BOOK REVIEW Everything you need

Book Review:

Everything you need to know about Xero Practice Manager

XU Magazine’s CEO, David Hassall, received a copy of Will McTavish’s and Reuben Sweeney’s new book. David told us of his appreciation when reading this new title which he dubbed as “A 6-week training module bundled into one book, but not quite pocket sized!”

It’s not an e-book. It’s not a long brochure. It’s 88,000 words explaining everything you need to know about Xero Practice Manager.

Written by Will McTavish & Reuben Sweeney

(Founders of Link Solutions) this is nearly a decade’s worth of knowledge extracted from two minds that know all there is to know about Xero Practice Manager (XPM). Newly released in February 2021 this book really is a first of its kind. I am a big fan of any practical content which is going to help propel the reader to get from A to B in the most efficient way possible. This book seems to have been created simply with that in mind, cover to cover it is all practical implementation with a seasoning of theory on how to best run your practice.

but is always followed on by a practical example (see Fig. 1). The detail in these examples Going from setting up clients to ensures that you’ve understood it job management and correctly. Some key profitability reporting, If you want integrations are this book covers it all. As well as the practical setup and implementation to become an expert running an accounting covered between XPM, Xero, Practice Ignition and Link Reporting (see within XPM practice, this Fig. 2). These are it also covers book is for enough to ensure some general best you. that you can start practices relevant to automate the flow for accounting and of data between systems bookkeeping firms of all sizes. whilst ensuring that you keep Each section is clearly laid out XPM as your single source of to give you the area of training truth. The flow between XPM

Fig. 1

Variable tasks

Variable tasks on a job template describe any task that varies in duration from client to client. A task like annual accounts will vary depending on the complexity and volume of transactions in the annual accounts being prepared. Time estimates for these tasks will need to be calculated from the budget of the engagement. The challenge we are faced with is that we are unlikely to have expressly priced each line in our proposal to the customer, we may have just provided them a list of services and a single price, such as $3,000 per annum.

Let’s take a look at an example:

Say we have an annual engagement for Barry’s Boxers & Briefs Limited with a budget of $3,000 that includes preparation and filing of annual accounts, with six bi-monthly GST returns. The job template we apply to our recurring jobs in XPM or our engagement rollover in Practice Ignition may look like this:

• Annual Accounts – Preparation • Annual Accounts – Review • GST - April/May • GST - June/July • GST - August/September • GST - October/November • GST - December/January • GST - February/March

A job template like this may be called ‘Annual Accounts + Bi-Monthly GST’. Some of the tasks in this template may have time estimates that don’t vary much from client to client. Others will vary depending on the complexity, volume or scope of the services being delivered.

For tasks we can estimate ahead of time, we can save ourselves time each year at job rollover by adding these estimated times to the job template. GST is a great example here. We may determine that on average a GST return takes two hours to prepare and file. We can add this two-hour estimate to the tasks on the job template. We may also determine that it takes 1.5 hours to review a set of annual accounts so we can add this estimate too. These tasks will be ready to schedule as soon as the job rolls over each year.

To arrive at an estimated time for ‘Annual Accounts – Preparation’, however, we need to approach it a bit differently. We have to figure out what time budget is left after we have allocated the times to our standard tasks. Another challenge we have is that all of our staff are billed out at different rates that reflect their skills and experience. We are unlikely to know who will be performing this work yet. So to do this we’re going to need to use a task rate for each of our standard tasks. These task rates can be found in ‘Business > Settings > Tasks’ and represent the average billable rate of the people who typically perform this task. Because our organisation settings are set to ‘Staff Billable Rates’ for our invoicing, these task rates are very rarely used – except here.

Our task billable rates might be:

• GST $100 per hour • Annual Accounts $150 per hour.

Here is an updated view of our job so far:

180 Everything you need to know about Xero Practice Manager

Task Time Rate Billable Value

Annual Accounts – Preparation X $150 Y Annual Accounts – Review 2 $150 $300

GST – April/May

GST – June/July 2 $100 $200

2 $100 $200

GST – August/September 2 $100 $200

181

and Xero is a natural one but it is clear, and something I learnt during this read, that you still need to implement best practice when linking these together. Visual representation throughout this book (eg. as seen in Fig. 3) ensures that in whichever way you digest information - you should be covered.

As XPM is very much a like-for-like of WorkflowMax (WFM), I believe that most of the content in this book would be relevant to other service-based organisations using WFM. However, the content within this book itself can draw little criticism but I believe a followon deep-dive into the world of integrations and automation between software solutions (XPM being the cog in the centre of the wheel), would be a priceless asset for accountants and bookkeepers looking to build a scalable and efficient practice. We had a teaser of this but I was left wanting more.

The great thing about this book is that you don’t lose all of the knowledge when the expert

Fig. 2

leaves, like you do with training sessions. You can keep referring back to it and learning more. For any users of XPM, new or experienced, I expect this to be a must-have tool that will sit on your desk and constantly be referred to.

Our verdict:

Fig. 3

BUY THE BOOK

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