
Quoted work in Practice Ignition | 123 | |
Fixed-price agreements in Practice Ignition | 124 | |
Chapter 11: Rolling Over Jobs | 126 | |
Renewing engagements with XPM | 127 | |
Using the client order number | 128 | |
Using the job number | 129 | |
Renewing engagements with Practice Ignition | 129 | |
Re-engaging clients | 130 | |
Job rollover | 130 | |
Chapter 12: Scheduling and Capacity | 132 | |
Custom reports for scheduling | 133 | |
Job task estimated times | 134 | |
Standard tasks | 134 | |
Variable tasks | 134 | |
Adding estimates times to job templates | 136 | |
Creating your scheduling reports | 137 | |
Scheduling report | 137 | |
Monthly capacity report | 139 | |
Staff workflow report | 140 | |
Capacity vs productivity | 141 | |
Your scheduling process | 142 | |
Chapter 13: Management Reporting for your Practice | 143 | |
Types of reporting | 144 | |
Job reporting | 145 | |
Client reporting | 146 | |
Team reporting | 146 | |
Practice reporting | 146 | |
Job reporting | 146 | |
Remaining time | 147 | |
Remaining budget | 148 | |
Projected write-offs | 149 | |
Days till due | 150 | |
Client reporting | 151 | |
Client profit | 152 | |
Client write-offs | 155 | |
Average hourly rate | 156 | |
Client performance | 156 | |
Team reporting | 157 | |
Productivity | 158 | |
Staff write-offs | 160 | |
Invoiced by staff | 163 | |
Staff profitability (ROI) | 164 | |
Average hourly rate | 165 | |
Practice reporting | 167 | |
Measuring WIP | 167 | |
Billable WIP | 168 | |
Negative WIP | 174 | |
Practice productivity | 176 | |
Practice write-offs | 179 | |
Practice average hourly rate | 184 | |
Revenue stream breakdown | 187 | |
Improving practice performance example | 190 | |
Practice reporting rhythms | 193 | |
Weekly | 194 | |
Open Jobs | 194 | |
WIP Movements | 195 | |
Individual Performance | 195 | |
Monthly | 196 | |
WIP Performance | 196 | |
WIP Movements | 196 | |
Practice Performance | 197 | |
Service Profitability | 197 | |
Team Performance | 197 | |
Client Profitability | 198 | |
Biannually | 199 | |
Individual Performance | 199 | |
Chapter 14: Common Issues and their Solutions | 202 | |
Timesheets have not been entered | 203 | |
Background of this issue | 203 | |
How to resolve this issue | 203 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 203 | |
Timesheets and invoices in seperate jobs | 203 | |
Background of this issue | 203 | |
How to resolve this issue | 204 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 204 | |
Individual jobs have been set up for each task | 204 | |
Background of this issue | 204 | |
How to resolve this issue | 205 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 205 | |
Job categories do not reflect engagement types | 205 | |
Background of this issue | 205 | |
How to resolve this issue | 206 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 206 | |
Invoices for fixed-price agreements are not flowing back to XPM | 206 | |
Background of this issue | 206 | |
How to resolve this issue | 206 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 207 | |
Base rates are not loaded | 207 | |
Background of this issue | 207 | |
How to resolve this issue | 207 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 207 | |
WIP against internal jobs | 207 | |
Background of this issue | 207 | |
How to resolve this issue | 208 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 208 | |
WIP against completed jobs | 208 | |
Background of this issue | 208 | |
How to resolve this issue | 208 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 209 | |
Estimated times not entered against tasks | 209 | |
Background of this issue | 209 | |
How to resolve this issue | 209 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 209 | |
Budgets not loaded against jobs | 209 | |
Background of this issue | 209 | |
How to resolve this issue | 210 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 210 | |
Disbursements not loaded against jobs | 210 | |
Background of this issue | 210 | |
How to resolve this issue | 210 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 210 | |
Jobs are not being closed | 211 | |
Background of this issue | 211 | |
How to resolve this issue | 211 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 211 | |
Xero repeating invoices not linked | 212 | |
Background of this issue | 212 | |
How to resolve this issue | 212 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 212 | |
Duplicate contacts between XPM and Xero (blue) | 212 | |
Background of this issue | 212 | |
How to resolve this issue | 212 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 213 | |
Reconciling XPM accounts receivable | 213 | |
Background of this issue | 213 | |
How to resolve this issue | 213 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 213 | |
If I edit an invoice value in Xero, will it update in XPM? | 213 | |
Background of this issue | 213 | |
How to resolve this issue | 213 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 213 | |
Xero invoices are not arriving in XPM | 214 | |
Background of this issue | 214 | |
How to resolve this issue | 214 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 216 | |
Practice Ignition not deploying invoices to Xero | 216 | |
Background of this issue | 216 | |
How to resolve this issue | 216 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 216 | |
Practice Ignition not deploying jobs to XPM | 216 | |
Background of this issue | 216 | |
How to resolve this issue | 217 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 217 | |
Xero creating an adhoc job in XPM | 217 | |
Background of this issue | 217 | |
How to resolve this issue | 218 | |
Timeframe to implement this solution | 218 | |
The Linked Practice | 219 | |
Glossary | 220 | |
Acknowledgements | 221 |
Physical Address
144 Riverbank Road
Otaki 5512
New Zealand
Phone Number
NZ: 0800 159 672
AU: 1800 613 188
Contact Email
contact@linkhq.com