Several clients' books, one login: questions for an accounting firm

A bookkeeper keeping eight clients' books doesn't have one accounts-payable process. They have eight, each with its own suppliers, approvers, VAT position and ledger. The case for any tool is whether it keeps those eight apart while letting one person work across them.

These are the questions we'd ask, and how DocuBite answers each today.

Does each client stay separate?

Mixing two clients' suppliers, or posting one client's bill into another's books, is the error a firm can't afford.

In DocuBite each client is a company with its own currency, tax settings, suppliers, approval routes, ledger connection and people. A firm groups its clients' companies into one organization under one login, and switches between them. Belonging to the organization opens no company by itself: access to each client is given separately, with its own role.

Where does each client's paperwork arrive?

Clients send bills in whatever way suits them, which is usually not the way that suits you.

Each company has its own typed queues: Invoices, Purchase Orders, Receipts, Bank Statements. You can add documents straight into a queue, a folder or zip at a time. Where inbound email is switched on, each queue also has its own address, so a client's supplier invoices land in that client's Invoices queue. A zip of a month's paper scans is a normal Tuesday.

Who approves, and how do you chase them?

Your client usually wants the final say on payments, and you're the one chasing it.

Approval routes are set per company: stages of approvers, chosen by supplier, account, amount or document type. Every approver sees what's waiting for them, and you can see where each bill stands without asking. Decisions are recorded on the invoice.

What do you check, and what do you skip?

Time spent on a clean bill is time not spent on the doubtful one.

Every invoice runs the same checks in every company: duplicates, arithmetic, VAT, purchase-order lines, bank-detail changes. Each states its reason at the field. Across companies, the organization's dashboard shows each client's work waiting, so the morning starts with the client that needs you.

What reaches the client's ledger?

The bill has to arrive in the client's books coded and with its paper.

Each company connects its own QuickBooks, Xero or Sage. Approved bills post with an account and tax code per line, and the source file attaches to the bill in the ledger. Nothing un-posts, and disconnecting a ledger never removes what was posted.

What we'd ask you to try

Take one client with a messy month. Add their bills, set one approval route, and connect their ledger. If the checks find something you'd have missed, the case makes itself; if they don't, you've lost an afternoon.