IT support for accounting firms
Accounting firms need IT that holds up in the last week of October and again in the last week of February. We support hosted ledger and practice software, keep backups with retention that satisfies record-keeping rules, and schedule every disruptive change well away from lodgement deadlines.
What breaks most
- Hosted ledger software crawling because nobody tested the connection under load
- A workstation dying in the week before a lodgement deadline
- Client documents scattered across email, a server folder and someone's OneDrive
- Staff sharing a login to a portal that should have individual accounts
- Backup retention that doesn't cover the period an audit could reach back to
What we do about it
- Performance work on hosted ledger and practice management platforms
- Multi-factor authentication on ATO, ASIC and banking portals
- Document structure that survives staff turnover, in SharePoint rather than in habits
- Backups with retention set to match your record-keeping obligations, tested quarterly
- A change freeze across BAS and tax season — nothing disruptive happens in those weeks
Software we see and support: Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, Class, BGL, FYI Docs, ATO Online Services, and whichever hosted desktop your practice software sits on.
The part most providers skip
Retention, not just backup. A backup that only holds thirty days is fine for a mistake and useless for an audit. We set retention against your obligations and document what's held, so the answer exists before anyone asks for it.
What working with us looks like
Every engagement starts the same way — an audit, then the fixes that carry the most risk, then a rhythm you stop having to think about.
Week one — audit
A half-day on site during a quiet week. Every workstation, the hosted desktop connection, the ledger and document systems, your backup retention and your portal access. You get a written list ranked by risk, with a cost against each item.
Weeks two to four — the fixes that matter
Multi-factor authentication on ATO, ASIC and banking portals, backup retention corrected against your record-keeping obligations, and any workstation that would not survive October replaced or rebuilt.
Before the next deadline — the freeze
We map your BAS and lodgement dates into a change calendar and stop touching anything disruptive inside those windows. Only security work is exempt, and you are told before it happens.
Ongoing — quarterly review
Machine ages and warranty status, backup restore test results in writing, licence counts against actual staff, and a short list of what should happen next quarter.
A job like yours
A six-partner practice in Cleveland called us in September with hosted ledger software that slowed to a crawl every afternoon. It was not the software — it was a five-year-old switch overheating in an unventilated cupboard, dropping packets under load. Replacing the switch and moving it out of the cupboard cost less than a day of lost billable time, and the practice got through October without a single performance call.
Questions from accountants
Can you work around tax season?
Yes, and we insist on it. Nothing disruptive — no migrations, no hardware swaps, no network changes — happens during BAS or tax season. We plan the year backwards from your deadlines, and urgent security work is the only exception.
Do you support hosted desktop environments?
Yes. Many practices run ledger software on a hosted desktop, which shifts the problem to connection quality, local printing and session performance. We test the connection under real load and fix the local side, then work with the host on anything upstream.
What about client data and privacy?
Client financial records get encrypted backups, access limited to the staff who need it, and multi-factor authentication on every system holding them. We can also produce a short written summary of controls for a client or insurer who asks.
How long should an accounting practice keep backups?
Longer than the thirty days most small-business backups default to. Record-keeping obligations reach back years, so we set retention against the period an audit or a client query could realistically cover, hold at least one copy off-site, and document what is held and for how long so the answer exists before anyone asks.
We are moving from a local server to hosted. Can you manage that?
Yes, and the timing matters more than the technology. We stage the move so both environments run in parallel, cut over on a weekend outside any lodgement window, and keep the old server readable until you have signed off that nothing is missing. Practices that skip the overlap are the ones that discover a missing archive in February.
The services this usually involves
Data backup and recovery
Backups that are monitored, tested and off-site — plus recovery when someone else's backup turns out to be empty.
Cybersecurity
The practical controls that stop small businesses being robbed: MFA, patching, managed antivirus and staff who know the signs.
Microsoft 365
Email, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive set up properly, licensed correctly, and secured against the obvious attacks.