A Xero connection looks like plumbing. You set it up once, it works, you stop thinking about it. That's exactly why it's easy to get wrong.

A connection tied to one person's login isn't really plumbing. It's a dependency. The client's data effectively belongs to whoever authorised it, and the firm quietly inherits a reliance on that person being at their desk. You don't feel it while they're there. You feel it the week they're on leave and a reviewer can't refresh the file.

Plenty of Xero-to-Excel setups work fine for one person. The trouble starts when a second person needs the same client's data, or the first person goes on leave.

How does a shared Xero connection work?

You connect each client to Xero once. That connection is then available to everyone on the team, so any staff member can open the workbook and refresh current data without setting anything up themselves. One connection, firm-wide access.

The alternative, a connection tied to one login, means the data effectively belongs to that person. It works right up until they're the bottleneck, and by then it's a scramble to work out how the connection was set up and rebuild it.

Why does firm-wide access matter?

Because compliance work isn't a solo activity. A preparer builds the file, a reviewer checks it, a partner signs it off. If only one of them can refresh the data, the others work from whatever was last pulled, which is the exact gap that produces figures that don't tie at review.

It also removes duplicated effort. Without sharing, multiple people authorise the same client separately, so the firm ends up with several half-owned connections to the same client instead of one it actually controls.

What this looks like in practice

• A new team member joins mid-season and opens existing connections instead of authorising every client from scratch.

• A reviewer picks up a file and refreshes it without chasing the preparer.

• A partner signs off knowing the numbers are current, not last week's.

Nobody's blocked because a connection lives on someone else's machine. The data belongs to the firm, not to whoever happened to click authorise first.

Where RadiusCore fits

RadiusCore is an Excel add-in that connects Microsoft Excel directly to Xero, with two-way sync and one connection per client shared across the firm. Connect a client once and the whole team can refresh, work, and push changes back from the same source.

That's the difference between a connection you own as a firm and one that walks out the door when a staff member does. More than 450 accountants and 10,000+ Xero entities already run on it.

FAQ

• Can the whole firm use one Xero connection? Yes. With RadiusCore you connect each client once and share that connection across the team.

• What happens when the person who set up the connection is away? Nothing stalls; the rest of the team keeps working from the same source.

• Does each staff member need their own Xero login per client? No. The client is connected once and shared.