Dext is a bookkeeping automation platform for accounting and bookkeeping practices. It gives you one place to collect financial documents from clients, extract and categorise the data, and publish it directly to your clients' accounting software — for every client you manage.
If you don't have an account yet, go to app.dext.com/en/signups, select For practices, and start a free 14-day trial. No payment details required.
For an overview of what Dext does and who it's for, go to What is Dext, and who is it for?
Set up your practice
When you first sign in, Dext takes you through a setup checklist to get your practice configured. The key things to complete before you start adding clients:
Practice settings — your practice name, logo, default settings, and billing are managed from Practice settings in the bottom-left navigation. Go to What is Practice settings in Dext? for a full overview.
Add colleagues — invite the rest of your team from Team > Colleagues. Each colleague gets their own login and can be assigned a role that controls what they can see and do. You can add colleagues one at a time or in bulk via CSV. Go to How to add colleagues to your practice account for the full steps, and Roles and permissions in Dext to understand what each role can access.
Add your clients
Each client you manage in Dext gets their own account. You can add clients one at a time or in bulk using Client Sync or CSV upload.
To add a client, go to your Clients list and select Add client. You'll choose the solutions to enable — Bookkeeping, or Bookkeeping and Data Health & Insights if you have that add-on — and optionally connect their accounting software during setup.
If a client already has a Dext account, ask them to invite you to access it rather than creating a new one.
Once a client account is created, configure its settings before getting started. Select Manage next to the client in your Clients list, then go to Business settings to set up connections, extraction preferences, automation, approvals, and more. Go to What is Business settings in Dext? for a full overview of what's available.
Go to How to add a client account in Dext for the full setup steps. For an overview of the clients list and what you can see from it, go to The Dext clients list.
Connect to accounting software
Connecting a client's accounting software lets Dext import their Chart of Accounts, suppliers, and contacts, and push extracted data directly into their accounting records once items are published.
To connect, go to the client's account, select Business settings, then Connections, and choose the accounting software to connect. Dext integrates with over 36 accounting platforms including Xero, QuickBooks Online, Sage, and FreeAgent. Go to How to connect Dext to accounting software for instructions.
If a client doesn't use accounting software or uses software that doesn't integrate directly with Dext, you can still use Dext to capture and process their documents and export the data manually. Go to Setting up Dext without accounting software for how to configure this.
Collect documents
Once a client is set up, documents can start coming in. There are several ways to get documents into Dext:
Direct upload — drag and drop files or upload from a computer via the web app
Mobile app — photograph receipts on the go; they appear in Dext immediately
Email-in — each account has a unique email address; forward documents directly to it, or share it with suppliers
Fetch — Dext automatically retrieves invoices from supplier portals and inboxes on a schedule
WhatsApp — send document images via WhatsApp
Any of these can be used by you or by the client. Dext extracts key data from each document automatically — supplier, date, total, tax, and currency — and presents it for review in the client's inbox.
If you have a question about a specific item, item messaging lets you send the client a message directly from the item and get a reply without leaving Dext.
Go to How to upload costs and sales documents in Dext for a full guide to submission methods, and How to use item messaging in Dext for more details on messaging.
Add bank data
You can bring bank transactions into a client's account in two ways:
Bank feeds — connect a client's bank account directly so transactions import automatically
Bank statement extraction — upload PDF bank statements and Dext extracts the transactions
Bank Fetch — automatically collects bank statements from your bank's website and adds them to Dext for extraction. Available in Australia only. Go to How to set up a Bank Fetch connection for instructions.
Once transactions are in, you can view and manage them from Bank > Transactions.
Bank Match automatically identifies where a bank transaction matches an uploaded document, confirming the paperwork is in place.
If a transaction has no matching document, you can use Request paperwork to send the client a notification via the Dext mobile app, asking them to upload the missing receipt or invoice.
Go to How does Bank Match work in Dext? and How to request paperwork for bank transactions in Dext for more details.
Review, code, and automate
Once documents are in Dext, you review and code them before publishing. Setting up automation early reduces the manual work on every item. Dext's automation tools include:
Supplier and customer rules — set default coding for any supplier or customer: account code, tax rate, payment method, description, and more. Every future document from that supplier is categorised automatically.
Smart Split — define how documents from a specific supplier should be split into line items automatically.
Line Item Extraction — extract individual line items from a supplier's documents rather than treating the document as a single total.
Payment method rules — apply publishing behaviour automatically based on how an item was paid.
User rules — apply a default payment method or project to every item uploaded by a specific user.
Auto-categorisation — uses machine learning to assign categories based on how you've coded similar items in the past.
Auto-publish — automatically publishes eligible items to accounting software after extraction, with no manual review required.
Smart Suggestions — recommends values for project fields and descriptions based on document content and past behaviour.
Go to Rules and automation in Dext for a full overview of how these work together.
Dext AI Assist is an intelligent bookkeeping agent that goes further — it learns how you and your team work across all your clients and automates categorisation, field updates, and flagging with AI-powered suggestions. Go to What is Dext AI Assist? to learn more.
Publish to accounting software
When items are reviewed and coded, you publish them to the connected accounting software. Publishing sends the extracted data — supplier, date, amounts, account codes — directly into the client's accounting records.
You can publish items individually or in bulk from the client's inbox. Go to How to publish documents in Dext for full instructions.
Other features
Once you're set up, these features are worth exploring:
Expense claims — employees submit expenses through Dext for review and approval before publishing. Go to Using expense claims in Dext.
Supplier statements — upload supplier statements and Dext reconciles them against documents already in Dext and the connected accounting software. Go to Supplier statements.
Approvals — set up approval workflows so documents and expenses are reviewed by the right person before publishing. Go to Setting up and managing approvals.
Vault — securely store any financial document in encrypted cloud storage, independent of the inbox. Go to Using Vault in Dext.
Dext Payments — pay approved supplier invoices and employee expenses directly from Dext. Go to Dext Payments quickstart guide.
Your practice's own bookkeeping
Every Dext practice account includes a free business account for managing your practice's own costs, sales, bank transactions, and documents. It works exactly like any client account and appears at the top of your clients list labelled (Internal). Go to Does my Dext practice include a business account? for more details.
Managing MTD for Income Tax clients
If you have sole trader or landlord clients mandated for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, Dext Solo is a dedicated client account type for managing that work.
You capture transactions by income source and submit quarterly updates directly to HMRC from within the client's Solo account. Dext Solo is available as a paid add-on to any practice plan. Go to Getting started with Dext Solo for a full guide.
What's included in your plan
Both practice plans include everything covered in this article. Practice Advanced adds practice-level management tools including Workflows, practice-level Insights, an enhanced clients list, and Teams & Locations.
For a full breakdown of what each plan includes, go to Dext plans for accountants and bookkeepers.