What Does Xero Platinum Champion Partner Actually Mean?
Not all Xero partners are created equal. Xero’s partner programme is tiered based on the number of clients a firm manages on Xero, the depth of the firm’s Xero expertise, and the quality of support they deliver to those clients. The tiers run from Bronze through Silver, Gold, and Platinum – with Platinum Champion sitting at the very top.
Count Out Loud has held Xero Platinum Champion Partner status since 2016. That puts us in the top 1% of Xero partners across Australia. To give you some perspective, there are over 10,000 Xero partner firms in Australia. Fewer than 100 hold Platinum Champion status.
What does that mean in practice? It means our team has deep, certified expertise across every module and feature Xero offers. It means we get priority access to Xero’s product team when we need support for complex setups. And it means we have been consistently delivering high-quality Xero implementations to our clients for nearly a decade.
For our clients in the film, TV, and creative industries, this level of Xero knowledge is not a nice-to-have – it is essential. Production accounting has unique requirements that most accountants never encounter, and getting Xero configured correctly from day one saves thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours across a production.
Why Xero is the Right Platform for Production Companies
Over the years, we have worked with productions using everything from spreadsheets and legacy desktop software to enterprise-grade ERP systems. For the vast majority of Australian production companies – from emerging independents through to mid-tier studios managing $10M+ budgets – Xero hits the sweet spot of functionality, flexibility, and cost.
Project-Based Tracking
Film and TV productions are inherently project-based. You might have three productions at different stages running simultaneously – one in development, one in principal photography, and one in post-production. Each needs its own budget, its own cost tracking, and its own reporting.
Xero’s tracking categories allow us to set up each production as a distinct financial entity within a single organisation. Every invoice, every payment, every journal entry gets tagged to the correct production. When the line producer asks for a cost report at 4pm on a Friday (and they will), we can pull it in minutes rather than hours.
Multi-Currency Support
Australian productions increasingly involve international co-productions, overseas talent, and foreign post-production facilities. A feature film might be paying a UK-based composer in GBP, a VFX house in Los Angeles in USD, and local crew in AUD – all on the same production.
Xero handles multi-currency natively. Exchange rates update automatically, and our team can set locked rates for budgeting certainty while tracking actual rates for reporting. This is particularly important when you are managing foreign currency payments against a fixed Australian dollar budget for Producer Offset purposes.
Real-Time Collaboration
During a shoot, decisions happen fast. The production manager, line producer, and accountant all need access to the same up-to-date financial picture. Xero is cloud-based, which means everyone on the team can view current spend, approve payments, and flag variances from wherever they are – whether that is at the production office, on set, or on location in regional NSW.
Bank Feeds and Reconciliation
Production companies process a high volume of transactions. Between crew payments, equipment hire, location fees, catering, transport, and the thousand other costs that accumulate during a shoot, a busy production might process 200+ transactions per week. Xero’s live bank feeds pull every transaction in automatically, and our team reconciles them daily to keep the books clean and current.
The Xero Add-Ons We Use for Productions
Xero on its own is powerful, but the real magic for production companies comes from the ecosystem of add-on applications that integrate with it. Over the past decade, we have tested and refined a specific stack of tools that work brilliantly for film and TV productions.
Dext (Formerly Receipt Bank) – Receipt and Invoice Capture
On a production, receipts come from everywhere. The art department buys props with petty cash. The locations team pays a council fee with a credit card. The catering company sends an invoice by email. Dext captures all of these – via photo, email forwarding, or direct upload – extracts the key data, and pushes it into Xero automatically.
For productions, this is critical for two reasons. First, it means no receipts get lost (and on a busy set, receipts absolutely get lost). Second, it creates a clean audit trail that is essential for QAPE (Qualifying Australian Production Expenditure) documentation when you are claiming the Producer Offset.
ApprovalMax – Payment Authorisation Workflows
When you are managing a production budget of $2M or more, you need proper approval workflows. ApprovalMax integrates with Xero to create multi-level approval chains. For example, you might set it up so that any purchase order under $1,000 only needs the line producer’s approval, anything between $1,000 and $10,000 needs the production manager, and anything over $10,000 goes to the executive producer.
This keeps spending under control without creating bottlenecks. During principal photography, when decisions need to happen in hours not days, having a clear and fast approval system is the difference between staying on schedule and falling behind.
Hubdoc – Document Management
Hubdoc automatically fetches bills, statements, and receipts from over 700 suppliers. For productions that work with the same equipment hire companies, insurance providers, and post-production facilities repeatedly, this means key documents are captured and filed without anyone having to remember to forward an email.
Xero Payroll – Crew Payment Processing
Productions employ large numbers of people on short-term contracts. A four-week shoot might have 80 crew members, each on different rates, with different superannuation arrangements, and different tax withholding requirements. Xero’s payroll module handles this cleanly, and integrates with Single Touch Payroll (STP) reporting so every payment is reported to the ATO in real time.
How a Production Company Uses Xero for Offset Tracking
Let us walk through a practical example. Imagine a production company is making a feature-length documentary with a total budget of $1.8 million. They are planning to claim the 30% Producer Offset, which could be worth up to $540,000 – but only on expenditure that qualifies as QAPE.
Here is how we set up Xero to track this from day one:
Step 1: Chart of Accounts. We create a customised chart of accounts that mirrors the standard Australian production budget structure. Every account maps to a QAPE category, so when it is time to prepare the offset application, we do not have to manually classify thousands of transactions after the fact.
Step 2: Tracking Categories. We set up tracking categories for QAPE-eligible versus non-QAPE expenditure. When a transaction is entered, it is immediately flagged. This means at any point during production, we can run a report showing exactly how much qualifying expenditure has been incurred and how much offset the production is on track to claim.
Step 3: Dext Integration. Every receipt and invoice captured through Dext is automatically coded to the correct QAPE category. The production coordinator on set takes a photo of a receipt, and within minutes it is in Xero, correctly categorised, and contributing to the offset calculation.
Step 4: Monthly Reporting. We produce monthly QAPE tracking reports for the producer and the completion guarantor (if applicable). These reports show actual QAPE spend against budget, projected final offset amount, and any expenditure that has been flagged as potentially non-qualifying and needs review.
On the documentary example above, this system identified $47,000 in expenditure that had been incorrectly coded as non-QAPE by the production team. That translated to an additional $18,800 in offset recovery that would have been missed without proper tracking.
Beyond Production – Xero for Creative Businesses
Our Xero expertise extends well beyond production accounting. We support a wide range of creative businesses on Xero, including:
- Post-production houses tracking project profitability across multiple clients and projects simultaneously
- Creative freelancers (directors, cinematographers, editors) who need clean books for tax time and want to understand which types of work are most profitable
- Production companies managing ongoing operations alongside individual productions, with clear separation between corporate overhead and production costs
- Creative agencies tracking time, project budgets, and contractor costs across a portfolio of clients
In every case, the approach is the same: we configure Xero specifically for the way your business works, train your team to use it effectively, and provide ongoing support to keep everything running smoothly.
What Our Platinum Champion Status Means for You
When you work with a Xero Platinum Champion Partner, you get more than just an accountant who knows how to use Xero. You get:
- Priority support from Xero – when issues arise (and they do), we go straight to the front of the queue
- Early access to new features – we are often among the first firms in Australia to test and deploy new Xero functionality
- Deep integration expertise – we know which add-ons work, which ones do not, and how to connect them for maximum efficiency
- Migration capability – if you are coming from MYOB, QuickBooks, or spreadsheets, we have migrated hundreds of businesses to Xero and know how to do it without losing data or momentum
- Xero-certified team – every member of our team of nine is Xero certified, so you always have someone available who knows the platform inside out
Ready to Get Xero Working Properly for Your Production?
Whether you are setting up a new production company, moving an existing business to Xero, or just frustrated that your current setup is not giving you the visibility you need – we can help. Our team has been configuring Xero for film and TV productions since 2016, and we know exactly how to set it up so that your books, your budgets, and your offset tracking all work together seamlessly.
Get in touch with our team to discuss how we can set up or optimise Xero for your production company. Call us on (02) 9043 1525 or book a consultation through our website.