Accounting software accountant access, on your terms

Most small businesses in the UK don't do their own year-end. They do the day-to-day - invoices, expenses, chasing payments - and hand the rest to an accountant or bookkeeper. The trouble is, most accounting software treats "sharing your books" as all-or-nothing: hand over your login, or don't bother. WDI Billing does accounting software accountant access differently. You stay in Prepare mode by default - you press file, nothing streams anywhere automatically - and when it's time to loop in your accountant, you grant them exactly the access they need, for exactly as long as they need it.

This is a collaboration feature, not a way for us to run your accountant's client list. WDI Billing is not a practice hub, and it never will be. It's your books, with a door you can open and close for the person who helps you keep them straight.

Invite your accountant without handing over the keys

Instead of sharing a single login and password across two people (a habit that causes more headaches than it solves), you send your accountant or bookkeeper a proper invite. They get their own credentials, their own audit trail, and access scoped to what you've actually agreed they should see - your invoices and VAT figures, say, without your banking or personal notes mixed in.

You can adjust or remove that access at any point, instantly, with no email chains or password resets required. If you change accountants, or your bookkeeper moves on, the old access simply stops. Nothing lingers.

Break-glass access: visibility without a standing key

Some jobs only need a look, not a login that sits open all year. That's what break-glass access is for: a time-limited, logged session your accountant can use to check a VAT return before you press file, sort out a query at quarter-end, or review your figures ahead of Self Assessment - and then it closes again. You can see exactly when it was opened, by whom, and what was touched.

It's the difference between leaving your front door on the latch all year and buzzing someone in for the afternoon. Most of the time your books don't need an accountant actively inside them - they need to stay yours, sitting quietly in Prepare mode, ready when you are.

Built around Making Tax Digital, not around us filing for you

If you're using WDI Billing for Making Tax Digital software obligations, your accountant can review your quarterly figures or your VAT return before anything goes to HMRC - but the decision to file stays with you. That matters for two reasons. First, it's the law: MTD requires digital records and digital submission, not that a third party controls your filing button. Second, it's the whole point of choosing software that doesn't quietly hand your numbers over the moment they're entered.

Whether you're VAT-registered and using MTD VAT software every quarter, or you run a limited company and only bring your accountant in at year-end, the same principle holds: they see what you've allowed, when you've allowed it.

Clean exports, not a walled garden

Accountants have their own working tools, and WDI Billing isn't trying to replace them. When your accountant needs your figures in their own systems, they get clean exports - not a PDF someone has to retype. There's no per-invoice fee for pulling your own data out, and no format lock-in designed to make switching software painful. If you and your accountant decide a different setup suits you better next year, your records leave with you.

Who this is for

• Sole traders who do their own invoicing and expense tracking but want an accountant to check the numbers before quarterly updates or Self Assessment.
• Limited companies where the director runs the books day-to-day and the accountant handles statutory filings, corporation tax, and payroll advice.
• Bookkeepers and accountants supporting several small-business clients who each want to keep ownership of their own data, rather than working inside one shared master account.

If you're an accountant looking to bring several clients onto WDI Billing, our accountant partner programme covers referrals and how that relationship works - this page is about access within a single business's account.

Try it with your own accountant

Start a free trial of WDI Billing, set up your invoicing and expenses the way you already work, and invite your accountant when you're ready - on your terms, with access you control from day one. See UK pricing or head to the WDI Billing UK hub to explore every part of the product first.