How to make Xero and QuickBooks training videos for your clients

Updated 28 October 2026

This is for accountants, bookkeepers and advisers who answer the same “how do I… in Xero?” email every week. Xero and Intuit already publish videos on the basics. What they can’t show is how your client should do it: your approval steps, their bank rules, the account their fuel goes to. That is where your own two-minute video saves a call.

What your client sees

Accounting screens are dense: rows of figures, small buttons, totals in a corner. Shown on a laptop or a phone, a plain recording is hard to follow. Here is the same recording twice. Before is a plain screen capture. After is what ScreenCursor made from it, with a zoom on each click.

Get ScreenCursor

1. Pick the tasks your clients ask about

Your inbox already has the list. Look back over a month of client emails and note every “how do I…”. The same few come up in most practices:

• Approving and paying a supplier bill
• Coding a bank transaction, and creating a bank rule so it codes itself next time
• Raising and sending an invoice, and seeing who has paid
• Adding a receipt or an expense claim
• Finding the profit and loss report, or what customers still owe

Make one video per task, and title it the way the client asks: “Pay a supplier bill”, not “Accounts payable workflow”. Write the clicks down first, one per line, with the sentence you will say during each.

2. Record in a practice company

Both Xero and QuickBooks Online come with a company full of made-up data. Recording there means no real client figures appear, and the same video works for every client you have.

• Xero: log in, open the organisation menu, go to My Xero and choose Try the Demo Company. You can reset it from there to start clean, and it resets itself every few weeks, so finish and export each video in one go.
• QuickBooks Online: Intuit’s test drive opens a sample company, Craig’s Design and Landscaping Services, without signing in. It doesn’t keep your changes, so record each task in one sitting.

Some steps only make sense in the client’s own file: their bank rules, their tracking categories, their approval settings. For those, log in before you press record, open only the screen you need, and look for other customers, totals and bank details first. Our page on recording client screens without uploading them covers keeping that video private.

3. Set up the screen

• Close the other tabs and hide the bookmarks bar (Ctrl+Shift+B on Windows, Cmd+Shift+B on a Mac).
• Make the text bigger: Ctrl and + on Windows, or Cmd and + on a Mac, once or twice. Accounting screens are full of small figures.
• Turn on Do Not Disturb, so another client’s message never appears in the corner of the video.
• Open the screen where the task starts, usually the dashboard the client sees after logging in.

4. Record it as if the client were on a call

With ScreenCursor, recording goes like this:

1. Click the ScreenCursor icon in Chrome’s toolbar. If you can’t see it, click the puzzle-piece icon and pin ScreenCursor.
2. Turn on Microphone.
3. Click Choose screen…, pick the tab with Xero or QuickBooks, and click Share.
4. Do the task from your list, talking as you go.
5. To stop, click the ScreenCursor icon again. The editor opens with a zoom already placed on every click, drag and keystroke.

• Say why, not only what. “Approve it here so it goes into Friday’s payment run” teaches more than “click Approve”.
• Read each button’s name as you click it, so the client can find it again without the video.
• Click, then keep still for a second, so the zoom settles and the client sees what changed.
• Fumbled a step? Keep going. Do it again and cut the bad attempt out afterwards.

5. Zoom in on the figures that matter

The zooms follow your clicks, which is usually right. In accounting, though, the point of a step is often a number: the total that should match the bank, the balance that turns zero. To aim a zoom at it, right-click the zoom, choose Zoom focus point and drag the box over the figure.

Then cut the fumbles: press S to split the clip at the playhead and delete the bad part. Where a report takes a few seconds to load, speed that clip up rather than cutting it, so the client knows to wait when it happens to them.

Get ScreenCursor

6. Send it, and keep it current

• Export an MP4 at 1080p and name it after the task, with a number: “03 Pay a supplier bill.mp4”.
• Send a link, not an attachment. Gmail and Outlook.com stop at 25 MB per email. Put the videos in a folder the client keeps, in your client portal or a shared Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox folder, and send the link.
• Link the video where the question comes up: in your reply to the email, in your onboarding pack, next to the written steps.
• Re-record when the screen changes. Xero and QuickBooks both update their screens often. Keep a short list of each video and the screen it shows, and when one changes, record just that video again.

A starter set for new clients

Recorded in the practice company, these work for every new client and save you the same onboarding call each time:

1. Logging in and finding your way: the dashboard, and where to ask you for help.
2. Bank transactions: coding one, and creating a bank rule.
3. Bills: adding a receipt, and approving a bill.
4. Invoices: raising one, and seeing who has paid.
5. Reports: the profit and loss, and what customers owe.

Add client-specific videos on top, recorded in their own file, only where their setup differs. For a client who needs a whole system handed over, our guide on recording a software walkthrough for clients covers the full handover set.

Common questions

Why not just send clients Xero’s or Intuit’s own videos?

Send them for the basics. But the vendors’ videos show the software in general, and your client needs their own way of working: your approval steps, their bank rules, which account their fuel goes to. A two-minute video of exactly that answers the question they would otherwise email you about.

How do I open the Xero Demo Company?

Log in to Xero, open the organisation menu, go to My Xero and choose Try the Demo Company. It is filled with made-up customers, bills and bank transactions, so you can record without showing real figures.

Does the Xero Demo Company reset?

Yes. You can reset it yourself from My Xero, which puts back the original data, and it also resets itself every few weeks. Export each video when you finish it rather than planning to record more in the same data later.

Where is the QuickBooks Online sample company?

Intuit’s QuickBooks Online test drive opens a sample company, Craig’s Design and Landscaping Services, without signing in. It has customers, invoices and bills ready to use, and it does not keep your changes, so record each task in one sitting.

Can I record in a client’s real Xero or QuickBooks file?

For steps that depend on their setup, yes, with care. Log in before recording, open only the screen you need, look for other customers, totals and bank details before you press record, and share only the browser tab. Keep the video to that client, and store and send it like any other client document.

Does auto zoom work in Xero and QuickBooks Online?

Yes. Both run in the browser, and ScreenCursor zooms in on every click, drag and keystroke in a Chrome tab, so small buttons and figures are readable. QuickBooks Desktop is a desktop app, so ScreenCursor can record it, but you add those zooms yourself with Zoom focus point.

How long should a client training video be?

One task per video, usually one to three minutes. If it runs past five minutes it is probably two tasks, and two short videos with clear names are easier for a client to find again.

Does ScreenCursor upload my clients’ data?

No. Recording, editing and export all happen inside Chrome on your own computer, and there is no account. ScreenCursor never receives your video. The only thing it sends is your license key, to check it, at most once every 14 days.