Practice Advanced gives you all the core Dext bookkeeping tools for you and your clients, plus Workflows, a full suite of practice-level Insights, an enhanced client list, and the option to add Data Health & Insights. This article covers what's available on the plan and how to get started with each feature.
For everything included in the core Dext feature set — adding clients, connecting accounting software, submitting documents, rules, publishing, and more — go to Getting started with Dext for accountants & bookkeepers.
The clients list
Practice Advanced unlocks additional columns and views in the clients list, including client responsibility roles, bookkeeping settings, item delay, missing and requested paperwork, and deadline tracking. It also adds the Starred and My clients tabs, and bulk editing for bookkeeping settings across multiple clients at once.
For a full breakdown of what's available and how it differs from Essentials, go to The Dext clients list.
Teams & Locations
If your practice has multiple teams or offices, you can set up teams and locations to filter practice-level Insights and reports by team or location. This is particularly useful for the Bookkeeping and Time spent Insights.
To set up teams and locations, go to Using teams and locations.
Workflows
Workflows let you standardise recurring client work — monthly bookkeeping, VAT return preparation, year-end accounts — as structured, repeatable processes your team can work through, complete, and sign off. Each workflow is built from a template containing a set of checks, and can be assigned to one or more clients for a specific reporting period.
On Practice Advanced without the Data Health & Insights add-on, workflows contain manual checks — your team works through each one themselves. With the add-on, workflows become intelligent: Dext connects to your clients' Xero or QuickBooks Online accounts and runs checks automatically, so your team can see what's wrong before they start investigating.
To get started, go to What are Workflows in Dext?
Practice-level Insights
Practice Advanced includes a suite of practice-level Insights, accessed by selecting Insights in the left navigation of your Practice account. Each insight aggregates data across your client base without you having to open each client individually.
Bookkeeping — items to action, submission activity, inactive clients, and supplier rules performance across all clients
Practice — key metrics for every client in one configurable, exportable table
Activity — transaction volumes across all clients month by month, with month-on-month and year-on-year comparisons
Workflows — all workflows across your practice with status, progress, assignees, and period details
Time spent — how effort is distributed across your practice, clients, and team
Custom — all your saved practice-level reports, plus Dext's pre-built reports
MTD for VAT — VAT return periods, filing status, and payment data across all clients. UK only — requires HMRC integration
Deadlines — HMRC and Companies House filing deadlines with traffic light alerts. UK only
For a full overview of all Insights, go to What are Insights in Dext?
Data Health & Insights add-on
The Data Health & Insights add-on extends Practice Advanced with automated data quality checks for individual clients, client-level financial analysis Insights, and intelligent Workflows. It requires each client to be connected individually to Xero or QuickBooks Online.
For a full overview of what the add-on includes, go to What is Data Health & Insights?