Which NZ accounting apps actually talk to each other? The 2026 integration map

Every NZ accounting practice runs a stack: Xero underneath, a practice manager on top, a document system beside it, then capture, AML, e-signing, tax pooling and reporting tools around the edges. The tools are individually good. Whether they talk to each other is another question entirely, and it decides how much of your admin can actually be automated.

We went through the developer documentation of twenty tools in the NZ practice stack and checked what each one really exposes. Not the "integrations" logo wall on the marketing page - the actual API surface. Here is the map.

The short version

The stack splits into three tiers:

• Open: a real, documented API you (or your integration partner) can build against - often with webhooks, so systems can react to each other in real time.
• Gated: an API exists, but behind a partner registration, an approval process, or a fee. Good once you are through the gate; most firms never get through it.
• Closed: no API. Whatever the vendor pre-built is all you get.

The interesting work happens in the gated tier - and in the clever routes around the closed one.

The map

What the map tells you

1. "Integrates with Xero" is not the same as "integrates". Almost everything syncs to the ledger. Very little talks sideways - practice manager to document system, AML platform to practice manager, proposal tool to everything. The sideways gaps are exactly where your admin hours go, because a human is the integration.

2. The gated tier is where the value hides. XPM is the hub of thousands of NZ practices, and its API is genuinely useful - but it sits behind a partner registration and security assessment that a busy practice will never do. That is not a reason to give up; it is a reason the work is worth paying for once. The same logic applies to MYOB and Dext.

3. Closed does not always mean closed. SuiteFiles is the best example: no API of its own, but every document is sitting in your own SharePoint tenancy, fully reachable through Microsoft Graph. Fathom has no API but slurps Google Sheets, so anything that can write a Sheet can feed your reporting. The route in is not always the front door.

4. Two tools that do the same job can be worlds apart. Both tax-pooling providers are trusted and widely used - but Tax Traders publishes a real API and TMNZ does not. If you want your provisional-tax workflow automated end to end, the platform choice suddenly matters in a way the brochures never mention.

5. The onboarding chain is possible today - it just crosses five vendors. Proposal accepted, AML case opened, clearance triggers the engagement letter with e-signature and ID verification, the client and jobs appear in the practice manager, the folders and evidence file themselves in the DMS. Every link in that chain has a working integration surface right now (Ignition or a form, First AML, Annature, XPM or Karbon, FYI or SharePoint). No vendor sells the whole chain because no vendor owns the whole chain. It has to be built - once - and then it runs for every new client you ever take on.

What to do with this

If you are choosing tools: weight the API column more than the feature matrix. Features converge; openness compounds.

If you are stuck with a closed tool you otherwise like: there may be a side door (SharePoint, Sheets, email parsing, exports on a schedule). Closed changes the route, not the destination.

If your practice has an hour of admin per new client, a re-keying habit between XPM and the ledger, or an AML evidence trail assembled by hand: the map above says that is now a plumbing problem, not a fact of life.

We connect these systems for NZ accounting firms - the assessment, the build, and the honest "that one is not worth automating" where it applies. If you want to know what your particular stack can do, tell us what you run and we will tell you straight.