Running a practice

Watch the lesson: Work your clients' books from the console (1:38).

Everything a firm does across its whole client book: the console, taking a client on, opening their books, and deciding who pays for the subscription. The client's half of the same relationship — who can see their books — is further down.

Plan.

The console is the Practice plan, which costs R0 and is applied for rather than bought — for accountants explains how. Every other business sees Settings → Accountant access instead, which is the half a client needs and needs no plan at all. A practice itself has no such tab: everything it needs is on the console.

Where everything lives

The practice tools are deliberately split across a few screens, each by what it is for.

Where each part of the practice programme lives.
What	Where	Who sees it
Client console, Open books, who pays for a client	Practice in the sidebar, under Administration	A firm on the Practice plan
Adjusting journals waiting to be posted	Practice	A firm on the Practice plan
Who at your practice works on a client	Practice → the client’s Who works on this	A firm on the Practice plan
Your own notes about a client	Practice → the client’s Your own fields	A firm on the Practice plan
Add-ons for a client you pay for	Practice → the client’s Add-ons	A firm on the Practice plan
What is outstanding across your clients	Practice → Client work, on boards you keep in Workflows	A firm on the Practice plan
Add a client, and the bill for the clients you pay for	Settings → Billing & Plan	A firm on the Practice plan
Partner standing and the payout it earns	Settings → Billing & Plan	A firm on the Practice plan
Your professional body, and whether we have checked it	Settings → Billing & Plan → Professional registration	A firm on the Practice plan
Invitations clients send you, and requests you send a client	Practice	A firm on the Practice plan
Who can see your practice’s own books — only where such a link predates 15 September 2026	Practice	A firm on the Practice plan
Invite an accountant, practices asking to connect, revoke access, answer queries	Settings → Accountant access	Every business except a practice, which cannot bring an accountant into its own books

Why "Add a client" is on the billing screen and not on the console.

Because it creates a business and starts a monthly charge. A control that spends money belongs with the money. The console is a work queue and lives in the sidebar; the money is on the screen about money.

The console

Open Practice from the sidebar. Every client who has accepted your invitation is listed, the ones needing most attention first, with what needs looking at in plain words — journals entered but not posted, bank lines unreconciled, a payroll run approved but unpaid, no period closed yet.

The counts are a summary, not the books. To do the work you open the client.

Opening a client's books

Practice → find the client → Open books
A blue bar appears across the top naming the client and counting down. You are in their books, with their figures, and every screen behaves as it does for them.
Leave on that bar returns you to your own practice.

A visit renews itself, and the client's say-so is checked every time.

A visit runs for fifteen minutes at a time. Shortly before each fifteen minutes is up, Ledgr asks again on your behalf, exactly as Open books did, and you stay on the screen you are on. If the client has revoked your access in the meantime, that renewal is refused and the visit ends, saying why — so revoking takes effect within minutes rather than running on. Every visit and every renewal is written to the audit log in both businesses: yours records that you went in, theirs records that somebody did.

Only Full access opens the books. Where a client granted Compliance or Workload access instead, the button is replaced by a sentence saying so. That is a decision only the client can change — ask them; there is nothing to press.

Your own fields on a client

Your practice keeps things about a client that Ledgr has no opinion about — which partner looks after them, how often you do their books, a folder number, the date you signed the engagement. Add those as your own fields and they appear on every one of your clients.

Open Practice and find the client.
Choose Your own fields.
Under Add a field, give it a name and say what it holds — text, a number, a date, or yes and no.
Type this client’s answer and choose Save.

Only your practice sees these. Your client is never shown them, and they are not part of anything your client can export. They are your notes about your own work — unlike putting a colleague on a client, which your client is told about by name, because that changes who can see their books.

Two things worth knowing before you start:

A field belongs to your practice, not to one client. Adding one puts it on every client you have, empty. Renaming one renames it everywhere, and every answer is kept.
Removing a field keeps the answers. It comes off your screens, but what you had recorded is still there, so “what was this client’s cycle in March” still has an answer — and you can use the name again straight away.

The first two fields you fill in are shown beside the client on your console, so you can read down your client list without opening anything. A client you have not filled anything in for shows nothing at all.

More than one of you on a client

A client invites a person — the address they typed. Your practice can then put colleagues on that client, and each of them gets the client on their own console and can open the books the client shared.

Practice → find the client → Who works on this
Assign a colleague and pick them from your practice.
The client appears on their console straight away, with the same access the client granted — never more.

Your client is told, by name.

Everybody you assign is listed on the client’s own Who can see my books card, beside your practice’s name, and the assignment is written to their audit log. You can read the exact sentence they will see on the same panel you assign from — they granted the access to one person, so they are shown who else has it.

Two things you cannot do here, and both are the client’s to decide. The person the client invited cannot be unassigned — only the client can remove them, under their own Accountant access. And assigning somebody never widens what the client shares: a colleague on a Compliance client sees compliance standing, exactly as you do.

Everyone works under their own name. Each colleague’s visits are recorded against them in the client’s audit trail, not against whoever was invited — which is what makes “everything they do is recorded against their name” true when there are four of you on the job. Unassigning somebody ends any visit they have open at that moment rather than letting it run out.

Only somebody who can edit roles at your practice can assign or unassign. Invite the colleague under Settings → Roles first; a person without a Ledgr account at your practice cannot be assigned.

Your work, across every client

Client work on your console answers one question: what is outstanding, for whom, and what is due first. Soonest due at the top, anything past its due date marked, and the number of clients beside the number of jobs. It shows 200 at a time; a longer queue says “Showing 1–200 of 250” and pages with Next and Previous, and the totals always count the whole queue — twelve jobs across two clients is a busy fortnight, twelve across twelve is a busy morning.

These are ordinary Workflows cards that happen to name a client, and that is deliberate: your practice’s work lives on the same boards as everything else you do, so a job already has stages, a work-in-progress limit, an assignee, attachments, comments and a recurring checklist if you want one. There is nothing separate to learn and nothing to keep in step.

Create a board under Workflows first — one called Compliance is a good start. Client work needs somewhere to live.
On Practice, find the deadline you want to act on under SARS deadlines and choose Raise.
The card is made on your board, already titled with the return and the period, and already carrying the due date. It appears under Client work.

Raising the same thing twice does not make a second card: you are told where the first one already is, which is usually somebody else’s board. Open the card on the board to assign it, move it or close it — this list is a view of your work, not a second place to keep it.

Work you have done is kept. If a client ends the arrangement, the cards stay exactly as they are, so “what did we do for them” still has an answer years later. You simply cannot file anything new against them.

Taking a client on

Two roads, and they are genuinely different.

The client already uses Ledgr

They open Settings → Accountant access and invite your practice email.
You accept under Practice → Invitations, the first card on your console.
They appear on your console. The business stays theirs and they go on paying for it.

You ask the client to connect

Practice → Ask a client to connect. Enter the address they use for Ledgr, choose how much you are asking for — Full is the level that lets you open their books — and add a short message so they recognise you.
They see the request on their Dashboard and under Settings → Accountant access. They can change the level before accepting, or decline.
Once they accept they appear on your console exactly as if they had invited you, and everything after that is the same.

A request lapses after 30 days if nobody answers, and you can withdraw one that is still waiting. Only somebody who manages access to the business — an owner or administrator — can accept; anyone else there who opens it is told who can. You get the same answer whether or not the address belongs to anyone on Ledgr, so a request to somebody who has not signed up yet simply waits for them.

You are creating the business

Settings → Billing & Plan → My practice → Add a client
Give it a name, and your own reference for it if you use one.
The charge is stated before you press anything. It lands on the bill you already have, not as a separate payment.

A client created this way starts on Compliance (R69) — books, bank import and the full SARS returns centre, with one seat, which is yours. It is the right tier for a dormant company, a trust, or the annual client whose whole year is a bank statement coded at year end. If they later want their own staff logged in, move them up a plan; nobody at the client can sign in to a Compliance account.

A Compliance client counts toward your standing in the partner programme, but it earns your practice no share: its price is already our lowest. The share starts when a client moves to Starter or above — see your bill.

Who pays for a client

Two arrangements, and Ledgr supports both. The difference is only who is charged — what the client can do is identical either way.

The client pays (the default)

They are billed for their own plan, at their own renewal, at the ordinary published price. Your partner standing does not reduce their bill — it accrues a share of that plan fee to your practice as each payment settles.

You pay

Their subscription moves onto your consolidated practice bill and they are asked for nothing. Their billing screen says so, and names your firm, so nobody telephones about a plan with no price on it. Their plan, and any add-ons you turn on for them.

Practice → find the client
Under their name it says who pays today
Pay for this client takes them onto your bill. Hand billing back returns them to paying for themselves.

While you are paying, the client cannot change their own plan.

A plan change moves what somebody else is charged, and they cannot see your bill to know by how much — so Ledgr refuses it and names your firm in the refusal. Either change it for them, or hand billing back first. Taking a client on mid-month charges the part-month only.

Four things stop you taking a client onto your bill, and each says which: your firm is not on the Practice plan; the client has not accepted your access yet; the client is itself a practice; or they are on a plan that costs nothing, so there is nothing to pay for.

Add-ons, while you are paying

While you are paying for a client, add-ons are yours to turn on and they go on your bill beside that client's plan. The client cannot buy one themselves — Ledgr refuses it and tells them to ask you — but they can always remove one they already have, which only ever reduces a charge.

Open Practice, find the client, and tap Add-ons under their row. You are shown what they already hold and what their plan allows, each with its monthly price. Adding one takes effect at once: there is no card and no checkout, because your whole book is charged once a month, and it appears on your next consolidated charge. Remove takes it off again, and off your bill.

Two things to know before you press it. Add-ons earn no payout — your partner standing is computed on plan fees only, so the size of your book does not change what an add-on costs or earns. And you can only do this for a client you are actually paying for: on a client who pays for themselves, an add-on is their own purchase on their own card, and Ledgr says so rather than putting your choice on their statement.

Some add-ons are priced per unit — per tracked driver, per pack of seats. Those rows carry a − and a +: set the number you want and then press Add, and on one you already hold the buttons change it straight away.

One add-on can depend on another. Live driver & truck tracking needs Logistics & Fleet underneath it, so Ledgr will not let you take Logistics off while tracking is still on — it names the one in the way and asks you to remove that first. Without it you would be left paying for tracking with nothing under it.

Your consolidated bill itemises them — each client's plan, then each add-on under it — so the total is a figure you can check line by line.

Your bill

Settings → Billing & Plan → My practice lists every client you pay for, what each costs a month, and the total. The total is the figure Ledgr charges — the card does not add the lines up itself, so it cannot disagree with the invoice.

Your own practice subscription is free. What the size of your book earns you is a share of the plan fee of every client on Starter or above, described on the Partner programme card directly above: the more paid clients on your book, the larger the share, and it applies whether the client is paying or you are.

Compliance clients count toward your standing — they are paid clients — but earn no share themselves, because the Compliance price is already our lowest.
Clients on Free neither count toward your standing nor earn a share, because no plan fee is being paid.
Usage charges and add-ons on a client's bill earn no share; it is a share of the plan fee only.

Your professional registration

The share is paid once Ledgr has checked that your practice is registered with a professional body. Add the body and your membership number on the Professional registration card, directly below Partner programme, and tap Submit for checking. Somebody at Ledgr looks it up on that body's own register — usually within a working day — and the card then says so, with the date it was checked.

Until it is checked, your share is held at 0%. The card names the standing your book has already reached, so you can see what is waiting. Nothing else waits on it: the console, your clients, the consolidated bill and opening a client's books all work exactly as they do now, and anything already earned is unaffected — nothing is clawed back, and nothing is backdated when the check clears either.

We can check a membership with SAICA, SAIPA, SAIBA (CIBA), IRBA or SAIT, because each of those publishes a register. A practice registered with another body, or with none, keeps its account, its clients and everything on this page — only the share waits.

Changing the body or the number later puts the registration back in the queue, because a check is about one membership rather than about a firm. The card says so before you save, and again: what you have already earned is not affected. If a membership cannot be verified you are told why, in the words of the person who looked, and you correct the details and submit them again.

Queries and adjusting journals

A query is the question that usually goes by email and gets lost. Raise one from Settings → Accountant access inside the client's own books during a visit, and it appears on their screen. Answered means they have replied; closing it is your call, not theirs.

Practice also lists every journal entered and not yet posted, across your book. A draft journal changes nothing until it is posted; post or reverse from Reports → Journals inside the client's own books.

What the client sees and controls

All of it is on Settings → Accountant access, on every plan including Free:

Practices asking to connect — a practice's request, with the level it asked for. They choose the level, then accept or decline. The same card is on their Dashboard; somebody who cannot answer is told who can.
Who can see my books — every accountant with access, and Revoke beside each. Revoking is immediate and kills any visit already open.
Invite an accountant — Compliance shows compliance standing only; Workload also shows the bookkeeping workload; Full additionally lets them open the books. None of the three gives them a login.
Queries — answer, or close.
Invitations — anyone invited by a client accepts here; a practice accepts under Practice → Invitations instead.

A Ledgr login belongs to one business.

So the console link and a user account in the client's books are two different things, and you need two email addresses: your practice address for the console, and a per-client address — acme@yourfirm.co.za — if you also want a login in their books. Opening a client from the console needs neither; it uses your own login.