IT Support for Professional Services Firms in NZ
Client confidentiality, compliance & no billable hours lost to IT.
Your partner just emailed a matter-critical PDF to the wrong client. Your practice management system was slow again this morning. You’re rolling into audit season with the entire team working hybrid. And the last tender you responded to asked whether you hold a cyber security certification.
Professional services IT is different. Not showy — rigorous. Every document is confidential. Every billable hour depends on the time-billing system being fast. Your records retention obligations run to seven years. Your regulator expects you to protect client data with real controls, not vibes. And the tender questions about cyber security are getting sharper every year.
We look after accounting firms, law firms, engineering & architectural practices, consultancies & other professional-services businesses across New Zealand. Here’s what IT support built for a professional services firm actually looks like.
The four IT problems every NZ professional services firm hits
1. Time-billing & practice management system uptime
Xero Practice Manager, Actionstep, LEAP, MYOB Practice, Karbon, MYOB AE/AO — whichever platform you’re on, the whole firm’s revenue flows through it. When it’s slow, timesheets don’t get entered on time. When it’s down, invoices don’t go out. Ten minutes of practice-management downtime for a 30-person firm is a lot of unrecorded time.
We wrap the environment your practice management sits on — Microsoft 365, servers if there are any, the network, internet redundancy — in monitoring that alerts us before the team notices. When something goes wrong, the aim is minutes not hours, and there’s always a human to call.
2. Client confidentiality & data leakage
Legal privilege, accountant-client confidentiality, engineer’s professional duty — every professional services firm carries a confidentiality obligation that goes beyond privacy law. One accidentally-shared document can end a client relationship (or a career).
What we build in as part of managed support:
- Microsoft 365 sharing controls — no more “Anyone with the link can view” on client folders
- External sharing set to expire & audit-logged, so you know who saw what & when
- Email data-loss prevention (DLP) — flags & blocks sensitive content leaving the domain in the clear
- Named user accounts only — shared logins & generic “admin” accounts get retired on onboarding
- Full-disk encryption on every laptop — BitLocker on Windows, FileVault on Mac
- Backups that survive an angry ex-employee or a ransomware event — immutable, tested, restorable
3. Records retention & email archive that actually works
Seven years for tax records, longer for legal matters, and every regulator has its own view. Your Microsoft 365 mailboxes need retention policies that match — not “we set it up when the firm started & hoped for the best”.
We configure Microsoft 365 retention labels & policies to match your regulatory obligations, put in place legal-hold processes for matters that need them, and give your compliance person visibility over what’s being kept & what’s aging out. When the regulator asks, you produce the record.
4. Cyber certification for tenders, insurers & client due diligence
Larger clients — councils, government agencies, big corporates, listed companies — now ask about your cyber security posture as part of onboarding. Cyber insurers are asking too. And tenders are increasingly explicit: “Are you certified against a recognised cyber security framework?”
The answer that fits professional services is SMB1001 — the certification standard built for SMBs in Australia & New Zealand. Gold (Level 3) is the level most firms land on. Its 27 controls cover the confidentiality, backup, access & incident-response practices you should already have. Our LiveSecure Gold service walks you from “we haven’t formalised it” to certified in three to six months. Read what SMB1001 Gold is, or take the free 2-minute readiness check.
What LiveSupport looks like for a professional services firm
Our managed IT support (LiveSupport) is a fixed monthly cost per user + per device. What you get for it:
- A senior local team — who understand professional services systems & the way partners actually work, not a call centre
- Every device managed, monitored & patched automatically — laptops, dual-monitor desktops, MacBooks for the design team, phones & tablets for partners on the road
- Managed endpoint security (EDR + Microsoft Defender + Huntress) watching 24/7
- Microsoft 365 configured properly — Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive & email all set up with sharing controls, DLP, and retention that match your regulatory obligations
- Backups you can actually restore from — including your practice management database & the shared drive that runs your matters — tested every 90 days
- Hybrid-work ready — VPN, secure file access, and a home-office setup that isn’t a security hole
- Regular reporting — evidence of controls for insurance renewals, tender submissions & partner meetings
A real story (anonymised)
A mid-sized accounting firm called us in April. Their outsourced offshore admin team had been sending client tax packs via an unsecured file-share for two years. A client had spotted their financial statement URL was guessable & called them — professionally furious. Nobody could produce a log of who had accessed what over that period.
We rebuilt the client-file workflow in Microsoft 365 SharePoint with proper access controls, external-sharing expiry, and full audit logs. Introduced encrypted email for sensitive attachments. Set up retention labels matching CAANZ’s expectations. Started them on the SMB1001 Silver pathway.
They’re on Gold now. They lost the one angry client, kept the others (some of whom appreciated the transparent handling), and won a tender the following spring where the cyber certification was a scored criterion.
Frequently asked questions
Do you work with accountants, lawyers, engineers or all three?
All of the above, plus consultancies & other professional services. The IT foundations are the same; the practice management systems & regulatory expectations differ, and we work to yours.
Are you familiar with Xero Practice Manager / Actionstep / LEAP / MYOB Practice?
Yes. We manage the Microsoft 365, network & device environment these platforms depend on. For platform-specific tickets we work alongside the software vendor’s support.
How do you handle records retention?
We configure Microsoft 365 retention policies to match your regulator’s expectations (seven years for tax records, longer for legal matters), put legal-hold processes in place where relevant, and give your compliance lead visibility over what’s kept & what’s aging out.
What does managed IT actually cost for a professional services firm?
Fixed monthly cost per user + per device. Most NZ firms in the 10 to 100-user range land between $95 and $160 per user per month, depending on plan tier & how much confidentiality tooling you need turned on. Fixed & upfront quote after a free scoping call.
Can you help with tender cyber security questionnaires?
Yes. We deal with these regularly & can help you answer them honestly — and, where the honest answer isn’t strong enough yet, work with you on a roadmap to close the gaps.
What about hybrid & remote work security?
Every device we manage is set up for secure remote work by default — encrypted disk, MFA everywhere, managed VPN if you need one, and Intune (mobile device management) so a lost laptop is a locked laptop within minutes.
Can we co-manage — we have an internal IT resource?
Yes. Roughly a third of our client base runs co-managed — an in-house person or team, with IT Live adding security depth, cover when they’re away, and specialist tooling.
How do we start?
Free scoping call. We look at your current IT setup, practice management system, hybrid-work setup & regulatory obligations — then send you a written recommendation and a fixed monthly quote. No obligation.
Talk to us about IT for your professional services firm
Nice & simple: one relationship for support, security, confidentiality tooling & retention. One number to call when the practice management system slows or a partner’s mailbox looks off. Local senior team who understand professional services.
→ Book a free scoping call or ring 09 280 1780.
Different sector? See all sectors we support.