A 5 to 20 person accounting practice on Microsoft 365 and Xero has three admin processes worth automating: onboarding a new client, chasing documents, and the compliance calendar. All three are workflows around the practice tool, not replacements for it, so they run on SharePoint lists and Teams at $0 in licences, with one Power Automate Premium licence at NZ$24.30 a month for whoever owns a flow that touches Xero. Do not rebuild anything Xero does.
Where the hours go in a small practice
Not in the accounting. In the admin around it: the fourth email asking a client for the bank statement, the engagement letter that went out without the AML check, the provisional tax date that one client missed because the spreadsheet was sorted wrong, the new client whose Xero invite never went. A practice tool tracks jobs; it does not chase clients or know that the engagement letter step was skipped. Those are workflow gaps, and workflow is the cheapest thing the Power Platform does.
The same three-build shape, for engineering consultancies and law firms.
The three builds, in the order they pay back
| Build | What it does | Home | Build cost, | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Document chasing | A list of what is outstanding per client per job; a flow that emails the request, reminds at day seven and fourteen, and stops the moment the file lands in the client's SharePoint folder | SharePoint list and library, Outlook | $4,000 to $8,000 | $0 |
| 2. Client onboarding | One form starts it: engagement letter from a template, AML identity documents requested and filed, Xero invite, the internal checklist with an owner per step, nothing skippable | Forms, SharePoint, Teams approvals; a flow touching Xero | $4,000 to $8,000 | NZ$24.30 for the flow owner (a third-party Xero connector is premium, vendor licence extra) |
| 3. Compliance calendar | Every client's GST, provisional tax, annual return and FBT dates as rows; a view of who is behind, a Teams post on Monday, the partner's phone page | SharePoint list, Power BI for the partner page | $4,000 to $8,000 | $0; Power BI Pro NZ$22.60 for the two who open the page |
Document chasing goes first because every staff member feels it in the first week and it needs no premium connector. Onboarding second, because the AML step is the one with a regulator behind it. The calendar third, once the client list in the practice tool is clean enough to import. Prices from the services page and Microsoft's NZ list.
What Xero already does, and the build to refuse
- Invoice reminders, repeating invoices, bank rules: in Xero, switched off in most practices. Switch them on before building anything; the Xero features nobody switches on is the list.
- The job list and time: Xero Practice Manager or Xero HQ. Do not rebuild it as a Power App unless you are leaving the tool, and read the WorkflowMax replacement post before deciding you are.
- Receipt capture: Hubdoc is in the Xero subscription. A flow that OCRs receipts is a build to refuse.
- A client portal: for a practice under 20 staff, a shared SharePoint folder per client beats a Power Pages site at NZ$323.60 a month; Power Pages cost NZ has the cut-off.
The licence requirements
Three builds, one premium licence. SharePoint, Outlook, Teams, Forms and Approvals are standard connectors and free with Microsoft 365 Business. A third-party Xero connector is premium, so the onboarding flow's owner (the practice manager, usually) holds Power Automate Premium at NZ$24.30 a month; nobody else needs a Microsoft licence for it; the connector vendor's own subscription is extra. The practice that licenses all 15 staff for Power Apps Premium because a consultant suggested Dataverse has spent NZ$5,832 a year on a database it does not use. The connector logic is in what Power Automate actually costs; the practice-tool-versus-custom question, when it comes, is the same shape as Business Central or a Power App on Xero.
AI for accountants: the admin that stops landing on you
What a small practice wants from AI for accountants is three results: missing client records chased without you, engagement letters and client emails drafted for you to check, and document summaries ready before the meeting. The tool (ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini) is just how the drafting gets done. It drafts, you approve, and nothing sends on its own.
The caution is client data. Client files hold personal information, and the Privacy Act 2020 still applies to anything typed into an AI tool. Before staff paste a client file in, the practice needs a chosen tool on the right licence, a written rule for what may go in, and a one-page staff policy. I set that up as part of AI set up safely, scoped and priced on the free call. The chasing draft pairs with the document-chasing flow above. The full version is on the AI for accountants page.
Next step: book the free 30-minute call, tell me which of these your practice does by hand today, and I will say which is worth doing first.
Common questions
What can an accounting practice build on Power Platform?
The three that pay first: a client onboarding flow (engagement letter, AML identity documents, Xero invite, the checklist that never gets skipped); a document-chasing flow that asks clients for the missing bank statement and stops asking when it arrives; and a compliance calendar that knows every client's GST, provisional tax and annual return dates and shows who is behind. All three run on Microsoft 365 with SharePoint lists and Teams, licence cost $0, unless a premium connector such as a third-party Xero one is in the flow, which puts its owner on Power Automate Premium at NZ$24.30 a month.
Does a practice need Dataverse?
Rarely, for a firm under 20 staff. Client and job data lives in the practice management tool; the Power Platform builds are workflows around it, which SharePoint lists handle. Dataverse earns its NZ$32.40 per user per month if the practice replaces its practice tool with a custom one, which is a bigger decision than any of the three builds here.
What does Xero already do that a practice should not rebuild?
Invoicing, bank feeds, GST returns, payroll, the client ledger, and, through Xero Practice Manager or Xero HQ, the job list and time. The Power Platform builds sit around those: the chasing, the onboarding, the calendar, the internal approvals. Anything that duplicates a Xero function is a build to refuse.
What does it cost?
Each of the three is a single-process build at $4,000 to $8,000, two to four weeks. Licences are $0 on standard connectors; the third-party Xero connector is premium, so the person who owns a flow that touches Xero needs Power Automate Premium at NZ$24.30 a month, one licence, not one per staff member.
Document chasing is the one clients ask about most, so it gets its own post: how to stop asking for the same document twice.
Where to start
Tell me how a new client gets onboarded today and who chases the bank statements. One free 30-minute call and you get the first build priced, and the list of things to switch on in Xero before you pay for anything.