For accountants & bookkeeping firms
Every client’s books. One command centre.
Bring statements in once, review only the exceptions, close the month with sign-offs that name a person, and deliver branded packs you can still produce a year later — while every client keeps ownership and control of their data.
Client-controlled
Every permission is approved by the owner, and revocable instantly.
Maker-checker
A person cannot approve their own proposed change.
Books must tie
QuickBooks migration is checked against the source trial balance.
Built for local rails
Mobile money and POS activity arrive as accounting records.
The practice workspace
See the work across the firm — then open the client behind it.
Every screen below is the running application, not a drawing of it. Client names and figures belong to a demonstration firm; they are not customer data or usage claims.
One monthly rhythm
Turn repeated bookkeeping into an exception workflow.
Your team spends its attention where judgement is needed, and every hand-off is visible to the person on the other end of it.
Bring in the month
Drop statements for several clients at once. When a client has more than one account, SBB asks which — it never guesses.
Let rules do the repeat work
Preview a firm rule against real rows before saving it, then apply it across matching bank or mobile-money activity.
Review the exceptions
Bulk-categorise the routine. A junior's sensitive change becomes a proposal that carries the original value with it.
Ask for what is missing
Request a document inside the client's own SBB. They upload, you both can reply in words, and the thread stays beside the work.
Close with real sign-offs
Accountant review, senior review, client approval, closed — each step naming who it is waiting on.
Deliver the pack
Generate a branded period pack for one client, every client in one action, or a consolidated client group.
Month-end that hands over properly
“Submitted for review” should say who it went to.
A status is not a hand-off. When a period moves to senior review, the people who actually hold sign-off on that client are named and told — and the reviewer opens the figures, the checklist and the note from whoever submitted it.
Who it is waiting on
By name, and why them rather than someone else — only people who actually hold sign-off on that client.
What you are signing
The period's real figures and category breakdown, on the same screen as the button.
What is unfinished
The checklist of pending review, receivables, payables and reconciliation — stated as what you are signing off despite.
How it got here
Who started it, who submitted it, what they said on the hand-off, and when.
And if nobody on that client can sign off, the screen says so — rather than leaving the period waiting for a person who does not exist.
What you told the client
A report pack you can still produce in October.
Packs used to be generated, sent and forgotten. Every pack is now kept exactly as it was issued — because regenerating reads the ledger as it stands today, and one corrected entry makes the “same” pack come back different.
Issued, then never edited
Re-opening a pack shows the figures the client received, not today’s. Regenerating writes a new one; the difference between them is itself the record.
Honest about what it is
Cash movements from posted transactions for the period stated. It is not called a balance sheet, because it is not one — and a professional signing it should not have to check.
Move without guessing
A migration is complete when the trial balance ties.
Bring one suitable client first. Review the account mapping, preview the result, compare it with the QuickBooks trial balance, and only then commit the import.
Controlled before it writes
Unknown account types block instead of silently becoming expenses. Mapping stays editable, and parity is checked again when the migration executes.
Reversible while you verify
Preview is the dry run. An unverified migration can be rolled back as a unit, and re-running the same source does not double-post it.
The trust contract
Win access without asking a client to surrender control.
The guarantee is enforced by the product, not left as a sentence in an engagement letter.
The business owns its data
Your practice receives delegated access, never ownership. Records stay with the client when the engagement ends.
They approve the exact scope
The owner sees the requested modules and actions in plain language, and can narrow or decline them.
Revocation is immediate
An owner can remove access at any moment — never blocked by a notice period, an unpaid balance, or a billing state. There is no shadow copy to retrieve.
Both sides see the record
Grants, changes, sign-offs and revocations are written to an activity trail the client can inspect for their own business.
Built for a firm
The controls should arrive before the second staff member.
Start alone, then add people, roles and structure without moving the clients into another system.
People, not seats
Invite a colleague by email. They set their own password and land in your firm — they never create a business of their own to get in.
Roles that fit your firm
The six built-in roles, plus any you write yourself. A role is a ceiling: it can narrow what a client delegated, never widen it.
Rank, enforced
Nobody can act on someone at or above their own level, and nobody can remove the firm's owner. Assignments survive a promotion.
Portfolio close
One board for deadlines your firm set, books that slipped, blockers, senior review and client approval — with the oldest unfinished period leading.
A consistent chart
Build a chart-of-accounts template once, preview the impact on a real client, then apply it when a client needs the firm's standard.
Your identity, not ours
Your display name, logo and accent appear in your workspace, on your clients' screens and on every report pack you send.
Documents, both directions
The client can send you something nobody asked for.
Most tools let an accountant request a document and stop there. A business holding the new lease or the letter that arrived this morning had no way to hand it over — which is exactly when they most want one.
A filing cabinet they control
Anything a client files starts private. Sharing it with you is one click and always reversible, and you are told how many documents you cannot see — enough to ask for one, never enough to read it.
Read it without downloading it
Images, PDFs, CSVs, text and Markdown open in place. Word and Excel say so plainly and offer the file, rather than showing a blank frame.
Both sides can reply in words
“Actually the March one, not April” belongs beside the request, not in WhatsApp while the request sits looking unanswered.
Requests are answered, not just sent
A file sent in reply appears with the rest of the shared documents, so a client’s answer is never hiding in a different list from their other paperwork.
Where SBB is different
Books shaped around how African businesses actually trade.
Mobile money is a ledger rail
MTN, Airtel and M-Pesa activity is parsed, ruled, categorised and reconciled against a telco statement — down the same path as a bank account.
The till posts into the books
For retail and hospitality clients, SBB Till and the ledger are one system. There is no nightly connector to reconcile and no gap to explain.
The accountant app works offline
Trial balance, ledger, P&L, balance sheet, reports and reconciliation stay available on a Windows machine when the connection does not.
Multi-currency is explicit
Clients keep accounts in their real currencies. The firm picks one reporting currency for portfolio totals, and the page says so where it converts.
Clear commercial ownership
Create the practice free. Decide who pays, per client.
The practice workspace needs no business of its own and costs nothing. Every new client business gets the full 90-day trial; after that the client can choose a plan, or your firm can ask to manage it at a rate below list.
When the client pays
Their subscription stays theirs. Your delegated access and your staff workflow never depend on taking over their billing.
When the practice pays
The owner approves the takeover, and anything they already paid for runs out first. You see your wholesale rate and your invoices; the client never does.
Leaving, either way
The paid period is the notice period, so a firm cannot hold a client and a client cannot walk off with a year the firm bought. Waiting is always free.
Invoices that survive
Issued once, never altered, re-downloadable at the rate that applied that day — something to hand your own client and your own auditor.
What you charge your client is between the two of you — we take no cut of your fees and never show your client what you pay us.
Evaluate it properly
Start with the client where the difference will be obvious.
Choose one or two clients with mobile-money volume, a till, or unreliable connectivity. Migrate, prove the balances, run one month in parallel, and expand when the firm asks to.
Questions accountants ask
What you should know before moving a client.
Do my clients need to pay for SBB?
Every new business gets 90 days of Pro free, no card required, and there's a free plan after that. You can bring a client on to see whether it fits before anyone commits.
What happens to my client's data if we part ways?
It stays with them, in full. Your access is a permission on their business, not a copy of it — revoking it removes you and changes nothing about their records. That's the same guarantee we show them.
Can I stop a junior from touching a sensitive client?
Yes. Staff only reach clients you assign them to, and you can narrow what they may do on each one. Anything they can't approve becomes a proposal for a senior instead of a silent change.
My clients aren't on SBB yet. Is this useful?
That's the common case. You invite the owner, they set up their business, and you're connected from day one — with the books structured properly instead of arriving as a shoebox in January.
Does SBB tell me when filings are due?
No, and that's deliberate. Tax deadlines differ by country, registration and turnover, and a filing date shown confidently but wrongly could cost your client a penalty. You set the target dates for each client; we track everything against yours.
Can several people from my firm work at once?
Yes. Invite your team, give each person a role — bookkeeper, accountant, senior, partner — and assign them to clients. The role sets the ceiling on what they can ever do, whatever a client has granted.
Can we move clients from QuickBooks?
Yes. Use the dedicated migration workspace to upload the supported QuickBooks exports, review account mappings, preview the resulting books and verify that the imported trial balance agrees with the source before committing. Start with one client and run both systems in parallel while you verify the result.
Can one rule work across several clients?
Yes. Practice rules can match descriptions, amounts, transaction direction, account type and mobile-money provider. You preview the matches before saving, and a rule never silently overwrites a decision a person already made.
Can my firm pay for a client's subscription?
Yes. Your practice requests billing responsibility and the business owner approves it. Your firm then sees its own rate and billing records; the client sees who manages the subscription but never your wholesale terms. Either side can use the defined hand-back process when the arrangement ends.
What can we do when the internet is unreliable?
The web practice workspace needs a connection for governance actions such as approvals and access changes. SBB Accountant for Windows keeps the ledger, trial balance, financial statements, reports and reconciliation available locally, and SBB Till can continue selling offline.
Can we export a client's books if they leave?
Yes. The client's records remain theirs, and their access to those records does not depend on keeping your firm connected. Reports and exports remain available according to their account and plan; revoking your practice removes delegated access without deleting the book.
Your first client, deliberately
Set up the practice. Prove one book. Then grow.
No card to create the workspace. No client access without the owner approving it.