Both pro's and con's involved here, if you get your accountant...

Both pro's and con's involved here, if you get your accountant to organise the subscription they will get a discount, anyway between 15% and 30%, see here:

https://www.xero.com/au/partners/partner-program-table/

I'm a Xero partner and I get credit card details off my clients and organise for them to pay their Xero subscription direct but they still get the benefit of the discounts.

Obviously there is no shortage of accountants who are pocketing the discounts for themselves.

The potential downside as highlighted by Gralynchett and Petepan is if there is ever a disagreement between the accountant and the client, the accountant can hold the client to ransom by removing access to their data, I suppose it comes down to how much you trust your accountant / bookkeeper.

As a Xero user one factor that worries is how Xero (and MYOB for that matter) can increase their fees and I'm powerless to do much about it.  Both Xero and MYOB live are dramatically decreasing the amount of work required by bookeepers and to a lesser extent, accountants.  Whilst the improvement in the product is massive it does take quite a bit of work to have all the ducks lined up and having the program running to its full capacity.  Add to that the time involved in learning how to use the software and I see price increases for these products as relatively easy to pass on.