Accounting workflow management: recurring jobs, owners and due dates that hold

What accounting workflow management covers

An accounting workflow is the set of recurring jobs a firm does for its clients, and the path each one takes from records request to lodgment. Managing it means four things are true for every job: it exists by the first day after the period ends, one person owns it, its status says who acts next, and its dates are known.

The jobs are mostly the same in every market: activity statements or VAT returns, payroll, annual accounts and tax returns. What changes is the calendar. Country examples sit in one table further down; everything else applies wherever your clients lodge.

Set up recurring jobs from templates, one per obligation

Start with a template for each kind of recurring work, then create one job per entity per period from it. A family group with a company, a trust and two individuals gets four jobs for the year’s returns, not one.

Payroll needs two templates: one on the pay cycle, and one for the year-end finalisation. Annual accounts and the tax return are usually separate jobs, because they often have different reviewers and the return can’t start until the accounts are signed off.

Use statuses that say who acts next

Seven statuses cover most compliance work. Each one names the person who acts next and the test for leaving it. If two people would describe a job’s status differently, the status list has failed.

Avoid percentages. A job at 80% tells nobody what’s missing, and it’s where work quietly stalls. Keep “Waiting on client” separate from “In progress”, with the date the request went out, so the meeting can see how long each client has had the ball.

Give every job one owner and one reviewer

The owner is one named person, never “the tax team”. They prepare the job, chase the client and move the status. The reviewer is named when the job is created, so the work never finishes and then waits for someone to volunteer.

• Match the reviewer to the risk. A sole trader’s quarterly statement can go to a senior; a group with related-party loans goes to a manager or partner.
• Cap each reviewer’s queue. If one manager reviews half the firm’s jobs, the review stage becomes the bottleneck in every peak.
• Write the reassignment rule down. When someone is on leave, their jobs move to a named backup before the leave starts, not after a date is missed.

Drive due dates from the lodgment calendar

Take each job’s due date from the tax office’s calendar for that client, then work back. We’d suggest three internal dates on every compliance job: records requested on the first working day after the period, prepared two weeks before the due date, and reviewed one week before it. That week leaves time for client approval.

Plan to the date that applies to the client, not the firm’s usual date. In Australia, the agent lodgment program only extends an eligible statement once the client’s previous statement was lodged electronically. A first statement, or one after a paper lodgment, may be due earlier.

A worked example: setting up the September quarter’s BAS jobs

A sample 20-person firm runs its activity statements from one team: Sam (senior accountant), Priya (accountant) and Leo (graduate), with Maya (manager) reviewing. On 1 October 2026 the team creates the September quarter jobs for eight clients from the Bull and Schurr groups.

The same quarter has three due dates. Schurr Pty Ltd reports GST monthly, so its September statement is due on 21 October. Bull Investments has a monthly PAYG instalment and Bull Nominees is lodging its first statement, so both are planned to 28 October. The other five are eligible for the agent program date of 25 November.

The work adds up to 19 estimated hours: 8 for Sam, 6 for Priya and 5 for Leo. Maya reviews five jobs and Sam reviews three, and the next section shows where that load bunches up.

See capacity and work in progress before the deadline

Capacity is the estimated hours on each person’s open jobs, set against the hours they have, week by week. You don’t need a perfect estimate. Last period’s actual time per job is close enough, and the sum shows a clash weeks before the due date does.

Work in progress (WIP) is the same list cut three ways. Each one answers a different question in the weekly meeting.

• By owner: what each person has open, in due-date order. This is where overload shows.
• By status: how many jobs are waiting on clients, in review or with clients to approve. This is where the bottleneck shows.
• By internal date: every job past its prepared-by or reviewed-by date, whatever its lodgment date. This is the early warning.

In the example, the preparers’ hours are spread out but the reviews aren’t. Three of Maya’s five reviews are due between 14 and 21 October. If that fortnight is already full for her, the Bull Nominees review can move to Sam, who doesn’t prepare it.

Run the review queue as its own list

Each reviewer should have one list of the jobs waiting on them, sorted by due date, not by when the work came in. We’d suggest a turnaround target, such as two working days, and a rule that review notes go back on the job, not in an email.

When notes go back, the job moves to “Back with preparer” and the owner acts next. Count how often a job comes back. It’s a simple quality measure, and it shows where training would help.

Run a 30-minute weekly workflow meeting

The weekly meeting doesn’t walk every job. It looks at the exceptions from the WIP views and leaves with a named action on each one.

1. Jobs past an internal date, oldest first.
2. Jobs waiting on a client for more than a week since the request, and who chases them.
3. Each reviewer’s queue against the week’s due dates.
4. Next week’s hours against each person’s capacity, and any job to move.
5. New work and leave: jobs to create, and jobs to reassign before someone is away.

In the week of 19 October, the meeting raises three items. Schurr Pty Ltd is due on Wednesday and needs its signed approval chased today. Bull Nominees has passed its prepared-by date while still waiting on records, so the partner rings the client. Bull Property Trust has no records request yet, so Priya sends it after the meeting.

Move from a spreadsheet or job list to a working system

1. 01

   List every recurring obligation.

   One row per entity per obligation, from your client list and last year’s lodgments. This is the job list the system has to create.

2. 02

   Write one template per job type.

   Steps, roles, repeat cycle, due-date rule and estimated hours. Link the procedure from each step.

3. 03

   Agree the status list.

   Use seven or fewer, each with a next actor and an exit test. Retire the old status names on the same day.

4. 04

   Assign owners and reviewers per client.

   Do it by client, so a family group stays with one manager across its entities.

5. 05

   Create the current period’s jobs only.

   Don’t migrate history. Start from the next period that hasn’t begun, and let old jobs finish where they are.

6. 06

   Run the weekly meeting from the new system.

   From the first week, the meeting reads the new views. If the old spreadsheet is still open in the meeting, the switch hasn’t happened.

Moving one job type first, such as the next quarter’s activity statements or VAT returns, is easier than moving everything at once. The client onboarding checklist covers how a new client’s first recurring job gets created with an owner from day one.

Common accounting workflow mistakes

• One job for a whole group. A job against the family group hides which entity is late. Create jobs per entity.
• Due dates copied from last year. Program dates and thresholds change; take them from this year’s calendar.
• A meeting that reads every row. The meeting runs long and the exceptions get the same time as everything else.

How AccountKit handles accounting workflow

AccountKit runs alongside Xero and Xero Practice Manager. Its workflow gives the firm one practice-wide view of every job, owner and due date, and a daily plan for each person. Workflow’s full functionality is on the Practice tier.

• Templates and repeat cycles. Start from supplied templates, then tailor statuses, work types, practice authorities, owners and repeat cycles to your firm.
• Views. Save views such as BAS or tax work in progress, filter by status, and flag priorities.
• Linked work. Create or link tasks from correspondence, client pages and tools, and open the client’s folder in your document system from the job.
• XPM. Client details sync with Xero Practice Manager and time syncs to XPM. AccountKit workflow jobs don’t sync with XPM; they stay in AccountKit. Our guide to Xero Partner Hub covers what’s changing on the XPM side.