Switching bookkeepers, without the drama.
Slow replies, surprise invoices, books you quietly doubt - you don't have to put up with any of it. Switching to LINK Books takes one call, and we do the heavy lifting.
Rated 4.9 from 126+ Google reviews · Registered BAS Agents · Xero Platinum Partner
Signs it's time for a better bookkeeper.
You're chasing them
Reconciliations run weeks behind and every question waits days for an answer. Bookkeeping you have to manage isn't a service.
Surprise invoices
Hourly billing that swells without warning. Our fees are fixed from the get-go and stick - you know the number before the month starts.
You doubt the books
If you're quietly re-checking your bookkeeper's work, you're paying twice. Chartered-backed review means our numbers hold.
BAS anxiety
Deadlines that land on you instead of them. Registered BAS agents make lodgment our legal responsibility, on agent deadlines.
No payroll depth
Payday super, awards and STP have outgrown casual payroll skills. Our payroll team handles it as a discipline, not a side task.
Still doing it yourself
Your hourly rate on the tools versus $80 a week on Basic Books - the business case writes itself.
We handle the whole handover.
Free health check
We review your Xero file as it stands - what's clean, what's behind, what needs fixing - and give it to you straight, with a fixed quote for any catch-up.
We take the handover
File access or subscription transfer, the courtesy contact with your old bookkeeper, and the formal BAS agent change with the ATO - all ours to do.
Fixed fee, steady rhythm
Your dedicated bookkeeper starts the weekly rhythm: coding, reconciling, payroll, BAS. You get numbers you trust and evenings that are yours.
How the switch actually runs.
Four moving parts, and none of them need a difficult phone call from you. This is the order we work in and roughly what each one takes.
- 01
Get your data in your own hands
Your financial records belong to your business. Before anything else, check you can still get into Xero yourself and export what matters: general ledger, contacts, invoices and bills, payroll and STP history, and the receipt images if they sit in a separate app. You are required to keep five years of records and produce them if asked, so this is worth doing whether you move or not.
- 02
Nominate us with the ATO
Adding a new agent starts at your end, not ours. Most businesses with an ABN nominate their agent themselves in Online services for business, which is a handful of screens once you are logged in with myID. The nomination stays open for 28 days for us to accept. Sole traders work differently. We send the click path through or walk you across it on the phone.
- 03
Sort out who owns the subscription
This one catches people. If your bookkeeper holds the Xero subscription, you are renting access to your own accounts, and losing them can mean losing the login. Xero has a request transfer function that moves the billing without touching a single transaction, and it takes about three minutes. We take the subscription on as part of your fee, or you keep it and invite us in as advisor.
- 04
Close the old period cleanly
The gap is where things go missing. We agree in writing who lodges the current BAS period, up to what date the outgoing bookkeeper has reconciled, and when their access ends. Then we compare what was actually lodged with the ATO against what the file says. Anything unfinished gets a name and a date against it, and your first monthly report tells you where the business really stands.
Where switches quietly go wrong.
A bad handover is not dramatic. It is quiet, and it usually surfaces two quarters later when somebody goes looking for something that was never brought across.
Nobody agreed who lodges the current quarter
You leave in the middle of a BAS period. The outgoing bookkeeper assumes the new one picks it up. The new one assumes it was finished before they arrived. The quarter goes unlodged and the first anyone hears is a letter. One line in an email prevents it: who lodges this period, up to what date the file is reconciled, and when access ends.
The subscription was never yours
If your bookkeeper holds the Xero subscription in their own account, you have been renting your own accounts all along. When a relationship ends badly, access tends to end with it. Transferring is straightforward while everyone is still being reasonable, which is a good argument for starting the conversation before you are furious rather than after.
The history that never lived in Xero
The ledger comes across on its own. Receipt images in a separate capture app, payroll files, ATO correspondence and the working papers behind last year's adjustments often sit in the outgoing bookkeeper's own accounts. You are the one who has to produce five years of records if you are ever asked, so those get listed and collected during the handover rather than remembered eighteen months too late.
Nobody compared lodged against actual
Pull the lodged BAS figures from the ATO and put them beside the same periods in Xero. If they disagree, either the lodgement was wrong or somebody edited a period after it was lodged, and both matter before you sign off on the year. It is one of the first things we check on a takeover, and it is how the occasional never-actually-lodged BAS gets found.
Waiting for a tidy moment
The start of a quarter is the cleanest place to switch, and 1 July is cleaner again, because the split of responsibility is obvious. That is a preference, not a rule. If lodgements are already overdue, waiting for a neat date only adds more late periods, and the penalty for late lodgement builds in blocks. Fronting up voluntarily through a registered agent is a very different conversation with the ATO than being found.
Changing the person when the problem is the system
Sometimes the bookkeeper is not the issue. If the bank feed drops out every fortnight, invoicing happens in software that does not talk to Xero, the chart of accounts has grown to two hundred codes and half your income arrives as one net settlement figure, a new bookkeeper inherits the same job and you get the same result. It is the person when calls go unanswered, work runs late every cycle, lodgements slip and the invoice is never the number you expected. Work out which one you have before you move, because only one of them is fixed by moving.
Frequently asked questions.
Do I have to have the awkward conversation with my current bookkeeper?
No - we handle the handover professionally, including the courtesy contact and the file transfer. Handover between practitioners is normal and routine.
How long does switching take?
Usually under a week. Xero makes it quick: you invite us to the file or transfer the subscription, we review the state of the books, agree the fixed fee, and take over from the next cycle.
What if my books are in bad shape?
That is often exactly why people switch. We do a health check first, quote any catch-up work as a fixed one-off, and only then start the ongoing rhythm - so you never pay an open-ended clean-up bill.
Will my BAS lodgments carry over cleanly?
Yes. As registered BAS agents we take over your lodgment obligations formally with the ATO, so nothing is missed between the old bookkeeper and us.
I do the books myself. Is that switching too?
The best kind. Most DIY owners hand over once they price their own hours - from $80 a week on Basic Books, the maths usually settles it.
Can I take my own data with me?
Yes. The records belong to your business, not to whoever has been keeping them. In practice that means exporting from Xero while you still have access - general ledger, contacts, invoices and bills, payroll and STP history - and collecting anything that lives outside the file, like receipt images in a capture app or the working papers behind last year's adjustments. You have to keep five years of records and produce them if the ATO asks, so it is worth doing properly rather than quickly. If fees are in dispute a practitioner may be entitled to hold their own working papers, but that does not extend to your source records or your Xero file.
What is agent nomination and do I have to do it myself?
It is the ATO process for adding a new tax or BAS agent, and yes, it starts with you rather than with us. Most businesses with an ABN log in to Online services for business using myID, nominate the agent, and the nomination then sits open for 28 days for us to accept. Sole traders are handled differently. It takes a few minutes, and we send you the exact screens or stay on the phone while you do it.
My bookkeeper owns my Xero subscription. Am I stuck?
No. Xero has a request transfer function that moves the billing across without touching your data - the file, the history and every reconciled transaction stay exactly as they are. It takes about three minutes from the subscription screen. We can take the subscription on as part of your fee, or you can hold it yourself and invite us in as advisor. Either way, you should be the one who can never be locked out.
Should I wait until the end of the financial year to switch?
Only if nothing is overdue. The start of a quarter is the cleanest split, because the BAS period boundary makes responsibility obvious, and 1 July is cleaner again. That is a preference, not a rule. If lodgements are already behind, waiting for a tidy date just adds late periods and interest to the pile. Coming forward voluntarily through a registered agent puts you in a much better position than being contacted first.
No cost, no obligation
One call starts the switch.
Tell us what's not working and we'll map the move - free health check included. 07 3899 8311.