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Seamless compliance is coming soon with new Xero Workpapers
If you’re a Xero partner in Australia, you know that compliance work is essential, but without the right tools available, it can be a massive time sink.
When a recent Xero survey found that many Australian firms report spending over half (51% to 75%) of their annual compliance time creating, reviewing, and managing workpapers1, we knew this was a clear signal that things had to change. We needed to find a better way to keep an ‘audit trail’ of important checks and balances, subsequently reclaiming your valuable time that could be better spent advising clients, growing your practices, or simply getting home earlier.
Productivity is crucial for a healthy practice. That’s why we’re focused on improving your practice tools and delivering a more seamless compliance workflow. We’ve been listening to your feedback, and are excited to share what we’ve built together.
The evolution of your practice tools
At Xerocon Brisbane 2025 we announced the new Xero Partner Hub as the next evolution of the practice experience for our accounting and bookkeeping partners. By bringing your practice tools and data together in one seamless platform, we’re making it easier to manage your business, clients, and compliance work from one place.
If you’re using XPM today, you can be among the first to experience the new Xero Partner Hub before the end of this year. By opting into early access, all your existing data and tools will move with you, and you’ll get access to these exciting new features.
We encourage all of you to explore the Xero Partner Hub prototype now to understand what’s next for your practice tools. We think you’ll be excited by what you see!
As part of our commitment to provide simpler, smarter ways to run your practice, the first enhancement you’ll see is the new Xero Workpapers.
Introducing the new Xero Workpapers, powered by BGL
Launching on 27 November 2025, the new Xero Workpapers is a big step forward in creating a more seamless compliance workflow.
By partnering with BGL – a name many of you already know and trust – we are delivering an enhanced solution at no extra cost for all Australian practices at Bronze status and above.
Australian partners will be able to access the new Workpapers through Xero Practice Manager (XPM), Xero Tax, or with early access to the new Xero Partner Hub.
Built with you, for you
We didn’t build the new Xero Workpapers in a vacuum. We looked at your requests in Product Ideas and partnered with 166 diverse beta practices – from sole practitioners to large firms – to stress-test the solution.
Using your feedback, the new solution is delivering on 31 highly requested features including a working trial balance, notes and document rollover, and flexible staff permissions. That’s over 50% of all workpapers-related feedback you’ve shared with us in Product Ideas!
Now, we’re excited to provide the whole Xero partner community access to our new Workpapers solution.
What’s next?
This new solution helps you streamline your compliance workflow, so you can spend less time on administrative tasks and more time on what matters most: providing forward-looking, strategic advice to your clients.
But this is just the beginning.
We have exciting features lined up over the coming months to amplify efficiency, improve collaboration, and reduce manual tasks, which include:
- Xero Tax integration for company tax returns.
- ATO integration for client financial data.
- Basic spreadsheet templates at the practice level.
- Deeper Xero reports integration.
We know some practices are looking for even more sophisticated capabilities. That’s why in 2026 we’ll introduce an optional, paid upgrade within Xero Workpapers. This will cater to partners with more complex compliance requirements, providing more granular controls and enhanced flexibility. It’s designed to handle all calculations, reconciliations and adjustments in-app with a full suite of compliance worksheets (yes, Div7a will be included!). We’ll share more details about this in the coming months.
Moving forward with classic Workpapers
We understand that changing systems mid-financial year might feel disruptive. If you’re happy with your current Xero workpapers set-up, you can continue to use it as is for now.
The legacy product you know and use today is being renamed classic Workpapers to make it easy to tell the two solutions apart. This will remain in the same menu and nothing else is changing for now.
Since we are focusing our investment and future development on new Xero Workpapers, that is where you will see more new features, integrations, and improvements rolling out. We recommend setting aside time to explore the new solution, get familiar with it, and plan your transition at a pace that works for you.
Help us keep improving
Your feedback has been pivotal in shaping the new Workpapers solution, and we want to keep hearing from you. Visit Product Ideas to share what’s working well, what could be improved, and what features you’d like to see next. Let’s keep building this together!
Annex
1 In a survey conducted by Xero between July and September 2025 with 147 Australian practices, 39% of firms reported spending between 51 and 75% of their team’s total annual compliance time on creating, reviewing, and managing workpapers to prepare for tax forms.
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