Capable Xero practice workflows that remain separate from ledgers, documents and workpapers.
Before the feature detail, the choice is architectural: keep Xero Practice Manager at the centre and add the missing pieces around it, or run the firm and its clients on one rebuilt record.
A cloud ledger at the centre, a separate practice manager, AI tools reading a copy of the data, and paid connectors holding the parts together. Every join is another sync to watch, another subscription, and another place the same number can disagree.
COUNT rebuilt the ledger and the practice engine together. Practice Manager and COUNT Workspace are two experiences on one system, with the intelligence reading live data — a single source of financial truth for the firm and its clients.
XPM is a reasonable fit if your firm lives entirely inside Xero and mostly needs time, WIP and billing. Its weak points are the ageing interface, document handling that has to be solved elsewhere, and the fact that client data lives in a different product from the work you do on it. COUNT Practice Manager has no per-user fees, shares one system with COUNT Workspace, and adds COUNT Intelligence across the portfolio rather than requiring a separate reporting layer.
Firms ready for one modern system: Practice Manager has no per-user fees and shares its record with COUNT Workspace, so the work you manage and the numbers behind it live together, with intelligence across the whole portfolio.
Xero-only firms whose main need is time recording, WIP and invoicing with partner-level reporting.
How the two products differ on the things firms and businesses tell us matter most.
| Capability | COUNT | Xero Practice Manager |
|---|---|---|
| Practice management licence | No per-user fees; clients on COUNT free | Partner programme, per user |
| Shares one system with COUNT Workspace | Yes | Separate products, synced via Xero HQ |
| Workpapers and period close | Included | Xero Workpapers, licensed separately |
| AI across the portfolio | COUNT Intelligence and scheduled agents | Not in XPM |
| Clients on other ledgers | Manage tasks, time and billing in Practice Manager while you migrate them in waves | Xero-first |
Expand any area for a line-by-line view of how COUNT and Xero Practice Manager differ.
| Capability | COUNT | Xero Practice Manager |
|---|---|---|
| Job templates and recurring work | Tasks, recurring tasks and projects | Job templates and recurring jobs |
| Deadline and compliance tracking | Included | Included |
| Capacity and workload view | Included | Reporting-based |
| Workflow automation | AI-assisted triggers and saved skills on a schedule | Manual job states |
| Capability | COUNT | Xero Practice Manager |
|---|---|---|
| Timesheets and timers | Included | Included |
| WIP and recovery reporting | Included | Included |
| Invoicing | Firm billing with templates, inside the same product | Draft invoices pushed to the Xero ledger |
| Profitability by client and job | Billable analytics included | Report building required |
| Capability | COUNT | Xero Practice Manager |
|---|---|---|
| Document management | Native, same record | FYI, SuiteFiles or similar |
| Workpapers and close | Period close with thirteen modules and a preparer-to-reviewer pipeline | Xero Workpapers, separate product |
| Client record | Shared with COUNT Workspace | Xero HQ sync |
| Client portal and requests | Magic-link portal and questionnaires included | Add-on |
| Sign-off | Tokenised sign-off with an AI-drafted letter | Third-party e-signature |
| Capability | COUNT | Xero Practice Manager |
|---|---|---|
| Client intelligence | Evidence-backed synopsis and health signals across the portfolio | Client health in Xero HQ, not XPM |
| Firm inbox and email triage | Microsoft 365 firm inbox with AI triage | Not offered |
| AI agents across clients | Run one skill across up to fifty workspaces on a schedule | Not offered |
| MCP server for firm data | Yes, firm-wide practice tools | Xero's MCP server covers ledger data, not XPM |
| Single sign-on | Google and Microsoft Entra ID, free | Xero login |
| Capability | COUNT | Xero Practice Manager |
|---|---|---|
| Base practice licence | Free | Per user, via partner programme |
| Products needed for a full practice stack | One | Typically three to five |
| Paid upgrade path | Available on request | Add-on products |
Xero Practice Manager details sourced from public information as at August 2026: Xero Practice Manager, Xero Workpapers, Xero HQ. Pricing and features change; check the vendor for current details.
Import clients, jobs, job templates and staff from XPM.
Open WIP and unbilled time carry across with balances intact.
Run both for one billing cycle before decommissioning XPM.
We'll import a copy so you can compare like for like.
