How Postlock compares

Two things. Done properly.

We don't try to do everything. We do post-lock change detection and the audit-ready Excel export - two things we haven't found together in any other close tool at this price. The table below shows our research; where we couldn't confirm from public docs, we say so.

Feature comparison

The market at a glance.

Based on our own research, kept current as of 1 July 2026. Products change - verify current feature sets with each provider before deciding.

Feature Postlock MaydayScaleXPEasy Month EndNumericDext Precision
Post-lock change detection (auto watchdog) -----
Real Excel export · working-paper quality -----
Per-line institutional memory (carry-forward notes) ----
Supporting schedules -
Board-figure tracking ----
Read-only Xero · no write access ?????
Who-changed-it attribution ????-
Audit trail + adjustment register -??--
Named-user roles + approval workflow ???
Practice multi-client view -
Price (early access) from £39/mo Free · from £34/moNot published (7-day trial)££££~£19–24/client/mo (10 min.)

"?" = not confirmed from public docs. Read a full breakdown for any one of them below.

The pattern

Ask yourself one question about any tool on that list.

What happens the month you can't use it?

Every close platform assumes the close happens inside it. Miss one month (a WD1 rush, a stuck sync, a step that won't clear) and you close the way everyone actually closes: manually in Xero, reconciled in Excel. The tool then wants that month loaded and reconciled before it will touch the next one. That's hours of duplicating work that's already out the door, so it never happens. You keep paying; you stop opening it.

Postlock is built to survive that month, because it doesn't run your close - it witnesses it. Close however you like, then lock the period whenever it's actually done, even three months late: pick the month, lock it, type the net assets you reported. Two minutes, however long you've been away - no re-loading, no redoing recs. From there it watches in the background and tells you if the numbers you reported stop agreeing with Xero.

Our honest take

What we are and aren't.

Where Postlock wins

Post-lock monitoring: we haven't found another tool that watches closed periods and names the document and person behind a change - check us on it in the table below. The Excel pack: the tools we've compared keep reconciliations in their own dashboards; Postlock exports a real file because auditors and accountants live in files, not dashboards.

Where others win

If you need multi-entity consolidation, driver-based forecasting, deep workflow, or client data-hygiene monitoring, look at ScaleXP, Numeric or Dext - they go further in those specific areas. Postlock is deliberate and narrow.

Why read-only matters here

We request only read-only Xero access - technically incapable of changing your ledger. If Postlock were ever compromised, an attacker could see but never touch your numbers. That's a trust decision we won't trade away.

No AI, on purpose

Every check here is deterministic and re-performable - the same inputs give the same answer, which is what audit evidence requires. Your ledger is never read by a model, and there's no metered AI cost under the price. If a tool's pitch leans on AI reading your transactions, ask two questions: what does it find that a written rule couldn't, and what happens to their costs when model pricing moves. Our full reasoning →

Check my closed months · free Talk to us