How can Microsoft Planner organize recurring bookkeeping workflows for an accounting company?

Syeda Nazish Naqvi 20 Reputation points
2026-08-28T09:16:35.3533333+00:00

I’m exploring ways to improve the recurring bookkeeping workflow at [Moderator note: Personally Identifiable Information removed] especially when managing routine accounting activities for multiple clients.

Our monthly workflow can involve collecting financial documents, reviewing transactions, completing bank reconciliations, coordinating payroll-related tasks, preparing financial reports, and following up on missing information.

I’m considering Microsoft Planner as a way to organize these activities into repeatable tasks with assigned team members, due dates, checklists, and clear completion stages. Ideally, the same workflow could be reused for different clients each month without having to manually recreate the entire task list.

Has anyone used Microsoft Planner to manage an accounting or bookkeeping workflow for multiple clients? What is the best way to structure recurring monthly tasks in Planner? Would it be useful to combine Planner with Microsoft Lists, Teams, Excel, or Power Automate for better tracking and automation?

I’d appreciate any recommendations from people who have used Microsoft 365 tools to manage recurring accounting or bookkeeping processes.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Project | For business | Other
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  1. Hendrix 990 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2026-08-28T21:31:38.09+00:00

    Hi Syeda,

    Regarding your concern, Microsoft Planner can be a good solution for managing recurring bookkeeping activities across multiple clients, particularly for assigning responsibilities, setting due dates, using checklists, and tracking progress.

    You can create a standard monthly bookkeeping workflow containing tasks such as collecting financial documents, reviewing and categorizing transactions, preparing financial reports, etc.

    You could organize the Planner board into stages such as Not Started, In Progress, Waiting for Client, Ready for Review, and Completed. Each task could include the client name, accounting period, assigned team member, due date, checklist, and a link to the relevant documents.

    For example, a task could be named "ABC Company | August 2026 | Complete bank reconciliation". The task checklist could then include confirming that all bank statements have been received, matching transactions, investigating unreconciled items, attaching the reconciliation working paper, and submitting the work for review.

    For managing multiple clients, there are two possible structures:

    • One central Planner plan for multiple clients: This provides the team with a single view of all bookkeeping work. Client names can be included in task titles and labels can be used to identify different clients, services, priorities, or work types.
    • A separate Planner plan for each client: This can be more suitable for larger or more complex clients, or where different team members require access to different client information. However, managing a large number of separate plans may require more administration.

    You can also combine Planner with other Microsoft 365 tools to improve productivity. For example:

    • Microsoft Lists for maintaining a central client register and tracking the monthly status of each client
    • Power Automate for creating monthly tasks, sending reminders, and escalating overdue work
    • Teams for bringing Planner, Lists, communication, and notifications into one workspace
    • SharePoint for securely storing client documents and working papers
    • Excel for workload analysis, management reporting, and performance tracking

    Hope this information is useful. Should you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please feel free to share them in the comment below. I'm very happy to help.

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