IT and Microsoft 365 for accountants and bookkeepers

What makes accountancy IT different

Three things. Clients send you their most sensitive documents, often as email attachments. Your busiest weeks are set by HMRC, so January is the worst possible time for a locked account or a dead laptop. And a practice mailbox is valuable to criminals, because anyone reading it can see who is about to pay whom, and when.

What we set up for practices

• Multi-factor authentication on every account, including the shared and old ones nobody remembers.
• Client file sharing from SharePoint or OneDrive, with links that only work for the client you send them to and that you can switch off at any time, instead of payroll and tax documents sent as attachments.
• Shared mailboxes for addresses like accounts@ and payroll@, so each person signs in as themselves and you can see who sent what.
• Alerts when a mailbox starts forwarding email outside the practice, which is one of the most common signs an account has been taken over.
• Encrypted, centrally managed laptops, so a lost one can be wiped remotely.
• A leavers process, so a departing member of staff loses access on their last day and their mailbox is kept for the practice.

Bank detail change fraud

The most common attack on small practices is not clever. Someone gets into a mailbox, at your practice or at a client, reads the conversation, then sends a convincing email asking for a payment to go to new bank details.

The Microsoft 365 settings above make your mailboxes harder to get into. The step that matters most at the point of payment is a rule in the practice: any change of bank details is confirmed by phone, on a number you already hold, never one taken from the email. We set up the technical side and help you write the rule down.

Which Microsoft 365 plan

For most practices, Business Premium. It adds device management and conditional access, which is what you need when staff take laptops home and work on client data. From us it is £25 per user, per month, on a 12-month term. Staff who only ever work at an office desktop may only need Business Standard. Our guide to Business Basic vs Standard vs Premium goes through the choice.

What we can do for you

Common questions

Do accountants need Cyber Essentials?

It is not a legal requirement for most practices, but some clients, lenders and insurers ask for it, and the controls it checks are worth having anyway. Microsoft 365 Business Premium has the tools to cover most of them in one place.

How should an accountant share files with clients securely?

Use sharing links from SharePoint or OneDrive that only work for the client you send them to, rather than attaching documents to email. You can see when a file was opened and remove access at any time.

How much does IT for an accountancy practice cost?

Microsoft 365 setup is from £499 and a Security Health Check from £349, both fixed prices agreed in writing before work starts. Business Premium licences are £25 per user, per month on a 12-month term. Klariq is not VAT registered, so no VAT is added.