At filing time most small businesses do the same thing: they send their accountant the login and the password over WhatsApp. It works, and it is the worst option available. Here is what is actually wrong with it and what to ask for instead.
What sharing a password actually gives away
It is not just visibility. A shared login is your login — the same one that can edit an invoice, delete a customer, change a bank detail or raise a credit note. Nothing in the system can tell your CA's actions apart from yours afterwards, because as far as the software is concerned there was only ever one person.
And you cannot take it back quietly
Revoking a shared password means changing it, which locks you out of your own sessions and anyone else you gave it to. So in practice nobody revokes it. The access outlives the engagement, often by years.
What accountant access should be instead
- Separate — your CA signs in as themselves, not as you.
- Read-only — they can see the books and cannot change them.
- Scoped — one client's data, not everything you have access to.
- Revocable by you alone, without changing your own password.
- Visible — you can see who has access right now.
How it works in BizGST Pro
There is no separate CA login to buy or set up. Your accountant creates an ordinary free account like anyone else. You generate a CA access code from Settings, send them that code instead of your password, and they enter it on bizgstpro.com/ca. Their screen then shows your data read-only. One code links one client.
Taking it back
Regenerate the code. The old one stops working and the link drops, and your own password never changes. That is the part worth checking in any tool you use — not whether access can be granted, but whether it can be withdrawn by you, on your own, in under a minute of clicking.
If you are the CA
The value is not really the read-only part, it is not having to ask. Instead of chasing each client for figures at the same time every month, linked clients appear together on one screen and you can see who has actually been billing and who has not. The free plan links two clients so you can try it on real work before deciding anything.
The question to ask your software
Whatever you use, the test is the same: can your CA see your books without being able to change them, and can you end that access yourself? If the answer to either half is no, you are sharing a password, whatever the feature is called.