Chartered Accountant

About Zato

Zato is an AI-powered accounting operations platform built for chartered accounting firms across New Zealand and Australia. Zato grew out of Connect Outsourcing, which has close to 20 years of compliance delivery experience, and that background shapes how the platform is designed: for the realities of firm workflow, not just theory.

The Role

We’re looking for a Chartered Accountant to work directly with our product and engineering team, testing and shaping a platform built for firms like the one you’ve worked in. You’ll bring the practical, day-to-day knowledge of compliance work and Xero that our developers don’t have, and use it to find gaps, validate features, and push the product toward what firms actually need.

This isn’t a back-office compliance role. It’s a hands-on product role for someone who understands both the accounting and the operational mechanics behind it.

What You’ll Do

• Test new features and workflows against real-world compliance scenarios before release
• Identify gaps between how the platform behaves and how a compliance-based firm actually operates
• Work closely with developers to translate accounting logic into product requirements
• Validate Xero integrations across a range of client file types and complexity levels
• Review report packs, reconciliations, and workflow outputs for accuracy and practical usability
• Provide structured feedback on usability, sequencing, and edge cases that only come up in practice
• Help build test cases and documentation that reflect genuine firm processes
• Flag where the platform’s assumptions don’t match how firms are actually structured or run

What You’ll Need

• Chartered Accountant qualification (CA ANZ or equivalent)
• Deep, practical experience inside a compliance-based chartered accounting firm — not just exposure, but hands-on delivery
• Expert-level knowledge of Xero, including its quirks, limitations, and how firms work around them
• Strong understanding of the end-to-end compliance cycle: onboarding, reconciliation, adjustments, reporting, and sign-off
• Comfort working alongside developers and translating accounting requirements into something a product team can build
• An eye for detail and a low tolerance for “close enough”
• Ability to explain accounting logic clearly to people who aren’t accountants

What Would Help

• Experience with other practice management or workflow tools beyond Xero
• Prior involvement in product testing, QA, or software development processes
• Experience working across multiple client entities or multi-firm environments

Why This Role

You’ll have direct influence over a platform being used by firms across New Zealand and Australia. Your judgment on what’s right and what’s missing will shape decisions, not sit in a suggestions box.