Working With Your Accountant in BizHub365: What to Share and How

Most owners recognise the year-end scramble: a carrier bag of receipts, a spreadsheet of invoices that stops in October, and a bank statement with half the payments unexplained. Your accountant has seen it many times. The trouble is that you pay for it, in hours spent searching for paperwork and in questions that come back weeks later.

Why sending a box of receipts at year end costs you time and often money

When records arrive in a batch, your accountant has to rebuild the year before they can do anything useful. Each missing receipt becomes an email, each email becomes a reply, and each reply waits in a queue. If you bill by the hour, that back-and-forth shows up on the invoice. If you pay a fixed fee, it still eats into the time they could spend on your actual questions.

The other cost is less visible. Money you have not chased goes uncollected for longer, and expenses you forgot to log are expenses you cannot discuss. Records kept during the year let your accountant spot these gaps while there is still time to fix them.

What your accountant can see when you invite them, in plain English

BizHub365 keeps your customers, bookings, invoices, quotes, payments, expenses and bank transactions in one system. That means your accountant is looking at the same records you are, not a copy you exported on Friday.

The exact access your accountant gets depends on how you set them up in the live system, so check the current options when you send the invitation. What matters for most owners is simple: the figures they review come from the same place your invoices and bank matching already live, so there is no second spreadsheet to reconcile.

We should be clear about what BizHub365 is for. It is software that holds your business records and helps you produce them. It works alongside your accountant, and it does not decide what you owe. Your accountant still makes those calls.

Sharing invoices, expenses, credit notes and bank-matched transactions in one place

The practical benefit shows up in four areas.

Invoices and quotes are created and numbered as you work, so your accountant can see what was issued and when. Credit notes sit alongside the original invoice, which saves the common question of why a figure has changed.

Expenses are logged against the bank transaction they relate to. Bank import brings in your statement lines, and smart matching pairs them with invoices and expenses where it can. Anything it cannot match is a short list you deal with, rather than a full month of guessing.

The point is not that matching is perfect. It is that the unmatched items are visible now, in the month they happened, while you still remember what the payment was for.

Agreeing who does what: you chase payments and log expenses, they review and file

A working arrangement works best when each person owns a clear part. A sensible split for most small businesses looks like this.

You send invoices and quotes, chase unpaid invoices, record payments and log expenses as they happen. You keep the bank matching tidy each week or month. You answer your accountant's questions quickly because you know what the transactions were for.

Your accountant reviews the records, raises questions about anything unusual, prepares the accounts and files the returns. They tell you what they need and when, rather than you guessing.

Write this down, even if it is a single paragraph in an email. Many arguments at year end come from both sides assuming the other was doing a task that nobody had actually been given.

BizHub365 One has unlimited team members and no per-user fees, so bringing your accountant or bookkeeper into the system does not add a per-seat charge. Check the current terms on the site before you rely on that for your own set-up.

Questions to ask your accountant before you invite them

A short conversation before you send an invitation saves rework later. These are worth asking:

Which records do you want to see during the year, and which can wait until year end? Do you prefer invoices to be numbered in a particular way? How do you want expenses categorised, and do you have a list of categories you already use? How often would you like a catch-up, monthly or quarterly? Is there anything you need from the bank that the bank import will not capture, such as cash payments or transactions from a second account?

You may also want to ask whether they already use software that connects with yours. BizHub365 can import from Sage, QuickBooks and FreeAgent, so a move from one of those tools may be simpler than it sounds. If your accountant prefers a different setup, it is better to find out now than in March.

A simple monthly routine that keeps year end short

You do not need a complicated process. A routine like this one is enough for most sole traders and small companies.

In the first week of each month, import last month's bank transactions and work through the matching. Clear anything obvious, then note the items you cannot explain. Check that invoices for the month have been sent and that any overdue ones have been chased. Log expenses before they are forgotten, including receipts photographed on your phone. Once a quarter, or whenever your accountant asks, share a short summary or give them access so they can see the records themselves.

A routine like this turns year end from a rescue job into a final review. Your accountant spends their time on the questions that matter, and you spend less of your own evenings digging through old statements.

If you want to see whether your records suit the way you and your accountant work, the simplest test is to try it on real work. Start your free 14-day trial at https://bizhub365.com/mybusiness/onboarding/ and invite your accountant during the trial. The trial takes a card, but if you cancel before it ends you are not charged. After the trial, BizHub365 One is £29 a month. Look at the records together before you decide to pay anything.

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