Xero Practice Manager (XPM): Setting Up a Client

Xero Practice Manager (XPM) holds your practice’s clients, jobs, time and invoicing. To set up a new client, create one verified client record, add its contacts and relationships, then open an assigned onboarding job.

What XPM Holds and What It Does Not

XPM records the work your practice does for each client. The client’s own Xero organisation holds their transactions, bank reconciliation and chart of accounts. Creating a practice client does not create those accounts.

Xero also provides these practice management tools through Xero Partner Hub. Practices using standalone XPM and Xero HQ share client records. Use the Xero HQ client-list guide for the separate client-list task. Avoid creating another record simply because you open a different practice tool.

A new entity needs a client record with tax details, the people you contact and links to related clients. A group brings the related clients together for practice administration. A relationship records a specific role, such as trustee or beneficiary.

Xero Tax prepares and lodges returns and activity statements using the practice’s configured tax agent. XPM supplies client information, relationships and the jobs tracking that work. An open job does not establish ATO authority or mean a return has been lodged.

Before starting, you need permission to create and edit clients. Staff who allocate jobs also need the relevant job access. Set up the practice’s business structures and tax agents first. If you are still choosing tools, use the practice management comparison.

Creating the Client Record From Verified Intake Details

Create the client from the checked form and entity evidence, then compare the saved record with those sources. Use the following order.

1. Search current and archived clients by legal name, trading name and business number. Open any possible match before adding a record.
2. Select Clients, then Add Client. Choose Business structure. Use Company, Trust or the appropriate individual type for the entity you are recording.
3. Enter the Name for a non-individual client. For an individual, complete Display Name and the legal name fields needed for tax work. Save the record.
4. Open the client and choose Edit Details to complete the remaining information. Record the trading name separately from the legal name wherever the relevant field is available.
5. Complete the ABN, TFN, ACN where applicable, Balance Date and tax Agent details. Add the physical and postal addresses in their respective fields.
6. Save, reopen the client and compare the details with the verified form. Resolve differences before opening the first tax job.

The legal company name and ACN must agree with ASIC records. The ABN must belong to the entity recorded on the Australian Business Register. Tax details must identify the taxpayer recognised by the ATO. A trading name does not replace that identity.

Incorrect taxpayer details can cause return checks or ATO identity matching to fail. A wrong entity type can also lead staff to prepare the wrong return. A different postal address does not by itself prove a lodgement failure. Investigate whether it is outdated or deliberately different.

Use the ABN and TFN checks before transferring the details. Copy an approved ABN through a reviewed import or connected service instead of typing the digits again. Handle the TFN through the practice’s authorised protected route, with a separate accuracy check.

Choose the balance date from the client’s actual reporting period. Do not assume every entity has the standard year-end. Xero warns that changes to Balance Date can affect current and future tax statements or payments.

A small practice can add custom fields for Onboarding date and the location of director-ID evidence. Use the standard Partner and Manager fields for the responsible principal and job manager. Add a separate principal field only if it records a different responsibility.

Create additional fields through Settings, Custom Fields and New Custom Field. Select client or contact usage to match what the field describes. Record a director-ID evidence reference against the individual contact instead of putting one director’s identifier on the trust. The director ID guide explains the information to obtain.

Contacts, Relationships and the Group Structure

A client is an entity or individual your practice works for. A contact is someone you communicate with about that client. A director can be a company contact and a separate individual client when you also prepare their personal return.

Add existing contacts where possible. Xero allows one contact to belong to several clients, with a different position for each. Select the primary contact deliberately. That person is not automatically authorised to sign every document.

Record who signs the engagement letter, who receives and pays invoices and who keeps the books. Identify each director and the location of their director-ID evidence. Keep signing authority supported by the underlying records, not just a contact label.

Consider this fictional group: a discretionary trust, its corporate trustee and two individual beneficiaries. Create a separate client record for each entity whose tax affairs you manage. Include the individuals as clients when their personal work or tax relationships require it.

Put the related clients in one group. Use Trustee to link the company to the trust. Link the individuals using Beneficiary. Add Director relationships to the company only for individuals who are actually directors. Beneficiary status alone does not establish directorship.

To add a relationship, open a client and select Add beside Relationships. Choose the relationship type and related client, then select Create relationship. Business structure determines the available types. Inspect both client records afterwards. Xero uses these relationships when preparing related tax schedules.

A duplicate splits work across records. One record can hold the onboarding job while another holds invoices, making client reporting incomplete. Check the legal identity and existing jobs before deciding that similarly named records are duplicates.

Xero’s merge procedure deletes the record you do not keep. Jobs and invoices move to the retained client, but relationships, group memberships and recurring jobs require particular attention. Custom fields on the deleted record are lost. Preserve the required details and recurring-job links before an authorised administrator merges records. Recheck them afterwards.

Jobs, Job Templates and the Onboarding Workflow

Open an onboarding job against the correct client and assign the next action to a staff member. A template supplies the repeatable work, while the individual job carries this client’s timing and exceptions.

1. Open the Jobs menu and select Jobs. Choose Create new job.
2. Select the saved client. Give the job a clear name, such as Client onboarding - trust.
3. Under Job Information, select the practice’s onboarding template. Review its tasks and add any entity-specific work.
4. Set the job state to the practice’s configured starting state. Enter the start and due dates from the agreed timetable.
5. Assign staff under Schedule Information. Allocate the next task to its owner, then save.

An onboarding template can contain identity and authority checks, record reconciliation, relationship setup, agent linking, document filing and handover to the first service job. Mark completed acceptance and signing tasks as completed where the evidence is already on file. Do not reopen those tasks just because a template includes them.

XPM job states are configurable. Use the states your practice has defined for work awaiting information, active work and review. Moving a job to completed archives it from active job lists. Do that only when the onboarding tasks are finished.

Open Job Manager and find the new job by client or state. Inspect its staff allocation and next unfinished task. The due date tells you when the work is needed. The assigned person tells you who acts next.

Practice-wide settings determine whether that job works properly. Maintain job categories for reporting, active staff records for allocation and custom states matching the practice’s handover points. Maintain the task codes staff use on timesheets. XPM records time against job tasks, so a job needs at least one task before staff can record time.

If the job is missing from active lists, inspect its state and archive location. If staff cannot record time, check the task and allocation. If the client is unavailable, check access and whether the client was archived.

Feeding XPM From the Onboarding Step and the XPM API

Send approved client details through a reviewed integration or import, then reconcile the saved records. Match an existing client before creating another one. Retain the XPM client identifier in the connection so subsequent changes reach that record.

Tax Genie matches and updates XPM client records after a field-by-field review. It also creates XPM jobs and files completed documents to FYI, SharePoint, SuiteFiles, Dropbox or Google Drive. Your practice can approve the handover without copying the same client details between screens.

TFNs do not appear in Tax Genie exports, emails or generated documents. Keep TFN completion separate from ordinary CSV handover. Use the practice’s authorised protected handling step and verify the saved taxpayer details.

A generic import can carry client information and configured custom fields. Custom-field column names must match the configured area and field name exactly. Relationship imports are separate records linking existing clients. A successful client import does not prove that the trust’s trustee relationship arrived.

The XPM API lets connected software work with client records, contacts and relationships, alongside job operations. Xero directs integrations towards version 3.1. An integration requires OAuth authorisation for the practice account and appropriate Practice Manager scopes. Access to a client’s Accounting API organisation is a different connection.

Building a new API integration also depends on Xero’s developer access requirements, including the applicable security assessment and use-case approval. An existing authorised integration is usually the practical route for a practice manager setting up one client.

After any transfer, compare entity type, trustee relationships, addresses, contact roles and tax agent assignment with the source records. Confirm the intended job template and assigned staff. If a field is blank, inspect its mapping and permitted destination before running the transfer again.

Keep the signed engagement letter and supporting evidence in the practice’s chosen document system. XPM can contain document references and connected documents, but the job state alone is not evidence that signing is complete.

Finish the first-day check by finding one client record, opening its group and relationships and locating the assigned onboarding job. Confirm the right staff can access the client. The next staff member must be able to see their task, its due date and the documents needed to begin.