Xero apologises twice in one week for bypassing accountants

Xero has apologised to accountants for sending automated monthly analytics emails directly to business users, the second channel partner apology in a week for the NZ$2.75 billion accounting platform.

UK managing director Kate Hayward said the email "was not intended to bypass the role of the advisor" but acknowledged it "may have disrupted" existing workflows between accountants and their clients. The apology came days after Xero pulled a sponsored Instagram post from British influencer Amelia Sordell claiming she saved hundreds in accounting fees by feeding Xero data into Claude AI.

That first incident drew sharp criticism from accountants who felt Xero was undermining the channel partners who drive customer acquisition. The timing matters: Xero added 506,000 customers in FY26 and reported NZ$2.753 billion in operating revenue, growth heavily reliant on accountant referrals across ANZ markets where it competes with MYOB and QuickBooks.

The company created a Chief Revenue Officer role in 2023 (Ashley Grech) and recently announced a US$2.5 billion acquisition of US payments platform Melio, funded through A$1.85 billion in institutional placement plus debt. That deal signals aggressive North American expansion, but the back-to-back apologies suggest channel management has not scaled with revenue ambitions.

For context: Xero now employs roughly 5,186 people and reported 31% year-on-year revenue growth with NZ$757 million adjusted EBITDA in FY26. The platform has moved well beyond pure accounting software into broader SMB tooling, which creates more surface area for channel conflict as product teams ship features that cut across traditional advisor relationships.

Worth noting: both apologies came from regional MDs (Hayward in UK, plus Angad Soin in ANZ), not from CRO or CEO level. That suggests this was handled as a regional communications issue rather than a strategic go-to-market review, which accountants pushing Xero to SMB clients will probably find insufficient.