From 20 hours of monthly admin to "money just appears"

Here's how a top 2% Xero partner eliminated its biggest billing headache and started profiting from the subscriptions it used to dread.

Every month, a Xero invoice landed in the practice's inbox. And every month, Jan rolled his eyes. Rebilling around 300 Xero subscriptions across three offices, with no two clients billed the same way, meant a half day of dissecting CSVs, rebuilding XPM import files and chasing payment changes by hand. Soul destroying, in his words.

After moving to Rechargly, the work all but disappeared. The practice automated rebilling for its 156 Poole subscriptions, won back around 20 hours a month and, for the first time, turned its Xero partner discount into profit. Money now appears in the account every month with almost nothing left to do.

At-a-glance stats

• Practice: 3 offices (Poole, Wimborne, Bournemouth), established 2003
• Xero partner tier: top 2% globally
• Xero subscriptions managed: around 300 across three offices
• Subscriptions automated: 156 (Poole office, Wimborne to follow)
• Admin time saved each month: around 20 hours
• Revenue recovered: around £400 a month previously lost to mischarges
• Insolvency exposure removed: £500 to £600 per client previously unrecoverable on annual billing
• Rechargly live since: December 2025
• Key integrations: Xero, Dext, Stripe

Before: What life looked like pre-change

Context

The practice is a multi-site accounting firm on the south coast of England, established in 2003. It runs three offices, in Poole, Wimborne and Bournemouth, moved from Sage to Xero around twelve years ago, and now sits in the top 2% of Xero partners globally with around 300 subscriptions under management.

Practice Manager Jan has been with the firm four years and inherited the Xero rebilling process on day one. Because the practice had grown organically over two decades, no two clients were billed the same way. That was the root of the problem.

Old workflow

The Xero invoice itself was near useless for rebilling. It arrived grouped by subscription type and never split by client. The real work started with the CSV export.

Every month the team had to:

• Dissect the CSV by client
• Reformat it so costs could be split across the different partners in the business
• Build an import file that XPM would accept
• Add any new clients and strip out any who had left
• Import the file and assign costs to the right bills

Sitting underneath all of it were four billing arrangements the firm had accumulated over the years:

• WIP based, the most common: subscriptions imported monthly onto each client's work in progress in XPM, then billed monthly, quarterly or with annual accounts depending on the client
• Direct debit: a small group paying a fixed monthly amount with the Xero cost absorbed inside
• Annual billing: twelve months of subscriptions bundled into year end accounts
• Standing orders: the client controlled the payment, so the practice could not change it

Direct debits ran through GoCardless. Everything else came in by bank transfer or Stripe.

Where the process broke down

Time consuming admin. Even refined down to a half day, around four to five hours before the wider WIP billing was counted, the job was a monthly dread.

"Every time the bill came in I'd roll my eyes and sometimes it would sit there for a while because it was quite a task to do. Soul destroying, to be honest." — Jan Gnapp, Practice Manager BKB Accountants

Recoverability risk. There was a constant disconnect in the information flow. A client would stop needing Xero and tell no one, charges would pile up, and the practice could not rebill them. At its worst Jan reckons this was costing around £400 a month.

Standing orders. These were the worst of the lot. The client controlled the payment, so when Xero raised prices each year the practice had to ask every standing order client to update their own bank instruction. Many never did. Jan found some still paying amounts set three years earlier.

Insolvency exposure. Annual billing carried its own danger. A couple of clients on annual billing went insolvent, each leaving behind around £500 to £600 of Xero subscriptions sitting on their WIP that the practice would never see again.

Single point of failure. One person ran the whole thing. It depended entirely on Jan being available, and it only grew harder to hold together as the client base expanded.

The partner discount the firm earned from Xero, its main upside from managing subscriptions at this scale, was being swallowed whole by the admin it took to do the job.

The trigger

Jan had been hunting for a fix since he joined. He had been pointed at tool after tool and walked the floor at XeroCon, and come away empty handed every time. "That's really not what we do" was the usual answer. He had almost given up.

Then the firm's Xero account manager mentioned Rechargly. The September 2025 price increase, with yet another round of chasing clients and absorbing the gap on standing orders, was the final straw.

"That was probably the real catalyst, the 2025 price change was the straw that broke the donkey's back." — Jan Gnapp, Practice Manager BKB Accountants

During: How the firm made the change

Implementation

Jan knew the migration would not be simple. 156 clients, four billing arrangements and a base that does not love change. So before Rechargly touched anything, he did the groundwork himself. He grouped clients by billing type and sent tailored bulk emails to each group, explaining what was changing and why. The goal was no surprises.

From there, Alex and his team took over the heavy lifting:

• GoCardless mandates were migrated across, including clients whose direct debits covered more than just Xero
• Amounts were adjusted to strip out the Xero component, which moved to Rechargly
• Clients paying off platform could be marked as such inside Rechargly and assigned to the Xero version of the bill, keeping records clean without manual reconciliation

The first automated cycle ran on the December 2025 subscriptions. Some clients took a few months to sign their agreements and some paid off platform at first. Neither caused a problem.

"Alex has been brilliant from the start, probably one of the best people I've dealt with with any software system, and I've dealt with a lot. It was really nice to have that direct contact with someone who lives and breathes the product." — Jan Gnapp, Practice Manager BKB Accountants

The new playbook

Instead of dissecting a CSV and rebuilding XPM import files every month, the practice now runs a predictable cycle that looks after itself:

• Automated subscription tracking through Rechargly
• The Xero cost stripped out of client amounts and billed separately
• Mandates held in GoCardless, with Stripe also supported
• Off platform payments marked and reconciled against the Xero bill
• Price changes applied automatically at the new rate

The Bournemouth office opened in November 2025, which meant splitting the firm's Xero and XPM and shifting clients around. Having Rechargly already in place made even that easier.

After: Results + proof

What changed (Before → After)

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Day-to-day impact

The moment the December cycle completed without a hitch, the change was obvious. Tasks that used to eat a half day each month now run quietly in the background. Across the Xero invoice handling, the WIP billing and the chasing, Jan puts the saving at around 20 hours a month.

"It's a godsend. It's one of those magic pieces of software that after the initial setup, you have to do very little with it. It just sits there taking care of the subscriptions. Money appears in the account every month." — Jan Gnapp, Practice Manager BKB Accountants

Business impact

The practice now bills accurately from day one of every price change, so the £400 a month that used to leak away through outdated standing orders and missed charges is recovered. The insolvency exposure on annual billing is gone too, because subscriptions are billed as they run rather than bundled into year end accounts.

For the first time, the Xero partner discount is net positive. Clients pay the same rate they would pay Xero directly, and the practice keeps the margin without adding a penny for the client. The separation also made price rises transparent, so clients can see the increase comes from Xero and not from the firm.

"We're actually making money on our Xero subscriptions now, without charging extra to our clients. I wish it existed much earlier."— Jan Gnapp, Practice Manager BKB Accountants

Team impact

The change lifted a burden that had sat with one person for years. The process no longer hinges on Jan being free to dissect a CSV or chase a payment, and the partners are no longer frustrated by the disconnect between charges and bills.

"Any practice who has multiple Xero subscriptions they run for their clients, they really need to be looking at Rechargly. The amount it costs relative to the admin it saves, it's been well worth it." — Jan Gnapp, Practice Manager BKB Accountants

Advice for firms considering Rechargly

Do the groundwork first. Jan grouped clients by billing type and emailed each group before the migration began. Setting expectations early kept the rollout smooth, even with a base that does not love change.

Lean on the team. The bulk of the technical migration, including moving GoCardless mandates and stripping the Xero component out of existing amounts, was handled by Alex and his team rather than the practice.

Separate the Xero cost from everything else. Pulling the subscription out of bundled bills and standing orders made pricing transparent for clients and made every annual price rise look after itself.

Bottom line

The practice swapped a manual, soul destroying rebilling process for a system that runs itself. By automating subscription tracking and billing the Xero cost separately, it has saved around 20 hours of admin a month, recovered around £400 a month in previously missed charges and turned its partner discount into profit, all without adding a penny to client costs.

Rechargly is live for the Poole office, with Wimborne next, and the practice is now using it to rebill Dext as well. September's Xero price increase will be the first to be handled automatically.