XU Magazine - Issue 33

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Managing Editor: Wesley Cornell (Co-Founder)

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Registered office: Office 1, Brunswick House, Brunswick Way, Liverpool, Merseyside, L3 4BN, United Kingdom. All information contained in this magazine is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. XU Magazine cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. If you submit unsolicited material to us, you automatically grant XU Magazine a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in all/ any editions of the magazine, including in any physical or digital format, throughout the world. Any material you submit is sent at your risk and, although every care is taken, neither XU Magazine nor its employees, agents or subcontractors shall be liable for loss or damage. The views expressed in XU Magazine are not necessarily the views of XU Magazine Ltd, its editors or

contributors.

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Creating a

practice

plan

Scaling up, scaling back, specialising and more

Since 2017, Sean has been one of the guiding forces behind AutoEntry.

As AutoEntry’s operations director, he continues to push to find ways that AutoEntry can be even better at being the marketleading data entry automation tool, servicing the needs of 100,000s of people every day.

The pandemic showed how accountants are the true superheroes of the business world.

Yes, there was significant extra work. But a door was opened. As accountants performed tasks like helping clients prepare reporting to access government assistance, clients were educated about a closer relationship with an advisor they could trust.

Similarly, Making Tax Digital in the UK has indicated that client relationships can evolve as accountants focus more on additional service offerings, such as periodic financial check-ups, and less on basic compliance now that the government demands technology do much of that work.

All of this is becoming the norm, rather than the exception.

In the very near future, more and more taxes will be digitalised— everything from income tax to corporation tax. Simultaneously, governments worldwide are increasing business regulation.

You need to choose how you and your practice will fit into this new world.

The issues are the same as they ever have been: ensuring you’re relevant to clients, pricing services optimally, remaining profitable, and so forth, all while being guided by your values.

There isn’t a single path that’s right for everybody. But it’s wise to jump off the treadmill for just a few minutes and plan your route. The focus should be less about the specific and unique challenges. Instead, look at the ways you can navigate through the challenges in a way that will create a future perfect for you.

Scaling up, scaling down, specialising or more radical options—all must be explored, and a destination selected.

And that’s perhaps the most important point. All journeys start with a single step. But less often mentioned is that all successful journeys start by choosing the best destination for you.

Scaling up

As the philosopher Alan Watts

said, the only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

For accountants, this means scaling their practice to exploit challenges in the coming years. But while basic growth is simple— do more of what you’re already doing—accountancy practices have opportunities to instead evolve what they do, driven by aforementioned increasing government requirements and changing client demands.

After all, basic accounting services have become commoditised over the last decade, resulting in an inevitable fight to the bottom when it comes to pricing and profit. Nowadays a high street accountant competes with online services.

Providing more of the same is unlikely to be effective. Instead, fresh service offerings and increasing your practice’s understanding of client needs must be central to any plans to scale.

@AutoEntry

Sean Woods, Operations Director, AutoEntry by Sage

The world of accounting is pivoting with increasing government requirements and evolving client needs.

If you don’t manage change in the coming years, change could manage you—leading to a career forever on the treadmill. Take control now and ensure the coming years are everything you want them to be.

“Accountancy practices have opportunities to evolve what they do.”

For example, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment (MTD ITSA) arrives in the 2024/25 tax year, with the expectation that many businesses will sign-up to the pilot programme ahead of time as of the 2023/24 tax year.

There remains industry-wide incredulity about clients being able to cope with the increased demands of at least quarterly reports for each trade and landlord income, plus discrete end of period statements (EOPS).

And that’s before we discuss the requirements for digital record keeping and digital linking.

Clients that scribble down income and expenses as they occur, then hand this over to their accountant each January along with a bag full of receipts, are in for a huge shock.

But some accountancy practices are seizing the chance to manage this change and in doing so, they illustrate perfectly the mindset needed for practices looking to scale.

Client accounting services

MTD ITSA’s quarterly reporting requirement in particular means some business owners and

managers will need to have much more contact with their accounting.

Because of the obvious reluctance of those clients to do so, some accountancy practices are pondering offering in-house bookkeeping services of some kind.

One recent survey suggested over half of UK practices are either doing this already, or planning to do so.

This is a classic thin end of the wedge that accountants can exploit. It’s driving discussion of a concept popular in the US, known as the Client Accounting Services (CAS) model.

With CAS, the accountancy practice takes on any number of accounting and advisory tasks agreed with the client, such as handling accounts receivable and payable, and other daily accounting needs. This is made easy by the use of cloud accounting software, along with data entry automation software such as AutoEntry.

In other words, the vast majority of the work can be carried out virtually.

Understanding the value of CAS is to switch to a forwardlooking mindset, compared to the normally reactive approach of accountants. With CAS, you’re responsible for creating the books moving forward. With traditional accounting, you simply review the previous years’ books retrospectively.

As such, further services are easily tacked on to any CAS offering, such as running the payroll, growth forecasting and more. Auditing services are also possible, if there isn’t an existing conflict of interest, of course.

A virtual finance director (VFD) is a logical end point, in which an accountant effectively becomes part of a business’ leadership team, advising on routes to growth and key financial decisions.

With CAS, existing clients are your marketing channel. You’ve already developed relationships and have the opportunity to sell additional services to them and ask for referrals. Successful clients tend to have successful friends and business acquaintances.

CAS as a growth model

Here are four tips when it comes to applying CAS when looking to scale-up:

for Xero users, by Xero users.

“Accountancy practices are pondering offering in-house bookkeeping services offerings of some kind”

1. Free up time: CAS is going to require work and commitment to do properly, and shouldn’t be attempted as a sideline alongside your standard workload. You’re going to need to free up some time in your schedule to make the transition, so in the weeks following the end of the hectic tax season, get to work identifying who can benefit from your financial and business acumen.

2. Create a shortlist: Make a list of clients who you only provide traditional services to, but could benefit from CAS. Keep the list small enough to manage at first, ensuring that you provide the best service possible to your client base.

3. Analyse your clients’ industry: Once you’ve selected suitable clients, you’ll need to develop a sound strategy. Even if theirs is an industry with which you’re familiar, start by leveraging industry data reports to see where the possibilities lie in providing services to your clients.

4. Commit: You must carry this process through to completion, and be prepared for any stones in the road as well as the time it will take. There can surely be nothing worse than offering CAS to a favoured client, and then not following through with what was promised.

It should be noted that clients won’t have much interest should you talk about CAS. To them, you’re simply solving problems and providing solutions to their needs. You should couch your additional service offerings in those terms.

When it comes to pricing, CAS is typically a subscription model (monthly or yearly), but one that’s bespoke to each client’s needs. Effectively, you provide a menu

of services, and clients say what they want. The client is ultimately determining the value and this should feed into what you charge.

One thing is for sure: Thinking in terms of charge out rates and fixed fees is becoming increasingly irrelevant. You charge for an overall package, rather than for each hour worked.

Specialising

While adopting a broader and more diverse range of service offerings is one response to the changing world of accounting, it isn’t the only way forward.

Some accounting professionals are responding by simply turning their back on the demanding requirements of general practice.

Referred to sometimes as niching, becoming a specialist practitioner is a terrific route to scale a practice and can provide much more job satisfaction, to boot.

There are typically several types of specialist, as follows:

• Industry verticals: Retail, taxi drivers, construction, landlords, hospitality, charities/NPOs, medical and legal professionals… Most industry sectors benefit from inside knowledge when it comes to taxation and government regulations. Can a magician claim carrots as expenses, in order to feed the rabbit he pulls from his hat? A specialist practitioner working in the entertainments industry is sure to know!

• Taxation: Most common are VAT specialists, of course, but customs and excise specialists are in extremely high demand

since Brexit, as one other example. For another kind of client, a true specialist in capital gains tax might be worth their weight in gold (if the gold is inherited!).

• Business type or size: You might specialise in IT contractors and freelancers, or entrepreneurial businesses, or SMBs aiming for growth. As mentioned earlier, the virtual finance director (VFD) accountant can provide a unique service for businesses large enough to benefit from such a role, but that can’t yet support a full-time position.

• Technology: Combining accountancy services with a technological-driven approach creates a useful hybrid for many clients, especially in our world of Making Tax Digital. Business for such accountants is about selling and supporting an app stack, as well as providing services. Remember that many of those starting businesses today are from the Gen-Z and Gen-Y generations, who have never known a world without advanced technology. These kind of specialists meet that need.

• Lifestyle and culture: Less common but perhaps still worth investigating are specialisms built around specific client connections. This might be a similar cultural background, or belief system, such as Christianity or Islam. There’s even a vegan accountant!

Often your choice of niche will grow from a passion or understanding that you may already have, or perhaps from experience of a role within an organisation.

This is because specialism benefits from a laser-like focus

“Thinking in terms of charge out rates and fixed fees is increasingly irrelevant”

“Specialist practitioners have a true interest in deep diving into specific knowledge”

and true interest in deep diving into specific knowledge. This provides the insights needed to be a successful specialist practitioner.

The key benefit of a niche specialism is ease of new client acquisition and marketing. Provide a good service as a taxi specialist, for example, and you’ll be recommended to other taxi drivers. Furthermore, advertising online is much easier than for a general practitioner, because you can target specific advertising keywords—or simply post for free in relevant groups on social media.

Specialist accounting also got a boost from the pandemic, when the world quickly learned that Zoom teleconferencing was a viable way to carry on doing business. Above all, clients are much happier to accept their accountant may not be local, creating the potential for onlineonly specialist practices with a national or even global client base.

Scaling back

Some practitioners have looked at the developments required in the coming years—and taken the decision to scale back, or at most maintain equilibrium with their existing setup. For sole

practitioners in particular this is a viable way forward.

Ensuring profitability from existing clients is key. The Pareto Principle, known as the 80/20 rule, can provide a path forward, in that it’s likely a minority of a practice’s clients are providing the majority of its income. Identifying them becomes key, as does potentially cutting any dead wood.

Putting it another way, scaling back is less about aiming for a larger client list, as it is returning value per client.

Timekeeping software can be used to measure the amount of work individual clients require. Using this data, client fees can be renegotiated on a periodic basis. Client contracts shouldn’t be set to automatically rollover each year, but should be reviewed and renegotiated if required.

When it comes to the requirements of MTD ITSA and subsequently MTD for Corporation Tax, client continuation with your practice can be based on how willing they are to do the work of tasks like

periodic reporting. Bookkeeping services via a third-party provider can be recommended to those that will struggle.

Technology can be used to automate wherever possible so that MTD is feasible for the client and accountant. AutoEntry can be used by the client to quickly extract the data from receipts, invoices and bank statements, for example. All clients need do is take a snapshot with their phone.

Selling up

As an alternative to scaling back in the face of a changing world of accounting, what might seem the most extreme possibility might be deployed: selling up. That might be selling your practice as an ongoing business concern, or selling your client list to another practice if the Gross Recurring Fees (GRF) are attractive enough.

While there are plenty of agents and brokers who specialise in selling practices, good advice for those intending to sell is to make the plans a reality sooner rather than later. With new client acquisition often ceasing to be a focus when a practice owner

for Xero users, by Xero users.

“Good advice for those intending to sell is to make the plans a reality sooner rather than later”

decides to sell, churn rates can rise, making the practice appear to be in decline. Any sale should be orderly and planned well in advance, with business as usual maintained until that point.

Technology at its heart

Whether you’re scaling up or scaling down, all the destinations we’ve discussed above have technology at their heart.

Cloud accounting and practice management software is the basic requirement for a modern practice aiming for growth, while to free-up time for services like CAS or practice specialisms, automation tools such as AutoEntry are a fundamental necessity.

Why devote hours or days of work to drudge tasks like data entry when you or your staff could be using that time to grow the

business—while demonstrating their expertise and passion? Client engagement tools like GoProposal should be used to price consistently and end scope creep, allowing you to focus on maximising profits while supplying a dependable client service.

If you’re scaling back or aiming for higher value from clients, tools like Futrli are vital in being able to provide budgeting, prediction and reporting so that you and your clients know their position— and are able to act on that information.

Most of all, if you’re planning to sell-up in the future, a practice that has robust digital systems in place is a far more attractive proposition because it enables easier transfer, as well as the auditing of any necessary information.

How Sharesies automated their approvals process & EOFY audits

Who are Sharesies and what do they do?

This

If you live in Australasia, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of New Zealand investment platform, Sharesies. Their fintech innovation makes it easy for New Zealand and Australian investors to buy and sell shares in companies and funds across New Zealand, Australia, and the US.

Their vision:

To give someone with $5 and someone with $5 million the same investment opportunities.

Their inspiration: “We want to nurture and grow people’s finance and investing knowledge. And not just around investing – all things money.”

Sharesies are paving the way for accessible investment across New Zealand and Australia. Users also have access to a wealth of podcasts, webinars, and written content, which helps create an engaged user community that is in control of their own learning. Through their platform and product offering, Sharesies have developed a stand-out business

With roots in business process management and optimisation software development, Konstantin has undertaken hundreds of product implementations for ApprovalMax clients worldwide.

Konstantin has been advising numerous organisations on implementing automation, financial controls, and client collaboration capabilities using Xero-based trusted app stacks, with business profiles ranging from SMEs to large accounting and advisory practices.

strategy that’s set to see them grow from strength to strength.

Where does approval automation come into it?

Business growth is an important part of Sharesies’ story and they needed to have airtight finance management systems in place that would scale with them as they grew. Any solution they adopted into their tech stack needed to allow them to “Chase Remarkable” – one of their company values. Hannah Korner, Corporate Accountant at Sharesies, is big on using approval automation to support their finance function and shares how ApprovalMax helps them focus on their business goals.

Why Sharesies adopted

Before

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

@ApprovalMax

Konstantin Bredyuk, Director of Product, ApprovalMax

Sharesies’

leadership team

from

to right: Leighton Roberts, Sonya Williams & Brooke Roberts

Hannah Korner; Corporate accountant at Sharesies

worked fairly well for Sharesies. At that stage, they were still small – processing around 300-400 invoices per year. It was manageable, although not without inherent inefficiencies.

To keep up with their growth, the team knew they needed a solution that would scale with them no matter how big they got.

“Within the finance team, we’re focused on being agile and delivering a self-service support function that brings value to the business. The tools and solutions that we use need to help us bring that value to the company efficiently and effectively.” says Hannah.

When the Sharesies team adopted ApprovalMax, they saw the value right away. With user experience and efficiencies at the top of their requirements list, Hannah was thrilled to find that ApprovalMax was easy to implement and that their approval matrix would easily grow and adapt with the business. With automated approvals, Sharesies can quickly and easily process everything from their software subscriptions, and daily business expenses, to office supplies and fixed-asset invoices.

• Streamline and automate the audit reporting process to be more efficient and accurate

• Save time and manual effort throughout the entire financial year

• Be scalable and able to handle the huge increase in invoices that comes with significant growth.

When it comes to the end of the financial year and preparing for the year ahead, it’s understandable that many finance professionals and business owners alike feel a sense of trepidation. EOFY could be a mammoth task. But not with their automated approval matrix in place.

“ApprovalMax is really easy to set up and use. That user friendliness was a huge part of the appeal. We could see the value right away and haven’t looked back.” says Hannah.

When it came to adopting automation, Sharesies were looking for a tool that answered all their AP processing needs, while also bringing sleek design and a native Xero integration.

They needed a tool that would: • Give decision-makers access to all the relevant documents and details

Not only has the Sharesies team grown since 2017, they also process many more financial documents each month. In fact, in any given month they process over 300 invoices just within the New Zealand arm of their company –that’s around 12 times more invoices processed per month since they adopted automation!

How invoice management and audits have changed for Sharesies since adopting automation Processing time and total documents processed aren’t the only numbers that Sharesies have been able to improve.

“We use Xero and have fully audited accounts so at the end of the year, approval audit trails help to make that process really easy for the auditors and for us.” says Hannah.

At the end of the day, emailbased approvals wouldn’t help the company grow and scale, and that meant change was essential. But financial services within the investment space are so heavily regulated that any new tools needed to simplify the audit process, ensure compliance, and make the process low-impact for everyone. Without automated approvals and features like audit trail reports or approval history, Sharesies would need an entire team to manage the AP process. Instead, approvals and audits are efficient and effective, and they all tick over in the background.

How Sharesies’ approval processes have changed thanks to ApprovalMax

“ApprovalMax is really easy to set up and use. We could see the value right away and haven’t looked back.”

Automated approvals and tracking the movement of their financial documents helps Hannah and her team to stick to their goals. When it comes to the end of the financial year, automated audit trails make the process so simple that Hannah is able to focus on high-value tasks like budgeting and forecasting for the year ahead, and finding efficiencies elsewhere in the company.

How Sharesies use ApprovalMax and their appstack to scale their business

To get their finance function in a position to achieve their goals, Hannah and the rest of the team carefully selected just a handful of cloud-based accounting tools.

1. ApprovalMax – When it comes to approval automation software, there are no local options that could meet all of Sharesies’ needs. However, they quickly found ApprovalMax and were blown away by the value the tool was able to bring to the finance team and wider business. ApprovalMax’s native and seamless integrations with Xero mean that Sharesies’ tech stack works as one complete

tool, helping them save time and money while focusing on the big-ticket items.

2. Xero – It’s important to Sharesies to support local businesses, so to have one of the best cloud-accounting platforms meant it was an easy decision for them to adopt the tool. Beyond that, user experience and functionality are critical elements in enabling Sharesies to grow – Xero’s outstanding product and service help Sharesies to keep striving for their goals.

3. Spotlight Reporting –Sharesies consolidation and reporting tool of choice is another New Zealand-born accounting tool, Spotlight Reporting. With detailed reports, Hannah and the finance team can double down on their learnings and bring added value to the company by delivering insights, efficiencies, and forecasting – all important elements in preparing for the new financial year.

The wrap-up

It’s important to Hannah and the rest of the team at Sharesies that

the tools they use help them to bring added value to the company and scale as a business.

“It’s within our values to chase remarkable and to be a bit different – to not follow the status quo like a typical finance function. To build on that, we want to use tools that automate boring processes and make those processes much easier and more efficient. By automating invoice approvals, it frees us up to be valuable to the business through analysis and improvements.” says Hannah.

Watch our webinar to learn how Sharesies’ tech stack enables them to scale.

Featuring Hannah Korner from Sharsies, Kylie Wing from ApprovalMax, and Danelle Whaanga from Spotlight Reporting.

magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

The

Stocked, Sealed and Delivered

The year is 1987 and in Greater Manchester, England, a small manufacturing shop has just opened its doors for the first time. With deft skills and a passion for seal refurbishment, they begin a journey of giving mechanical seals a second life.

35 years later, Tekhniseal have established themselves as an exceptional player in the local industrial seal industry. Providing swift solutions across a multitude of mechanical seal needs, they specialise in refurbishing,

redesigning, and manufacturing. Alongside this, Tekhniseal also supply new mechanical seals and cartridges from stock.

Introduction to Seals

Almost everyone is dependent daily on the work done by mechanical seals, even if they have no idea what they are! Any machine in industry or vehicle, including cars and aircraft, require seals to contain lubricants, like oil and grease, to stop moving parts from overheating, seizing up, and failing.

Mechanical seals prevent the leakage of lubricants from often fast-moving parts in machines under high load and friction, and are vital to the safe, reliable operation of these machines. They are also used in plant, engines and machinery across a vast array of essential industries including transport, food & beverage, dairy, chemical, wastewater, and refrigeration.

Helen Haslam, Managing Director of Tekhniseal, said, “The most interesting place our mechanical seals are currently used is in the production of food like chocolate, and other confectionery.”

Her company plays a principal role in keeping the machines in these industries churning. Whether mildly eroded or catastrophically damaged, Tekhniseal enjoy the challenge of restoring the seals for these machines back to prime condition.

The process of restoration and refurbishment can be a complex process. From ultrasonic cleaning and pressure testing, to lapping and seal assembly, it takes a lot of equipment and materials to get the job done.

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

@tidyint

Doria Kao, Education Lead & Marketing Strategist, Tidy International

After completing her internship with Tidy, Doria joined full-time this year with a degree in Strategic Management from the University of Waikato. An avid wordsmith, she brings her passion for storytelling to both product education and marketing at Tidy.

That’s an exciting

for Tekhniseal.

Not so much.

stock management is no longer a grievance for them. With Tidy, Tekhniseal’s time and focus have been brought back to their original purpose.

Assorted Items

Emblematic of their expertise in mechanical seals, Tekhniseal’s stock room is a treasure trove of parts. From wave springs to O-rings, and thousands of other items, their materials are sold to customers as parts or used in refurbishment projects. Consequently, there are a lot of items circulating in and out all the time.

Keeping track of it all can be tricky, especially as Tekhniseal advances towards their goal of becoming a ‘one-stop seal shop.’

While the stock control and management side of things can feel like a burden, it’s pernicious if left abandoned. In order to draw their time and focus back to their core expertise, Tekhniseal turned to TidyStock to take care of their inventory management.

“I needed a stock system to run with Xero, as I wanted to be able to track and view transactions in real-time” says Haslam.

With Tidy’s seamless Xero integration, Tekhniseal can automatically send information between the two platforms as transactions occur.

Her decision behind choosing TidyStock, Haslam explained she found its interface easier to use and more effective than alternatives. This was important for Tekhniseal because they needed a software solution that was powerful enough to put time back into their hands without being so complex it disrupted day-to-day operations.

A Tidy Stockroom

Rather than causing disruption, the software has settled easily into Tekhniseal’s everyday routine. Since 2019, using TidyStock has become a mainstay in everyone’s work, from seal

technicians to support staff.

“We all use it to check stock and see what seals are proving the most popular, what we need to restock, and what seals we don’t currently stock but would be an area of opportunity for us.”

TidyStock’s low level warning feature further aids this by summarising stock levels based on active transactions and set reorder levels. It does the repetitive math too, providing recommendations of how much of each item should be reordered ahead of time. With longer lead times in today’s unpredictable supply chains, this takes the headache out of the what, when, and how much, side of inventory management.

Putting It All Together

With the refurbishment projects they undertake, and their in-

house manufacturing of new seals, Tekhniseal produce a lot of finished goods from raw materials. This involves bringing together a medley of materials from suppliers to build a ‘top-level’ item that is sold to customers.

Tracking the consumables and cost of this might be a daunting process for some businesses, but not for Tekhniseal. They simply set up an ‘assembly’ in TidyStock. This is a bill of materials, or a ‘recipe’ of items required to build a finished product. Once it has been put together, the assembled product can be sold as a sales item.

This means that rather than billing for each individual component used in the production or refurbishment of a seal, Tekhniseal can just charge customers for the final product.

They can also send purchase orders for a complete assembly at the click of a button. TidyStock then takes care of breaking the assembly down into component

“I needed a stock system to run with Xero, as I wanted to be able to track and view transactions in real-time”

items and creates separate orders to send to different suppliers.

Supporting Sustainability

On how they envision the future, Tekhniseal sees their refurbishment service becoming increasingly utilised as more companies begin to consider the environmental impact of their decisions.

“By repairing a damaged or leaking seal, a new seal will not have to be purchased, and the old seal would not have to be discarded, preventing overall wastage” explains Haslam.

Choosing refurbishment is beneficial to multiple dimensions of a company’s bottom line. Not only is it more environmentally

sustainable, but it is also cost effective. By searching for alternate solutions to the cycle of discarding and repurchasing, businesses can undergo significant cost savings. In turn, expenses decrease, widening profit margins, and enabling businesses to reallocate resources towards areas that provide further economic benefit.

An Industry Shift

Tekhniseal’s adoption of Tidy’s cloud software demonstrates an industry-wide shift towards technology that manufacturing companies have traditionally been hesitant to embrace.

The benefits of technology go

beyond just relieving humans of monotonous or mechanical tasks. They also provide highly valuable data insights that can help “sealthe-deal” on important business decisions.

With TidyStock in their toolkit, Tekhniseal are well-equipped to become the ultimate one-stop seal shop.

Learn more about the work Tekhniseal do here

FIND OUT MORE...

To find out more about how you can make your business Tidy, visit: tekhniseal.com

by Xero

Putting payment safety at the forefront

Time saving is great but payment security is critical

This article is

he role of Accountants & bookkeepers in derisking transactions is crucial for SMEs in the current context.

Fraud is one of the biggest risks businesses face and this is on the rise. It is becoming more cyber-enabled, giving fraudsters more opportunities to infiltrate companies through different methods. Small businesses aren’t getting the help and support that the wider consumer public gets. This is why this is one of our major areas of development at Libeo.

What are the different types of payments fraud?

There are two main types of

payment fraud, which can broadly be categorised as those that produce a direct victim and those that produce an indirect victim. For instance, payment frauds that fall into the former camp include things such as identity fraud and hacking, and attacks are commonly made via things such as supplier fraud, invoice fraud, and company director fraud.

Indirect fraud tends to focus more and more on”faceless” crimes, with the victims being banks, states or systems. Money laundering is the most common form of this kind of payment fraud. There is sometimes a combination of these two types of fraud, with AC Scams prompting victims to be misled about how

Glen has an extensive history of working with accounting software firms. His focus is on driving world-class customer experiences powered by cutting-edge technology, while stimulating quality revenue and growth in SaaS companies. Glen is passionate about providing SME business owners with financial clarity, and giving them the tools needed to make their business succeed. He is equally passionate about Libeo’s mission to allow SME business owners to focus on the things that matter.

their accounts will be used to cypher money from them.

Who is most likely to be targeted by payments fraud?

Businesses are a common target for payment fraud, with smaller businesses a particularly popular target for criminals. Financial institutions can also be targeted in so-called “multi-vector attacks” that target a range of financial actions.

Which stage of the payment process carries the most risk?

The attacks will often target processes like the onboarding of new customers, request-topay, invoicing, and initiation or execution of the payment.

If you think about it, there are commonly three steps customers will go through when making any kind of payment:

• Validation of the source when requesting the payment

• Validation of the payment requisition

• Validation of the transaction

Each of these steps in the process has vulnerabilities that criminals can exploit, although the greatest risk comes in the second and third steps of the payment process.

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

T

Tech companies often talk about time saving or the value they bring but in payments, security is the number one focus.

@Libeo_uk

Glen Foster, CMO & Managing Director, UK & Northern Europe, Libeo

For instance, fraud conducted at the invoicing stage often results in a so-called Authorised Push Payment (APP), as fraudulent invoicing can prompt the payer to initiate payments in good faith to criminals.

How does Libeo help reduce payment fraud?

Firstly, we give our customers the choice of payment method, either Open Banking or a Libeo Wallet. We feel it’s important to offer a choice so customers can choose the right method for them.

We use artificial intelligence to flag erroneous transactions. These transactions are either just flagged or blocked if the activity looks suspicious. All payments are run through a fraud analysis based on multiple criteria to detect risky/unusual activity, such as IP addresses (different country or IP address compared to usual), the volume of payments, previous activity and destination. Every day, our Customer Success

Managers check high-risk of fraud transactions to ensure the validity of the payment. If the risk is identified as high, payment is blocked and the Customer Success Manager will make a call to check.

Modifying and validating the bank details can only be done by authorised people and these are then flagged if changed, meaning you have control over who can amend the most important of details.

User roles control who can see and do certain things. For example, we work with many accounting firms that don’t want to make the physical payment but do prepare the pay run for clients to log into Libeo and approve themselves.

The future of payment technology and Accountants & Bookkeepers

With the increased demand for businesses to outsource their full

accounting, we’ll only see more demand for pay-run support from accountants and bookkeepers, whether that be payroll or supplier payments. Having a solution in your corner that allows a secure and simple way to process payments or prepare payments for client approval gives you a great opportunity to deliver a new service but also one that adds real value to your clients.

FIND OUT MORE...

Find out more at: libeo.io/

Why getting your construction business in order can boost your wellbeing

Helping to reduce stress for the construction industry by organising their work lives.

@NextMinuteApp

Michael Savanis, Chief Revenue Officer, NextMinute

Michael Savanis was appointed Chief Revenue Officer of NextMinute in 2022 and is responsible for leading the company’s global revenue operations functions along with Marketing, Customer Success and Support to accelerate market momentum. Michael has more than 25 year’s experience in executive B2B sales and leadership roles.

Knowing how your jobs are tracking, operationally and financially, means greater certainty about the state of your business.

Since the COVID crisis struck, the construction sector has experienced the best and the worst of times.

Specifically in Australia, the federal government’s 2020 Home Builder subsidy scheme triggered a residential renovation boom which saw builders and trade businesses booked up months in advance.

The Housing Industry Association’s November 2021 Trade Report indicated the industry was experiencing its most significant skills shortage since the inception of the Report in 2003.

Widespread flooding across the east coast in early 2022 compounded the demand for services, such that it’s now a case of “good luck with that” for

anyone looking to have building work done in anything resembling a hurry.

That’s the upside.

And bust

The downside? Having a full order book is no longer the blessing that once it was. Keeping good workers on staff and on side has been a real challenge for many business owners.

So has sourcing materials. Australia is in the grip of its worst materials shortage in 40 years, with everything from timber and tiles to kitchen and bathroom fittings in short supply. In an industry where time is money, that’s no minor hiccup.

Prices have skyrocketed accordingly but passing on those increases to customers has been problematic for trade businesses that haven’t allowed for them in their quotes.

This confluence of factors has sent a string of builders, both large and mid-sized, to the

for Xero users, by Xero users.

wall this year. Subcontractors inevitably share in the misery, when work has been carried out but the bills can’t be paid.

Take the pressure down

Against that backdrop, it’s no surprise many trade business owners are feeling like they’re up against it. More than 60 per cent say work pressures are their biggest stressor, according to OzHelp’s National Tradie Wellbeing Survey Results in January 2022. Family and relationship, and financial pressures come a close second and third.

But while there’s nothing you can do about supply chain disruption, national labour shortages and the other macro-economic factors making your business life trickier than you’d like it to be, there are steps you can take to dial down your stress levels.

Getting more organised on the operational front and achieving greater visibility of your financial position are two of them. Indeed, back-of-the-envelope quoting and seat-of-thepants accounting and cashflow management are still standard modi operandi for many. The net result? Unnecessary hours spent catching up on paper work over the weekend and lack of insight into how they’re tracking until jobs are done and dusted.

Tools to make the task easy

Fortunately, there are tools to help you get a handle on all these things, improve your cashflow and reduce the amount of overtime

you’ve been putting in.

Construction job management software that automates your quotes, timesheets, job scheduling, invoicing and back costing, and integrates seamlessly with your accounting package, can take the hard work and hassle out of running your business.

It makes it easy to price for profit, control your costs, and keep on top of compliance and financial management.

Once the exclusive province of commercial construction companies with sizeable ICT budgets and support teams, this technology is now affordable and easy to use, for every trade business owner with a smartphone.

Taking back your time

Knowing how your jobs are tracking, operationally and

financially, means fewer cost blow-outs and greater certainty about the state of your business.

And the hours you save each week can be spent doing more of the things that matter – whether that’s working on or in your business or taking some welldeserved time out with family and friends.

At a time when surviving and thriving in the construction sector is no easy matter, it’s an investment in your health, and the health of your business, you can ill afford not to make.

FIND OUT MORE...

Learn how to organise your residential construction business life with NextMinute: nextminute.com

“Knowing how your jobs are tracking means greater certainty about the state of your business”

Get ahead of the game with Xero friendly tech

Accountants should be no strangers to tech, in 2020 McKinsey reported that 66% of UK companies were piloting solutions to automate at least one business process. With such a huge opportunity, it’s no surprise that the number of finance automation options made available since then has grown significantly. This begs the question; how do you go about recommending the right technology to your clients and what’s in it for you?

Review the market regularly

There are so many more systems on offer to Xero users than ever before. The big names in bookkeeping technology from just 5 years ago are already being superseded when you compare what they offer to the feature rich systems available from newer and fast-growing SaaS providers. You only need to see some of the social media coverage of Accountex and similar events to see the rainbow of options revolutionising the lives of Finance Teams across the globe – or so they say. With free trials, online demos, and very little obligation required, it’s easy to explore what’s on offer.

Be less client led to boost client retention

It’s easy to be reactive when it comes to tech, a client is growing and those invoices are still being manually entered, time is tight, so they ask if there is a better way.

If you resort to recommending the same system you’re used to, your contingency based methods can see you left behind. The truth is, the different systems on offer all have slightly different features, even if they are trying to automate the same tasks. Being in the know about several options will not just allow you to recommend a more suitable system at a better price for your client, but it will empower you to be proactive, making you able to offer systems ahead of time, giving you a more credible reputation and in turn, better client retention.

Look for the option to reconcile their current systems

SaaS billing models, and direct Xero integrations make it easier than ever to change a system. Plus, getting multiple features (such as approval workflows and OCR invoice extraction) in one system means you don’t need a variety of tools any more.

Reconciling software for your clients can save money, drive efficiency and allow you to gain access to some of the newest features on offer, all for a single subscription. For example, with Zahara AP software (available via the Xero app store) you get an advanced, easy to use approval tool, OCR enabled invoice capture facility, plus a variety of enterprise class tools for budgeting, all in one place. Wouldn’t you rather have one system to manage your client’s documents instead of three?

Track the USPs of the systems you champion

All systems have key features that their competition may not offer, it’s important to explore and understand these. For example, a mobile app for approval on the go could be vital to clients with a remote workforce, or a PO facility with budget caps built in can help your clients tightly control spend. Aligning what a system offers with specific client needs can offer huge efficiencies and savings.

Help is for the little ones too

With the typical subscription models offered by many cloudbased systems, the amount you

for Xero users, by Xero users.

How do you go about recommending the right technology to your clients, and what’s in it for you?

@zaharasoftware

Drew Murray, Head of Sales, Zahara

Drew is Head of Sales at Zahara and has spent almost a decade helping Finance Teams automate their expense and accounts payable processes.

Automation is a huge opportunity for accountants, are you making the most of it?

pay is often reflected by the volume of usage, so even the smallest of clients can get a fully functional solution at an entry level price.

Leverage a partner deal

As an accountant you have a lot more power than you may realise. The relationship you have built with your clients is highly sort after by the software providers referred to above. Explore partner programs, understand discounts for referrals and ask for more in exchange for multiple

recommendations. As many of the more widely used software options out there are slow to wake up to the increasingly competitive market, a great deal may be there to be had.

Conclusion

With millennials taking up more

never been easier

The battle for talent continues, and automation

an alternative to adding resource, is proving a bigger win than ever for many. This could be

a huge opportunity for you, and you need to be asking, are your clients expecting more already?

Zahara is a fully automated AP solution.

Our Experience of SatagoPink Pig

Leigh has been in, around and serving the accountancy profession for over 20 years. From working in practice, to talking about marketing strategies over dining tables, to leading organisational change over boardroom tables and everything in between.

Leigh is Head of Accounting Partnerships at Satago - where the team helps firms to support their clients whilst finding new opportunities to grow fees.

hat made Pink Pig look again at Satago?

Although Satago was on my radar, because we’d been using Chaser it wasn’t something that was on my immediate radar.

Then I saw a post from a friend recommending you. I knew he was with Chaser before as well, so I was like, “Oh, what’s going on there, then?”

I spoke to him and asked him his reasons and what he thought. He just absolutely raved about you. So I was like, “Right, let’s have a chat”.

What goals did Pink Pig have?

I wanted to understand what we could get out the platform, how it could help us. And I do think credit control is quite a big and important service to our firm, but we’d never been able to get it off the ground before.

So I thought it’s worth trying a different tact. And the pricing was better, as well, so that helped!

I just wanted to give it a go. See

how it worked for us first, then see how we could potentially roll it out to clients and start making some money out of it, which is something we never managed to do before.

What have you done in your first two months as a Satago partner?

I’ve got my own practice connected. I’ve rejigged the templates to our tone of voice. We’ve got that going and it’s working.

We’ve also connected all of our clients, so we can see how much they’ve got outstanding as well.

We can easily pinpoint which clients have potentially got an issue, especially in line with some of the things they’ve been saying to us as well.

We’ve started reaching out to a couple of clients - the ones we feel would really benefit. So that’s going well.

I think one of the things I struggled with before was how to price [Credit control services] and how to set it up as a service. So we’ve spent some time with Seni [Cheryl’s Account Manager] to look at that. The Credit Control as a Service Handbook has really helped to pinpoint our service levels and the options we’ve got available.

Did the tools in Satago tell you there were clients with that need, or did you know that already?

We kind of knew it anyway because we talk to our clients and review them, obviously.

But I guess clients don’t necessarily see it as an issue - they just see it as part of business.

With clients not moaning about it - and when we’ve spoken to them they’ve just batted it away, it’s not something then that we would really prioritise.

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

More and more firms are looking again at what Satago can do for them and for their clients.

@SatagoHQ

Leigh Stallard, Head of Accounting Partnerships, Satago

W

Here’s what Cheryl Sharp – CEO of Pink Pig Financials – had to say about her experience as a new Satago partner:

“It’s really helped us to not just ‘throw spaghetti’ and send stuff to all our clients.”

But seeing it there more in black and white and seeing risk structure and everythingactually, we need to be a bit more authoritative here.

We need to say, “No, you have got an issue. You don’t think is a problem, but it is a problem”.

What advice would you give to people that are thinking about getting started with Satago?

I think the first thing is not to panic, not to stress. It’s something new, but it is going to be worth it.

Reach out to your account manager and really make the most of them because they’ve been brilliant with being proactive, putting calls in the diary to check on our progress and making sure that we’re using the platform, which I think is really good.

How many times do you sign up for software and then you are like, “I’ll get round to it another day” and never do it?

The Risk Insights and the Portfolio Overview have been brilliant because it’s really helped us to not just ‘throw spaghetti’ and send stuff out to all of our clients. It’s enabled us to pinpoint which ones to start with.

So we’ll start small, build our confidence. And then we’re going to do a big launch and a big campaign. We’ll tell all of our clients, but it’s been nice to be able to start small and pinpoint those that we really think will benefit the most.

What’s next?

I feel like we’ve got a really viable service that we can offer clients,

which they never really thought of before.

We’ve put our service blog together and our service page on our website, so we’ve got that ready to send out to clients.

We’re also putting together a webinar for clients and prospects to talk about getting paid. Something that’s going to be really valuable for clients and potential clients.

I think having a paid webinar will make it more valuable because we’re going to put in more things to make it more valuable, but it’ll also get commitment from people to actually watch it.

And then afterwards you’ve got that passive income - we’re going to put it on a gated page.

I know it’s not going to make us millions or anything, but it’s “Every little helps”.

And that is the goal, isn’t it? To have your business making money while you sleep.

Accountants can struggle with the idea of selling, but you can’t just keep adding free stuff, can you?

No, you can’t. I’m also a real big believer that you don’t have apps for apps sake. It’s got to solve a problem and it’s got to make your life easier because otherwise, what’s the point?

It’s all about taking the processes and services you’ve already got and making them better. Not just adding something for the sake of adding something.

It’s making your service better or making your clients’ lives easier or your life easier. And that’s what you’re using it for.

And I really do believe that this is something that can help make our clients lives better by not being so stressed about people owing them money.

Thank you to Cheryl for sharing her experience.

The 2022 Accounting Cloud Apps Report is out!

Providing the definitive answer to the most popular accounting apps

Jon Melloy, Head of Growth, Practice Protect

Jon Melloy serves as the Head of Growth for Practice Protect, the leading cybersecurity platform for accountants worldwide. With an extensive background in data security and the accounting industry, Jon works with accountants daily to ensure that their people, process, and software are positioned for security. Jon brings the war stories and mountain top wins from helping thousands of accounting firms in almost every geography upgrade their digital security.

The 2022 Accounting Cloud Apps Report presented by Practice Protect is back for its second year.

We are excited to be launching the Practice Protect 2022 Accounting Cloud Apps Report. This report is back for its second edition after we received a lot of positive feedback from the accounting community around the 2021 edition.

The goal of this report is to provide a definitive answer to the most popular apps among Australian accounting and bookkeeping firms. Readers can then use the report as a shortlist of battle-tested

software that they can trial to improve processes at their firms.

The backbone of the report is the quality of the source data which is aggregated and anonymised data from 1,300 Australian accounting and bookkeeping firms on the Practice Protect platform.

In order to turn the raw data into value insights, we broke accounting technology down into practical categories and then ranked apps in those categories and provided commentary on app development and category trends. Categories vary from expense management to proposal software, practice apps, reporting, practice management, electronic signing and many more.

The benefit of publishing this report year on year is that we can track trend data between years, seeing where category

for Xero users, by Xero users.

@PracProtect

“Readers can use the report as a shortlist of battletested software that they can trial to improve processes at their firms.”

growth and decline exists, and what innovations are having the fastest rate of adoption among accountants and bookkeepers.

One big takeaway from this report is that in the past 12 months, Australian accounting and bookkeeping firms have increased their investment in technology to improve productivity. They have done the calculations and recognised that software can reduce time to complete jobs and increase throughput.

This increase in technology investment is clearly seen with several categories experiencing

innovation and significant growth. Some of the fastest growing areas include proposal software, which increases the speed of onboarding and automates cash collection; electronic signature software, which has become far more widely accepted since the pandemic forced everyone to work remotely; and SMSF and corporate compliance, essential software if you’re trying to scale this service.

The two most interesting areas to watch in the next 12 months are practice management and practice tools. Both categories have a number of challengers bringing new ideas and

innovations, and in the former there’s also a lot of M&A.

With accountants and bookkeepers presented with more cloud-based software choices than ever before, our hope is that firms can use the data driven insights from this report to drive change and process efficiencies in their firms.

Download the report for free: practiceprotect.

MTD for ITSA: How practice management software will help

Despite delays and speculation, the impending industry overhaul is absolutely on its way. In this guide, we take a look at how practice management software will help you handle MTD for ITSA.

Task management and workflow

The increased workload of MTD for ITSA necessitates organisation across your whole team. Practice management software provides comprehensive task management

that means you can forget endless to-do lists and reshuffling your day. Using your clients’ period end dates and deadlines, AM automatically generates task lists for each person on your team. You can set internal target dates and create your own tasks for any non-compliance work. Break tasks down into subtasks and assign them to individual team members.

Technology adoption: Old dogs, new tricks

MTD for ITSA is also going to

@accountancymgr

Kevin has over 20 years of experience in the accounting software industry, spending 11 of those at FreeAgent. He first joined the company in 2021 as a non-executive director of AccountancyManager. Since the acquisition, Kevin was made COO of Bright and has now taken over as CEO.

increase the workload of your clients. They’ll need to get into the habit of submitting information regularly - just like your team will need to. It will take time for your clients (and your team) to adapt. The upheaval requires you to take a step back and look at the big picture. This isn’t just about specific MTD work; it’s about reviewing your entire process to make the changes feasible. A solid digital set up for you and your clients will bring simplicity. It’ll ease your workload, but also make technology the norm.

magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Kevin McCallum, CEO, Bright

MTD for ITSA is the biggest shake up to the administrative foundation of the UK tax system since self assessment.

Communication: keeping everyone on the same (paperless) page

With the shift from one submission to four, clients are going to have to engage with you, the accountant, more. Many accountants don’t communicate with their clients on a regular basis, because they simply don’t need to. This won’t be the case anymore. Make sure that as well as clarifying new procedures and introducing technology, you also outline the benefits of the new system.

Practice management software makes it easy to communicate with your clients regularly. Automatic communication features plus time-stamped records of all correspondence keep everyone in the loop. It means any member of your team can pick up the client work and provide a seamless experience. It’ll also protect your liability - when emails that have been opened by clients are tagged, you can guarantee that your

practice has followed the correct procedures if any disputes arise.

Pricing your services: making data-based decisions

There’s no denying it: if you’re doing more work for your clients, it’s going to cost more. Many practices will need to review fee structures to ensure that additional work and additional software licences are reflected in service prices. Don’t be afraid to charge more if you need to. But how do you decide price points?

Practice management software includes time tracking tools so that you can analyse staff costs against specific client work. Keep an eye on productivity, track profitability and see where profits are coming from.

Many firms recognise MTD for ITSA as an opportunity to move clients to regular billing. Historically, annual billing on completing a job has been the industry standard, but this hasn’t always been to the benefit of an

accountant’s cash flow. In the future you’ll be providing services on a more regular basis and you’ll be communicating on a more regular basis. This gives you an opportunity to bill on a more regular basis.

Discover AccountancyManager

The quickest way to find out how practice management software can help your firm tackle MTD for ITSA is with a free AM demo. Discover how our fullycustomisable system works in a way that’s best suited to the needs of your firm.

FIND OUT MORE...

Book a demo: bright.com/

Goodbye manual data entry. Hello AutoEntry.

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Chris O’Neill CGO, Xero

XU: So, five months in the job. How have you found it at Xero so far?

Obviously, you’ve got lots of experience at different types of corporations, so was it what you expected? How do you find it compared to the other places you’ve worked?

CO: It’s a short answer: it’s been great. I’ve been traveling all over the place. I’ve been down under twice, London two times, Canada, all across the United States. My initial focus is to get to know the teams, get to know our partners, get to know our customers and really listen and learn. What I’ve heard is that the potential is vast, probably bigger than I could have imagined. There’s genuine love and trust amongst the community. You can feel it here at Xerocon, so that’s really cool and special. We can talk about how hard that is to create relative to other places.

I’ve been fortunate to be part of great companies, great brands, but the unique bond we have in our community is very, very special and rare. We have incredible talent in all pockets of the world that have been on their journey, some for a long time. Many are actually newer to Xero, so it’s been really interesting to watch our growth. I have a lot more to learn for sure, but I’ve enjoyed spending time with the team and partners and customers. It’s starting to give me insight into what sorts of things are working well, and how we adjust our strategies going forward.

a good vibe across the two. When

I was considering joining, Steve Vamos mentioned Xerocon. I was aware I’d never been to one, but he said just show up at one and you’ll get it. Part of it is the fact that we’re together again in real life, which is special in its own right, but it goes way beyond that. You can just feel it. You talk to people, they relay their stories, they talk about the impact that Xero has had on them, or more generally, the impact the cloud has had on their life.

Xero is a catalyst to do that, and you hear stories like yesterday with small business customer Rashida Gayle and her accountant, Miguel Octre-Marshall, which was just a special kind of combination and really a microcosm of the community right there on stage. Xerocons are a great opportunity for us to hear feedback.

It’s amazing to me that people travel from all over the world. They come and they’re really open. They trust us, they share feedback: Big, small, what’s working, what’s not, and we take it in. That doesn’t mean we can act on everything of course, but that people take the time and energy to be so thoughtful in their feedback is amazing. It’s just a wonderful event.

XU: One of the things that you’re spearheading is the applications and services division. Could you unpack what that actually is and what it means?

and APIs that allow data to flow in and flow out of Xero. Now think about, how do you stay organized and compliant? That’s the job that needs to be done. There’s everchanging laws, regulations and all sorts of things. Staying ahead of that has a degree of energy and investments required. It’s quite significant actually.

If you think about the other side of the equation, it’s how do you run a business? How do you know whether a business is doing well? Or how do you organize and optimize that business? We’ve done a whole bunch of work to study what all the other problems that small businesses have, beyond staying organized and compliant. There’s a long, long list and some of them are small and some of them are big. Some of them, we have a right to play and some of them, we don’t.

There’s really three that I’ll point out. The first is managing your finances. Second is managing people. And the third is managing goods.

If you’re a goods-based business with inventory your finances are getting paid, you’re making payments and need all sorts of access to capital. That’s how we’re thinking of the financial services ecosystem.

CO: I attended Xerocon London and there’s

CO: We’ve always really focused on compliance. The system of records getting translated into financial statements, that will always be the essence of Xero. Putting that in the cloud, making it easier through automation, bank feeds

Second is people. Obviously, businesses employ people. You need to figure out how to manage them, how to pay them, how to stay compliant on that, but also how to hire them. And actually in many ways, that goes even further upstream of a business. It’s not just stuff, at the end. It’s basically, in many cases, lifeblood at the employee side.

And the last, but not least, is

XU: How have you found your first Xerocons?

goods. We acquired a company called LOCATE, because of the explosion and continued growth of eCommerce. People are selling goods and I argue every business in 5 to 10 years will have some element of selling and we won’t even call it eCommerce, just commerce. We need to be good at that, and consistently good.

If you think about those three broad areas, that’s where we want and will play. We’ll make investments, whether that’s stuff we build ourselves, whether it’s stuff we partner on, or it’s stuff that we occasionally will buy. We have done so with Planday. When you think about what we’re trying to do at the highest level, it’s focused on the questions of: How do you stay compliant? And then, how do you optimize the business?

Additionally, we also ask ourselves,. how do we make the best environment for developers to plug into Xero? That’s very much what this is about. There’s a lot of precedent for this. We’re not trying to invent a whole new model or a whole new thing. Think about lots of different companies, like Apple with their App Store, Atlassian or Stripe. The list goes on and on

where it’s just a better ‘together’ proposition, and it says, “Hey, we’re going to do certain things and do them really, really well, because they’re core to what we do.”

The things that we bring to our community is more of a human, transparent process that is very open. We’re not going to have a heavy hand and do a bunch of things that maybe other marketplaces have done over time. That doesn’t mean that we won’t seek to have aligned interests. So for example, in our App Store, we bring people, business and traffic and we expect to be compensated for that, similar to other things.

We think that’s a way to align the interest, to invite app partners bringing their software through an API to connect to Xero in some way. We invest in the APIs and ourdeveloper ecosystem to make sure it’s a proper community. People understand that so i’m excited about this direction that we’re going in.

XU: One of the things that we hear a lot from the readership is how far will Xero go, in terms of starting to branch out of the SME

market and potentially go a bit bigger. Is that something on the roadmap at the moment?

CO:

No, it’s not like we’re going to go upmarket as fast as we can. I think there’s actually overlap between Planday and Xero right now. Is it catering to larger companies? It is, but we’re still talking in the 100-250 company size range as a sweet spot. We’re not talking thousands. Is that possible in time? Sure, of course it is, but it’s not where we want to play.

I think that we have established a very strong commitment and traction with small businesses, and the jobs that we need to do are many. We constantly are faced with how do we make difficult tradeoffs and really do them well? I think that having a go upmarket is something that all companies look at in time, but that’s not something that is core to our strategy.

XU: What’s Xero’s view on having lots of apps, potentially being owned by other vendors, still working with them in the ecosystem? How do you find that relationship moving forward?

magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

CO:

There’s always tension in a marketplace in terms of who does what and so forth. We have competing products that we own and also enable in the app store. We have a very small business and/or partner-friendly stance on that dimension, and if you get a customer some other way, well we’d prefer it to be through the App Store for a whole bunch of reasons, but that’s okay with us. We’re taking a very, very partnerfriendly stance.

We want to have coverage and the best choice, but choice is part of the principle that we care about.

So, if a partner wants to choose Dext over Hubdoc, that’s fine. We want to enable an app for every use case and we know that for a variety of reasons, not everyone will choose something that we have built or bought, and that’s okay with us.

XU: What do you think has made the US market more challenging for Xero, compared to Australia, New Zealand, the UK and even potentially Canada at the moment?

Commonwealth countries, rather than not. There are nuances of course, in terms of how we see the markets, in terms of how mature the digital evolution is and how advanced the government policies are towards digitization.

If you look at Australia, and to some extent the UK and New Zealand too, the governments are very, very proactive in digitization. It literally does feel like when I went back to Canada in 2010, people were questioning or wondering whether they should have a website, right? Yeah, that was a conversation. Over two thirds of Canadian small businesses didn’t have a website, which was kind of mind-bending to me, but it was the reality.

Now, good news is, Canada has advanced in terms of that quite nicely. You have companies like Shopify, you have a pretty thriving tech sector now, which is fantastic, but that’s kind of where we are in Canada today with cloud adoption. It’s way behind for a bunch of reasons and we’re going to work to change that. But the playbook in Canada is more similar to the UK and in Australia, than not.

seminal tax ruling that basically caused the nexus of sales tax to not just be where you had physical presence, but where you ship. That is an earthshaking thing for a small business. All of a sudden I used to have to pay sales tax in one state, now I have to pay it wherever I ship. I mean, there’s been some structural changes and it’s just a much, much different market. It’s a much more advanced market in many ways but behind in others.

I think open banking and the digital stuff we’re talking about, the US is right around where Canada is. But it’s way, way, way behind in terms of embracing the cloud in this segment. So, lots of work there and we are aware of what is needed.

CO:

Well, I’m Canadian and I’ve spent time in both markets. I think there’s more in common across the

The United States is a different kettle of fish. It’s really like 50 different countries in one. You have different jurisdictions, you have different tax regimes. There’s a very

We have studied this market, both first-hand, having conversation after conversation, getting a strategic lens of the market to segment where we’re going to pick our spots. And we’re very clear on that — we’re not treating it like Australia or Canada or the United Kingdom. It’s a different market and the competitive landscape is a little different. I think of our competitors t as worthy rivals, but there’s so much market and there’s so much room for us, that it’s not really what I’m worried about at all.

We’re worried about how we can execute, how we can bring theCont...

for Xero users, by Xero users.

best combination of product and features that’s going to unlock some benefits with our partners. And then, how do we think about which verticals? Which regions do we emphasize more or less, so that we can continue to get traction?

The third theme is really partnerships. Not just partnerships with the accountant, and bookkeepers, but how do we put together partnerships with other technology companies? Where they have small businesses, we have small businesses, and how do we go about it together? How do we think about distributing our products through different needs? There’s many different tactics that we will use in this market, because we simply have to. We have to think differently.

All these things that we had mentioned before, we’ll lean on those even more here. So as we build our core, we’ll fill in other jobs through partners. Gusto is a good example of that. We don’t have payroll here, we use Gusto, and that’s a good partnership for both parties.

journey, let’s be clear about that. We’re not going to lose sight of that. I think that one of the benefits of cloud is the ability to connect things through APIs, and we’ve only just scratched the surface on that. I think one of the big things is trust and making sure that data is used in a very transparent and productive way.

When you have these other jobs being done, take payroll as an example, that has to come in and it has to be pristine in certain ways for regulatory reasons and for paying people the right amount. That data gets decorated as it flows into the financial statements in a way that allows you to do very interesting things, make suggestions and your payroll is connected.

Maybe you have a supply chain disruption and it trickles through to decisions you need to make on the pay. There’s a whole bunch of scenarios, the only limitation there is our creativity. You start to put those pieces together like that, where you can actually start to use the data responsibly to help make very specific recommendations for a small business. That’s huge.

CO:

Well, we’re so early in the cloud accounting

I touched on this yesterday in my talk, but even further afield is embedded applications or embedded experiences. I used the

example of our app launcher and you can pop it up and it will make suggestions for apps that we think are useful. That’s an embedded experience and you can imagine us going even further to have a dashboard for a business and/or an advisor that basically has other parties’ information present.

Another example is Stripe. We have space now in Stripe where you can put parts of Xero inside, or at least we’re early on that journey. That’s the notion of embedding experiences, to make sure they’re seamless for the end user and they’re just in one place. That’s the future. These things don’t sound transformative now, but as we start to see better use of data and more people embracing it, putting their businesses on the cloud, these are the sort of things we’ll see.

XU: What do you do in your downtime to relax?

CO: Well, I like to garden. That’s just fun, because I like to be outside all the time. I do that and then ride a road bike with my mates. I’m actually heading down to Italy and France for a little getaway with my wife and some friends to go biking.

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

XU: What do you think the next big thing with the FinTech industry is?

Explore the Benefits of Linking Xero with HR

@HRPartner

Fiona Adler, Director, HR Partner

Fiona is passionate about helping businesses get the tools and know-how to grow and streamline their operations. She has worked with SMB’s for over 20 years - creating online solutions that help them operate in the best ways possible. With a background in business consulting and an MBA, Fiona knows there is nothing more important than the Human Resources function.

ero is great for managing accounting data, but what about your employees? In most cases, the team is truly the most valuable resource in the business, but yet there are still some companies that don’t have a system for keeping track of basic employee records. With the current economic climate, companies are now competing

based on who can attract, manage and retain employees - so this is not an area to skip over! If you haven’t used an HR system before, here are some of the key reasons to level-up your business in this area.

Core Employee Records

Yes it’s true that Xero helps with

basic employee details that are needed to run payroll, however this leaves a lot of areas open and unaddressed. For example;

• Do you have emergency contact details for every employee?

• Do you know which employees have not submitted a police check / NDA / vaccination certificate?

• Do you know which employees have done which training?

• Can you see which company assets each employee has in their possession?

• Can you easily access all files including contracts, resumes, certificates, etc for all employees?

An online HR system provides one central place for all employee records so that the right people can access them, wherever they might be working from.

An Improved the Employee Experience

for Xero users, by Xero users.

If your team is your most valuable asset, how are you managing employee records?

Once you have more than 15 or so staff, you need an HR system to keep track of everyone and streamline HR processes. If you’re using Xero for payroll, you can connect HR Partner and have seamless leave requests, onboarding, employee portal and more.

“Can you imagine not having an accounting system? Then why don’t you have an HR system?”

With an HR system in place, you can streamline many HR processes that are otherwise cumbersome and time consuming - both for the administrator, and for employees.

For example, with an HR system like HR Partner, employee leave policies are integrated with Xero and your team can apply for leave and have leave approvals routed through the correct management or HR channels (these can be as simple or complex as you like). Once approved, the leave shows in a calendar so that the right people can see who’s away at any time. Employees can easily access their leave balances and history through the employee portalvastly reducing the number of questions and back and forth communications.

Another example is performance management. Without a system in place, it’s usually left to individual managers to decide how they conduct reviews. And in many cases, this means that they don’t get done. On the other hand, HR Partner allows you to use performance review templates

that can be as simple or complex as you like. Performance reviews can be scheduled ahead of time and all reviews are then on record for future reference. You can also set goals and objectives for team members to keep everyone focussed on the right things.

Growing the Team

For businesses that are recruiting, you’ll already know that this is an incredibly time consuming process. But with the recruiting function built into HR Partner, you can easily filter applicants,

see which stage everyone is up to, and use email templates to streamline communications with candidates.

Plus, when you hire a new employee, you can automatically add their application details to their employee record, send them a contract to sign electronically, and get them started with a slick onboarding checklist that ensures nothing falls through the cracks. It’s a great way to save a lot of time and create a positive first impression for your new hires.

Building a Better Culture

Possibly the most compelling reason to use a proper HR system like HR Partner is that it helps create a positive employee culture that we all need to be striving towards. Can you imagine working for a company that didn’t have a decent system for keeping records about you? It can be hard for employees to believe they are truly valued if their details are just kept in spreadsheets and random filing cabinets.

Using a system like HR Partnre allows you to do things like;

• See upcoming birthdays and work anniversaries so that these milestones can be easily celebrated

• Allow team members to create their own introduction to help others get to know them better

• Provide team members with an employee directory to aid in communication

• Easily email groups of employees for important communications

• Create a company library of important files you want

employees to be able to access readily

If your company has more than 15 team members but you’re not yet using an HR system, there are lots of time savings to be made. And with the Xero integration, your team’s basic details and leave balances are automatically pulled in to make it super easy to get started.

FIND OUT MORE...

If you’d like to see how you can manage and track your Sick Leave and other types of leave in HR Partner, please book a complimentary demo with us now: www.hrpartner.io/demo

why, how?

explains our service

Q: How would my practice begin working with AdvanceTrack?

A: Initially we have a factfinding meeting. It’s effectively the first – and one of the most important – tasks. It’s vital for us at AdvanceTrack to know how your accounting practice works, and for whom. We are wellversed at getting down to the important details quickly! There are a whole host of questions but, essentially, we ask about the practice’s structure, processes and technology stack.

The next part of the fact-finding mission is also very important. We ask: “what problem do you think we’re going to solve for you?” This is all about getting to the heart of whatever issues or tactical aims the practice views us as being the solution for. Sometimes we can see a clear path for us to help, but on occasion, we might have to explain why another option may be best for the practice to pursue.

The issues we’re confronted with, though, usually fall into two buckets: your firm is either in the midst of having difficulties in

maintaining service for the clients; or the firm has growth plans and require our flexible capacity to help them scale.

It’s ‘nicer’ to be able to methodically plan and support growth, but we understand that things aren’t always that straightforward.

If a firm’s processes and tech are in a sufficient place for us to be able to link well, then we look at the strategic needs and provide advice on whether we think an outsourcing or offshoring solution would work best. The former is structured around us completing a set amount of work on behalf of a firm in a set timeframe, whereas the latter is about the provision of dedicated offshore team members to work with that firm full-time. It is an important decision, and a decision made carefully between us and the firm’s leaders.

Whatever the route, we would aways say that the next step is about communication between the firm, our technical team and us at head office. This would certainly be front-loaded to

@AdvanceTrack

Vipul Sheth ACA CTA, Founder and Managing Director, AdvanceTrack Outsourcing

Vipul is a UK based ICAEW Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor. Vipul trained with a regional UK firm before moving to Ernst & Young and KPMG. AdvanceTrack is a UK Headquartered Accountancy Outsourcing Company with offshore operational centres, delivering services around the globe.

AdvanceTrack demonstrates compliance with international security laws including GDPR through certification to ISO27001:2013, ISO27701:2019 and BS10012 audited by BSI. Quality is certified to ISO9001:2015 and Business Continuity certified to ISO22301:2019

ensure that things are working smoothly.

Q: How secure would my client data be if I worked with AdvanceTrack?... How rigorous is your security?

A: There’s a very straightforward point at which to begin this answer: as MD of this business I want to be able to sleep soundly at night. As a consequence, we’ve created processes and technology that allow us to be satisfied that we’ve done everything realistically possible for our organisation to demonstrate that we look after clients’ data in a secure manner.

In terms of testing the rigour of our processes, we have a multitude of certifications that provide external assurance. These include ISO 27001 and ISO 27701, which cover information security management and privacy information management respectively. Our people, and the way in which we work are audited every year to show what we’re doing and prove that the information is safe and secure. It also covers situations where there

magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

do we work with, and how?

is asked a lot of questions

what we do. So, why not give some of our responses here? Our MD Vipul

has put together some FAQs – and

of course.

is a problem and how we look to resolve it.

We share information between us and accounting practices through ‘the cloud’, and we have very secure ways of maintaining security levels.

Of course, you’re only as secure as the people you work with. Our teams are trained to be sensible with how they deal with information – we also have failsafe access restrictions… even I can’t access everything. There are physical security protocols too – such as the banning of cameraenabled phones in the office.

Q: Do AdvanceTrack’s data and security standards matter to me as a client, or potential client?

A: The simple answer is YES, absolutely. The standards we have been awarded are solid, external, assurance that prove we are being run in a well-managed and responsible manner. Ultimately it means that we protect our customers’ data – and that of their clients - as well as we can, and look to mitigate against continuity or security issues.

So, how does it work? We’ll run through the actual standards later, but let us explain how we are audited. An external auditor from the British Standards Institute (BSI) spends several days with us each year.

The auditor goes through all our procedures, risks and controls to make sure we do what we say we do. We currently have five standards (see below) and, whether security, privacy, quality or continuity, they are all riskassessed.

We identify risks, and then evaluate them in terms of impact on confidentiality, integrity of information and availability of information. We then look to minimise the chance of those risks occurring.

Then we implement controls, and look at the residual risk: is there anything else can we do? Those controls could be as simple as making sure laptops have antivirus on them – or as complex as managing redundant data centres or updating our business continuity plan.

The external auditor reviews all our controls – reviewing whether we follow them. They’ll take samples and we then demonstrate how we follow things through, including taking action to fix any issues that have arisen.

We’ve now had several audits –our last one was three days with the auditor and they spent a day writing up their findings. The external, independent auditor works for BSI – a very prestigious organisation.

The standards themselves don’t change what we do – but they are a key quality control check for us. In turn, this gives our accountancy clients peace of mind.

Vipul Sheth is founder and MD of AdvanceTrack.

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

users, by Xero

XU: It’s great to be joined by Richard Smith today. He is the owner and developer of the infoodle Management Software for Charities and Churches.

Richard it would be great if you could tell the XU readers a more about your journey to founding infoodle?

RS: Despite having a long career in IT, I’ve spent much of my life involved with charities and churches both on staff and volunteering. One charity involvement was with an emergency relief organisation managing teams and logistics, whilst also tracking and reporting grants and finances across multiple-currencies.

At church I’ve seen many hours of staff and volunteer time wasted when they are simply moving data around. With these involvements I recognised the opportunity to serve this non profit community by providing them with a solution to many of their headaches when it comes to administration, community engagement and financial accountability so that their staff and volunteers could be more focused on their mission.

XU: It’s great to hear more about your journey on the start of infoodle.

As infoodle has now been on the market for 10+ years it would be great to know more about how these years have been for you? And any great learning stories along the way.

RS: The journey certainly has been one of learning. In IT, it never stands still and user expectations grow exponentially. It seems when

one day Excel was fine, now they want an all-singing fully integrated solution... A car-wreck to a Ferrari overnight!

Like all bootstrapped businesses we’ve had to navigate growth as the revenue allows, and in that mix find the right staff, deploy the right technologies and invest time in the right things. Not always getting it right means giving yourself permission to get it wrong too. My learnings are summed up as sheer persistence and tenacity. When you believe in what you’re doing, and see the benefit it brings to the organisations you work with, the rewards speak for themselves.

XU: I can see that infoodle integrates with different software. A big integration for you is with Xero. Can you tell me more about this integration?

RS: Xero is an important part of infoodle’s offering. The integration serves as a mechanism to bring contacts and transactions into infoodle automatically and thus build a better profile of donors. This data can then be used to create segmentations for reporting and email marketing, generate a claim for Gift Aid to the HMRC as well as email statements and Tax receipts.

This integration allows accountants to save time when they provide these services to their clients, and also reduces the work of charities by days. Having Xero keeps the accountants and bookkeepers happy, and integrating with infoodle ensures the charity is communicating with whom and what their community needs really easily.

XU: We’ve seen infoodle has just updated

their mobile app. Can you tell us a bit about this?

RS: The nonprofit sector is made up of organisations that are communities. Enabling those communities to operate at an administrative level is important, but being able to delegate some of these tasks away from the main office, enabling the community to connect with one-another, having access to information about the goings-on of the organisation, and provide communication back to the main office ensures that the community can run more effectively and the community is more engaged. Presenting this in a customisable way for organisations to ensure it fits with their brand and messaging increases this engagement. This is the goal of the App, it’s the community in their pocket!

XU:

I know recently you have been spending some time in the UK trying to establish and grow the infoodle brand over there. How have you found this to date and what different challenges have you faced along the way?

RS: That’s right - infoodle is a New Zealand company, but infoodle isn’t new to the UK. We determined that it’s now time to have ‘boots on the ground’. The UK is quite a different culture to NZ, for instance NZ is much more trusting and egalitarian. Kiwis recognise they all need to work together to make things happen and trust each other to do so. The UK, obviously, is a bigger market with more people demanding your attention - getting through to the right people in the right way is a more time consuming business.

XU: Following on from that, what is your driving force for bringing infoodle over to the UK?

RS: A key understanding of the nonprofit sector is that they are often run by part time volunteers who are a part of the organisation because of the cause and less because they have a passion for administration. For this reason they need more support, which we freely give. Establishing a sales and support team here in the UK will mean we can support our customers in the way we do in NZ, responsive and helpful and now with near 24hr coverage.

XU: Where can our XU readers see the infoodle team over the next year? Do you have any plans to attend events in the UK?

RS: We were at the CRE recently here in London in fact, and there are other conferences and exhibitions we are exploring at this point. Other than that we are getting round the country to meet up with folk.

XU: What do you think the next 5 years hold for infoodle?

RS: infoodle, like any tech product, is continually moving forward as a business and a product. Our sites are firmly set on the nonprofit sector and we

have a range of opportunities by way of product developments and other sales regions before us. The next 5 years will see us expanding into these. With an established, solid business we are ensuring we have the tools that our customers need to be more effective in their missions.

XU: In issue 32 of XU, we covered stories of what people wanted to be when they grew up. What did you want to be growing up?

RS: RAF fighter pilot and then a graphic designer, both challenging when you are colour blind - so neither eventuated!

there are occasions I get out and experience the great New Zealand outdoors - it really is a great country to explore if you’re ever there.

XU: It would be great to know what keeps inspiring you on a daily basis?

RS: I’ve often wondered - running your own business is tough, but I actually still really enjoy what I do. It’s the best way I can think of that brings the skills and passions I have together. I get energised by talking and meeting with our clients and hearing the impact they are making on the world in so many varied ways and how the infoodle team is playing a part in that.

XU:

Having spent some time exploring infoodle and its move in the UK market it would be great to know a little more about you? What can our readers find Richard doing when he isn’t working?

RS: I’m not great at the work-life-balance thing in all honesty. If I’m not in front of a keyboard my brain is still working on it, the joys of running your own business I guess. Apart from that I have a great wife and family with whom we spend a lot of time with both in the UK and New Zealand, I’m part of the leadership in our community church which keeps me connected, and grounded and

XU: Finally, we always love to ask questions. Has there been one bit of advice that’s helped you in your career?

RS: There is some for sure, good advice is a rare thing these days. Here are a couple of phrases I often recall: Success comes to those who stick at it, Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration! Visit out website at: infoodle.com

OUT

for Xero users, by Xero users.

Richard and Aukje Smith from infoodle

Why debt collections and receivables management is one of the hardest jobs in the world

This article is

When most people think about the hardest jobs in the world, they don’t usually consider debt collectors and credit controllers. These roles are often overlooked but can be some of the most difficult ones.

One of the reasons for this is that debt collectors and credit controllers often have to deal with a lot of negativity on a daily basis. They are in many cases liaising with customers who are frustrated because they haven’t been able to pay their bills, unhappy with the product or service that was delivered or who disagrees with the invoice completely. This can be tough on the psyche and mental wellbeing of the collector, and it’s no wonder that many people in these roles often find it hard to cope with their job.

In this article, we’ll be looking at some of the reasons why debt collections and receivables management is one of the hardest jobs and what those in these roles can do to make it easier.

Debtors are usually going through a rough time

Just because people or businesses are in debt doesn’t mean they’re maliciously withholding money from you. In most cases, debtors are going through a tough time themselves and are often struggling to make ends meet.

Often, this stress and frustration is taken out on the debt collector or credit controller, who’s merely doing their job, and it can be difficult to remain professional and calm when this happens.

The job of the debt collector is to try and get as much money from the debtor as possibleregardless of their circumstances. This can often be a difficult thing to do, especially if you sympathise with the person’s and business’s situation. Feeling like you’ve ruined someone’s day, or added to their stress, is never fun. And yet, credit controllers and debt collectors have to deal with this regularly. It’s hard to constantly chase people for money, especially when you know that they’re struggling, but collectors have to remember that they’re just doing their job.

Facing rejection

Another difficult thing about debt collections is that one experiences rejection daily. People and businesses often ignore payment reminder emails and phone calls, and if they do pick up, they can be quite forceful in their refusal. This can be frustrating, and it’s easy to start feeling like you’re not making any progress.

No one likes to be rejected, but debt collectors have to deal with it regularly. If a debtor is not willing to cooperate or make payments, there is very little that a collector

@chaser_hq

Sonia Dorais, Chief Executive Officer, Chaser

With nearly 20 years of experience working in fastgrowing businesses, Sonia is the CEO of Chaser. Prior to this role, Sonia led the growth of numerous fintechs in both Canada and the UK that specialised in the digitisation and automation of finance and accounting tasks and functions.

can do. It can be frustrating and disheartening to constantly be told no, but collectors have to keep trying.

It’s a high-pressure job

As a credit controller, securing the funds that are owed to your company is essential. This means that there is a lot of pressure to perform well. In many cases, the future of a company rests on its ability to collect payments from its debtors, if they don’t, it could mean financial ruin for the company.

It’s also a high-pressure job due to the nature of the work. You’re constantly chasing people for money, and often dealing with difficult situations. This can be stressful and can take its toll on your mental health.

You have to be both customerdriven and numbers-driven

Insisting someone pay you the money your company is owed while still maintaining a positive working relationship is a fine line to tread. You need to be firm but fair, and always keep the company’s best interests in mind. This can be a difficult balance to strike, and it’s one of the things that makes debt collection and receivables management such a challenging job.

What can you do, as a credit controller, to make your job

magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

easier?

As a credit controller, there are a few things you and your businesses can do to make your job easier.

Have a good understanding of your credit control policy

Make sure you have a good understanding of your company’s credit control policy. This will help you to know exactly what was agreed between your customer and your sales team in regards to payment terms and late payment fees, and also help you and your team decide on how far you can push when it comes to your collections activity.

An effective internal and external communication of the credit policy will help to avoid misunderstandings later on as well as provide a good foundation for future negotiations.

Monitor your customer’s credit risk

Keep an eye on your customer’s credit risk. This will help you know when to take action and how much pressure to put on them. If you know your customers’ situation, you will be in a better position to negotiate, and you can offer them alternatives to help them pay their debt before it gets out of control and the collections

tasks become more difficult and stressful, both for you and your customer.

Be persistent but not pushy

Customers who are behind on their payments will often try to avoid contact with the credit control or debt collection team. It is important to be persistent but not pushy. Pushing too hard will only make the situation worse and may result in the customer is less likely to pay.

Develop strong relationships with your customers

Getting to know your customers can be helpful in several ways. First, it gives you a better understanding of their business and their payment behaviour and processes. This can help you to make more informed decisions about when it’s best to reach out about outstanding payments, and also make the collections process itself more efficient and effective. Additionally, it can help to build goodwill and mutual respect between your company and customers.

Stay on top of your invoicing

Effective, error-free invoicing is essential to the receivables management process. Your invoices must be accurate, complete, and timely to avoid

delays in payments. Additionally, you should make sure that your invoicing system is integrated with your accounts receivable system so that you can track payments and easily follow up on late or missing payments without having to look and work through several spreadsheets and software.

Having this in place will ensure that customers are being billed correctly, and it will also help you make sure that you and your team are following up with all overdue invoices and that no invoices are falling through the cracks.

A vital part of any business

Debt collection and receivables management is one of the hardest jobs, but also one of the most rewarding. Without effective accounts receivable management, businesses would struggle to stay afloat, making it one of the most vital jobs in the business world.

Want to learn more?

Find out more at: chaserhq.com/creditcontrol-accountsreceivables-software

Annature enters a partnership with a new big brand McDonald’s, operated by the Munro Group.

McDonald’s transforms its backoffice administration for future growth

Annature CEO Amreeta Abbott is adamant the partnership with Annature harnesses McDonald’s traditions of efficiency and innovation.

This article is

Annature, Australia’s award-winning eSigning and ID Verification platform, today outlined the benefits of its partnership with the rapidly growing Munro Group of McDonalds Restaurants. Implementing its eSigning platform has transformed the administration of its human resources documentation, rapidly accelerated their execution and helped to redeploy thousands of hours back into the business.

The Munro Group of McDonald’s operates a team of 700 plus, managers need signatures from staff, parents and guardians for rosters, crew policies, employment documents and award wages compliance requirements.

Documents executed in matter of minutes

What once took days and even weeks is now completed in minutes and hours due to

Amreeta Abbott, CEO, Annature

Amreeta Abbott is the CEO and Founder of Annature and award-winning entrepreneur behind NowInfinity. This industry-leading platform provided its cloud-based Documentation Suite, Corporate Messenger, Trust Register, and Super Comply products to more than 4,000 accounting firms responsible for around 750,000 entities. The company was sold to ASX-listed Class Limited (ASX: CL1) for $25 million. Now she is either at the helm or on the board of multiple fintech organisations.

Annature’s innovative eSigning platform technology. After sending thousands of Annature eSigned documents for a year, the Munro Group benchmarked the business results:

• All 700 staff and parents and guardians can eSign

• Thousands of documents ‘envelopes’ have been sent

• Annature’s automated SMS reminders see documents signed three days faster

• Every employment onboarding document is signed one week faster

• Annature eSigning platform saved 8,400 hours in admin follow up

• Two out of three documents sent via a text message are executed within two minutes

“We switched to Annature because we’d been frustrated by the lack of flexibility and the cost-effectiveness of previous solutions. Annature has given us outstanding setup support. Hours of webinars and assistance with developing templates and APIs has streamlined our processes even further,” said Harrison Hreszczuk, Munro Group of McDonald’s Restaurant Communications Manager.

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

@AnnatureAU

Innovation and streamlined operations have always been the cornerstones of McDonald’s brand and operations; from pioneering categories, products, and customer experience; so, it comes as no surprise the retailer is looking to leveraging technology of future at the backoffice as well.

The agreement helps reduce the admin burden for franchisees and removes the need for print, signing, scanning and storing papers. For Annature, the leading Australian-owned electronic signature innovator, this latest deal further extends the company’s footprint into the real sector of the Australian economy.

Integration into the Business Processes

Digitally savvy Munro Group fully utilises Annature’s branding and white labelling capabilities, making signing even more intuitive, automatically integrating it into its administrative

processes. Annature can now be used by head office staff and franchisees throughout its entire network.

Secure and Compliant “Annature is efficient and keeps us compliant. Everyone has access to the latest document version, which increases productivity at every level. Staff love its userfriendly interface, and we gain extra Qantas Rewards benefits every time we eSign” he added.

Vast majority of documents executed via the new platform contain personal and sensitive information, handling which is easy and no longer a concern for the Munro Group. A sophisticated array of access controls, account management, and other essential features ensuring the group employees’ data is safe, secure and onshore.

As the leading Australianowned eSigning solution with an integrated digital signature,

identity verification, and payments platform built on blockchain technology, Annature offers integration with the world’s leading document management solutions and cloud storage providers. Its bank-grade security is underpinned by ISO 27001 certification to keep data, documents, and sensitive client information secure and onshore.

“Annature is an Australian company with global eSigning and ID Verification standards,” said Amreeta Abbott, Annature’s CEO and founder. “Our award-winning eSigning platform offers more features for our end-users. We offer world-class ID Verification capabilities and vastly superior customer service, as the Munro Group discovered.”

If the only update your software gets each year is price, it could be time to switch

Switching is easy, liberate your software with CCH Accelerate

With Wolters Kluwer you can have a seamless system that makes better use of your time and budget. Plus we’ve made switching easier and quicker than ever before.

Transform your practice with our new product bundle CCH Accelerate

› a full cloud-connected suite solution

seamless data conversion from your existing solution

› full project coordination and services

› a value-driven package which more than covers the cost of implementation

› an easy onboarding process, including flexible staff training and eLearning

› a dedicated account manager and a direct line to a support team

independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

The future of accounting: The untapped value of advisory services

Catherine Knowles is a journalist, copywriter and researcher who has worked in the technology space for a number of years. Following a stint at a tech publication and education start-up she became a freelancer, completing projects for businesses throughout NZ and APAC.

Businesses big and small rely on accounting best practices and advisory services to not only accomplish daily tasks with greater ease, but level up operations and take on bigger and better projects. This is also an area in the financial services industry that is booming.

This article is

The accounting services global market value was $544.06 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $735.94 billion in 2025, according to Research and Markets.

In addition, Spotlight Reporting’s Global Advisory Trends Report 2021/2022 found that 91% of respondents feel there is a surge in demand for cloud advisory services. Other research shows that 29% of clients expect to receive advisory and consulting services from their accounting practices, and firms already paying for advisory services have reported their profit margins have increased by a massive 34-47%.

With demand for more nuanced and tailored offerings increasing, it’s no surprise that more businesses are looking to invest in advisory services. There’s a lot of opportunity for accounting firms to move, and move fast, especially as the gaps in the market are yet to be filled.

Offerings built for a modern landscape and business needs

Beyond regular assistance,

advisory services is where the accountant provides expert recommendations, options and strategies to help business owners achieve financial and operational goals.

To break it down further, where regular accounting looks into the past, generating financial reports, filing taxes and completing any compulsory tasks, advisory services look to the future to provide guidance and help business leaders make better decisions and avoid potential fallouts. It differs from and extends beyond consulting because it’s based on an ongoing and regular engagement, as opposed to a one-off service.

Advisory services can include a mixture of different offerings, from basic to niche and specialised options. Common offerings are cash flow forecasting, tech stack implementation, budgeting, business planning, financing and

loan applications as well as many more.

Accountants are able to tap into their industry experience, share accounting technology and process expertise, and exercise critical decision making around finances. This results in tailored and personalised advice and strategic direction for a business. The value advisory services bring to a business cannot be understated, particularly in small to medium businesses (SMBs) that can’t afford to have a financial lead in-house.

Oftentimes, the positive return on investment, in the form of improved budgeting and forecasting, better understanding of trends within the business and more are all tailored to the specific business’s needs and requirements - clearly outweighing possible barriers to entry.

independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

@spotlightrep

Catherine Knowles, Content Contributor

“Advisory services is where the accountant provides expert recommendations, options & strategies to help business owners achieve financial & operational goals.”

Bringing enhanced benefits and value to businesses and accounting firms

First and foremost, when accounting firms introduce advisory services into an new or existing arrangement, the degree of information shared, discussions had, and advice offered, leads to a more in-depth and stronger relationship between the two parties, and sets up the pair for a long-term commitment.

Another top benefit is that advisory services can, in many cases, lead to increased revenue. For instance, advisory services is a prime avenue for an accountant to explore more thoroughly the current standing of the business and identify areas of strategic investment or overspending. In taking the necessary steps from here, the business can have the potential to gain higher revenue.

Another obvious benefit of advisory services is that it can aid in the adoption of financial or accounting software solutions that automate manual tasks, or simplify certain processes, freeing up staff to focus on more high level tasks, and reducing the chance of any costly human errors.

Meanwhile, accounting firms can gain a competitive edge in an increasingly saturated market, through extending their offerings and services. Regular accounting and compliance services are becoming a dime a dozen, with many firms offering a similar set of baseline services that are often reducing in price due to the competitive market. Advisory services offer a way to set a firm apart, bringing genuine value to a business, and helping to build the foundation of becoming a trusted partner.

Opening up the conversationhow advisory services functions in the real world

An advisor relationship is more flexible and fluid than an average accounting and client

arrangement, and often evolves over time. It’s about taking the time to understand where businesses are wanting to go, and helping them to get there

For instance, a new client may come to an accounting firm requiring assistance with simple bookkeeping, but come to realise they will greatly benefit from implementing accounting software and cash flow forecasting into their processes. Another example in a real world scenario, a new clothing store owner may come to a firm for help in understanding tax requirements and yearly financial reports, but eventually decide they want to open another branch or inventory line and need assistance understanding cash flow and risk reduction.

technology solutions. As an advisory partner, accounting firms can leverage software to capture data from non-financial areas such as sales, operations, HR, marketing and more to provide a fuller picture and deeper insights into business performance, also offering predictions for the future.

“When it comes to costing, a common way to package advisory services is to offer a subscription model at tiered rates according to client size and needs.”

Research suggests that technology that can ingest data and provide visual reports makes it easier for businesses to interpret and act on information. With reports that go beyond pumping out lists of numbers to visualise data, business leaders are able to improve performance overall.

Defining what you need or what you can offer as an accounting firm

Alternatively, an ecommerce store may want to better capture their KPIs to gain a clearer overview of what’s happening with the business. This could include sales metrics and analysis, as well as customer metrics. To better understand the likes of the sales conversion rate, average order value, average order per customer etc will all hugely help the business to redefine its strategy and move forward more confidently. However, you can always start with a few key metrics and work from there.

As a firm stepping into the advisory services space, it’s important to remember that business leaders are always looking for ways to improve their processes or strategy, or they may be looking how to recover and grow from adverse situations, and this is always a chance to evolve the working relationship to offer them value outside of the regular tasks.

There are many use cases that highlight a growing need for cash flow forecasting and customisable

When accounting firms are considering their advisory services offering, they can look into what they do best, what they know more than their clients, and where clients need the most help.

Firms can start by defining their clients, considering what industry they belong to, how big their business is, what their goals are, what services the firm is already offering, and what services they could offer. By grouping together the services currently on offer and what has been requested by clients it will be easier to identify gaps for where the firm can up-sell and add value. However, it’s also important to remember a client may not know exactly what value-add services they would benefit from - this is where the firm can step in as a trusted advisor.

For example, an accounting firm may decide to bring in automated planning, reporting and analytics as an advisory service. In this instance, the firm may give a trial to existing clients to see how they respond, and help to

clearly exemplify the value they could potentially receive every month or period. Regardless of the specifics, what makes great advisory services is the ability to tap into big picture thinking, bringing in creative and critical thinking.

Levelling up your advisory services offering as an accounting firm

When firms embark on their advisory services journey, there are many ways to level up internal understanding and practices, with many educational tools and modules available. For example, Spotlight Reporting’s Transform In Action advisory services education package that shares detailed insights into advisory services,

pricing and monetisation, and how to scale a practice over three carefully crafted modules. The education modules also touch on challenges and best practices to ensure operations are aligned with business aims and priorities, and include industry trends to keep participants in the know. Short video content, checklists and templates streamline learning and leave the firm with practical and applicable insights and action points.

What we know without a doubt is that all of the evidence lends itself to the fact that the future of accounting includes advisory services, with the added value obvious and relevant for many industries and types of businesses. For many, it’s helping

to make adherence to compliance and regulations easier, keep financials healthy, monitor and improve cash flow, capitalise on business opportunities, and reduce possible risks. At the end of the day, it’s about helping the firm to generate a strong revenue stream while also providing the client with genuine value and direction that can be realised now and developed over time.

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For more on selling advisory services: spotlightreporting.com/ solutions/advisors

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by Xero

Forecasting, flexing and funding: how to plan for uncertainty

How invoice finance helps bridge gaps in cashflow

UK businesses are facing a future that’s hard to predict. Economic conditions are harsh, legislation is in a state of flux and supply chain issues are still a problem. To overcome these challenges, MarketFinance believes it’s vital to plan for uncertainty – to forecast the road ahead, flex your strategy to fit the current conditions and use funding to bridge the cashflow gaps.

Chris Findlow, VP of Partnerships at MarketFinance, highlights how uncertainty is the new baseline, and why a change in business outlook is the key to riding out the current slowdown.

Being a UK business owner in 2022 is no walk in the park.

Whatever your industry or sector, it’s a tough time to be trading, and the pressures look unlikely to ease in the near future.

Your clients are faced with a global economic slowdown, a country that’s already in recession and the messy fallout from Brexit. That’s on top of the ongoing Covid situation, supply chain issues in many sectors and huge rises in energy costs. Plus a cost-ofliving crisis that’s bringing living conditions down to levels not seen since the 1970s. There’s no

way to sugar-coat it – now is not the best time to be operating a small business in the UK. In fact, recent stats from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) shows that a majority of firms – 53% –expect to stagnate, shrink or fold in the coming 12 months

But – and this is hugely important to underline – this doom and gloom doesn’t have to mean the end to your clients’ aspirations, growth targets or innovation.

What’s needed is a fresh outlook – a way to deal with the more dynamic nature of trading in 2022. And an acceptance that the old rule book must be thrown away and replaced with a more proactive, flexible approach to running a business.

Throwing away the prepandemic playbook

The business world has changed radically in recent years. The pandemic forced much of this change upon us, but there have also been significant changes in how we work, how we trade and the global nature of business operations in the early 21st century.

The old world of low-level external threats, stable cashflow and predictable trading markets is gone. What we’re faced with is a business landscape that’s uncertain, unpredictable and in a constant state of change.

For example:

• External threats are on the rise – the world is a less stable place. We’re seeing increases in global conflict. Climate change is a very real and pressing problem. And there’s a meaningful lack of talent and people in many industries.

• Sales and revenue can’t be guaranteed – sectors that were once affluent are now finding it hard to make ends meet. The hospitality and leisure industry has found the pandemic hard. And long-standing sectors, like construction, are battling to make profits against a backdrop of rising costs, poor supply and increasing operational difficulties.

• Government intervention can’t be guaranteed – the UK Government is no longer a solid supporter of small business. Recent policies appear to favour large corporations, and tax

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@MarketFinance

Chris Findlow, VP of Partnerships, MarketFinance

Chris Findlow is Head of Partnerships at MarketFinance. He’s passionate about helping SMEs get access to funding and working with entrepreneurs to free up more time to focus on growing their business.

Helping clients manage cash flow can ensure they’re able to continue to trade and reach their growth objectives.

“We need a new outlook that factors in the current business reality, so clients can react to the unpredictable nature of trading in 2022.”

cuts have done little to help the smaller enterprises that make up 99.9% of the UK business population

The pre-pandemic playbook is now redundant. What we need is a new outlook that factors in the current business reality, so clients can react to the unpredictable nature of trading in 2022.

A new outlook – learning to forecast, flex and fund

The key to getting through this recession is to embrace the dynamic nature of the business landscape and to plan for uncertainty – but how can your firm enable this?

As business owners, your clients can no longer depend on the stability of the market. What they need is a new way to navigate the challenges, react to the threats and remodel their strategy as times change. And, as their trusted adviser, your firm is in the perfect position to offer a more proactive and timely kind of guidance in these testing times.

We believe there are three core pillars where you can advise clients:

1. Forecasting – as a guiding light

in the darkness

2. Flexing – to give your business clients new superpowers

3. Funding – to help bridge the cashflow gaps

Let’s take a look at these ‘Three Fs’ in a bit more detail – so you can see the link between the business advice you already offer and how to overcome the hurdle of uncertainty.

1. Forecasting as a guiding light in the darkness

With the business journey now so difficult to predict, forecasting has become an ever-more valuable tool for Xero-based accounting firms and their clients.

Xero apps like Spotlight, Futrli, Fathom and Fluidly all offer detailed ways to project data forward in time. By helping clients run forecasts on a more regular basis, you sketch out the road ahead and get a better picture of how the next month, quarter or year may pan out.

it comes to identifying seasonal drops in revenue and cashflow holes. It’s also invaluable when looking at ‘what-if scenarios’ and planning out best and worst-case scenarios. If you can show clients a Plan A and a Plan B, you give them options – and choice is likely to be a core component of a wellthought-out business strategy.

2. Flexing to give business clients new superpowers

Ramping up the forecasting gives clients an improved view of the road ahead. And this enhanced oversight makes it far easier to react, flex and change the client’s business strategy as events unfold, or the market changes.

“As their trusted adviser, your firm is in the perfect position to offer a more proactive and timely kind of guidance in these testing times.”

Having that added financial and non-financial intelligence is incredibly useful, especially when

The ability to pivot and re-invent was a key skill for businesses that thrived during the pandemic. If you were a coffee business with a core customer base of city commuters, pivoting to become a coffee delivery business was one way to flex and move forward. With unknown challenges waiting around the corner, and better intelligence based on your forecasts, clients need help becoming more flexible

and innovative. This could mean diversifying into new markets. Or it could mean moving the business online to embrace the growing eCommerce boom.

You know your clients well and understand their main aims as a business. With that foundational knowledge, you can quickly help them flex and evolve to meet new challenges.

3. Finance to bridge the cashflow gaps

We all know that cash is king. But an unpredictable business landscape is the enemy of stable cashflow. With the UK economy currently so depressed, it’s likely that cashflow gaps are going to appear as you try to keep your clients’ businesses on course.

If a client’s customer goes bankrupt, your client may well be landed with a host of unpaid invoices. If prices for raw materials continue to sky-rocket, their overheads will increase to a point where operational cashflow suffers. These cashflow holes are like the missing rungs in the rope bridge that leads to business success. Your client still knows there’s a way across (and their end goals remain the same) but they know these cashflow gaps will make the journey more risky and more difficult.

Having a short-term finance facility in place is the best way to bridge these cashflow gaps. Invoice finance is one of the most practical solutions you could introduce to clients. It’s fast to set up, gets cash to the client quickly and doesn’t tie the business into

long-term loan repayments like a secure business loan might.

You have the expertise, the market knowledge and the accounting data that’s needed to find the right finance for the job – and that’s of immense value to your cash-strapped clients.

The benefits of using invoice finance

The traditional way to solve a shortage of cash in the business was to take out a bank loan, or ask the bank manager for an extension to the company’s overdraft. But both of these options saddle your client with additional debt. When cash is short, it’s not good financial planning to also increase your debt liability into the bargain.

Invoice finance is a simple way for clients to borrow money against the value of their existing invoices. The invoice finance vendor takes a percentage of your client’s unpaid invoices as an upfront payment and then issues a loan for the rest. The business then collects their customer’s payment and pays back the funds they’ve been loaned.

Using invoice finance to bridge the cashflow gaps:

• Is fast to set up and straightforward to manage for the client

• Doesn’t increase the client’s overall debt level

• Can be turned off and on as and when finance is needed

At MarketFinance, we’ve made

using invoice finance as simple and seamless as possible. It’s an easy 4-step process that can be completed in a day:

1. Clients can apply online in minutes. Someone from our team will be in touch same-day

2. Upload their invoices and we’ll let the client know the cost upfront

3. The client’s customer verifies the invoice details

4. We provide the funding – with an advance of up to 90% within 24 hours

Flexing to meet the challenges

No-one has a magic wand to dispel the economic issues and external threats that are making life more difficult for your clients. But by planning for uncertainty and applying the Three Fs of forecasting, flexing and funding, you give clients the best possible foundations for recovery.

The coming months are likely to be a turbulent time for your clients. But if you can instil a fresh outlook and ensure they stay properly funded, there’s no reason why these businesses can’t continue to flourish and grow as we hit 2023 and beyond.

If you’d like to know more about invoice finance from MarketFinance, you can find out more by visiting our website at marketfinance.com.

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Find out more about MarketFinance and how we support your accounting firm: marketfinance.com/ accountants

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

“By planning for uncertainty & applying the 3 Fs of forecasting, flexing & funding, you give clients the best possible foundations for recovery.”

Game-changing add-on for those who make the world a better place

Andrey Kustarnikov, Founder & CEO, G-Accon

Andrey Kustarnikov is the Founder & CEO of G-Accon.

He has over 25 years of technical expertise in software development, microservices architecture, and cloud integration in the financial and banking sectors. He received an MBA degree and an MS in physics, and using these skills, he was able to build the tool, G-Accon. G-Accon has proved incredibly helpful to clients in solving their various issues, and Andrey is excited to see where G-Accon will go next.

f you are a business owner, G-Accon can improve the way you manage your company. Our app excels in integrating Google Sheets with various cloud accounting platforms. With G-Accon, you can automatically export, import, email, and refresh your data and reports. You can pull data from apps like Xero, Quickbooks, and Freshbooks; make needed changes; and send the data back to your accounting software. You can also use a variety of pre-existing flexible templates to make 50+ reports including things like Account Transactions, Purchase Orders, Profit and Loss, Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and more.

From how we’ve described it, G-Accon might sound like the perfect glue that can hold your business’ data together. However, it can be more difficult to actually visualize how G-Accon would be used in your day-to-day operations. That is why we’ve started this new interview series!

We firmly believe that there is a whole story behind each individual client and business.

In this series, we aim to explore these stories and show how G-Accon is used today by real, thriving companies. This will allow you to reflect on your own business and think about how you could use G-Accon to streamline your operations. For this particular magazine issue, we had the distinct pleasure of talking to Clay Sandoz, the founder and owner of Wellstead Solutions.

Wellstead Solutions is the product of Clay looking at the market, seeing a gap, and filling it himself. Wellstead Solutions is essentially a consultant company for people who want to create their own non-profit foundations. Clay saw people and businesses in the market who wanted to make the world a better place but lacked the logistical support. This is where Clay stepped in with his skillset. Now, he helps these new nonprofits with logistics by creating structure and establishing processes so that the businesses can focus less on operations and more on doing good.

“G-Accon has been crucial in allowing me to reduce my time doing something a computer can do, greatly reducing error (no copy/ paste or manual entry) - all of which has allowed me to scale my business”.

Behind the scenes, midsized nonprofits require fullservice financial operations, including donation processing, bookkeeping, accounts payable, expense reimbursements, payroll, and more. One of the biggest factors that has to be handled is processing all things donation related. This means processing physical checks, overseeing online donations, and interacting with donors when there are questions or issues.

Clay’s job is to set up all the processes and automate the workflow.

He ensures that all financial procedures go through cloudbased accounting solutions such as Xero, QuickBooks, WorkflowMax, or FreshBooks. Further, thanks to G-Accon, the data can then be easily transferred to Google

for Xero users, by Xero users.

article is

@G_AcconServices

Clay Sandoz, the founder and owner of Wellstead Solutions described his experience with G-Accon and proved that this add-on is a game-changing tool for any business.

“G-Accon has been crucial in allowing me to reduce my time doing something a computer can do.”

Sheets. There, several tabs contain various reports and data collected in the needed and clear formats. Using the professional settings, this data can be updated automatically at set time intervals.

In the end, all of the non-profit data is used to create informative dashboards through Google Sheets, so that every client can log in to the document and see a visual graph or structured table, depending on the task at hand.

Clay helps his non-profit clients, and we help clients like Clay!

Below, we interview him to get the real scoop on Wellstead solutions, using G-Accon, and more.

Interview with Clay Sandoz

Welcome Clay! Can you tell us a little bit about your business, clients, and services you provide? What is the story of your business?

Clay: We serve mid-sized nonprofits, offering fullservice financial operations including donation processing, bookkeeping, accounts payable, expense reimbursements, payroll, etc. One of the biggest things we

handle on behalf of our clients is processing all things donation related. This includes processing physical checks, overseeing online donations, and interacting with donors when there are questions or issues. We currently have 9 clients and active conversations with 2-3 prospective clients.

What challenges do you face in your day-to-day business operations?

Clay: As our list of clients grew, we were doing similar tasks (like running monthly journal entries, generating P&L and balance reports, etc.), but each set of data was different (clients, donors, systems) and had to be treated as a separate set of tasks.

Why did you choose G-Accon?

Clay: I don’t remember where I learned about G-Accon, but it didn’t take long for me to become a big fan! Before G-Accon, I was using a service that allowed me to upload .csv files as journals. That was groundbreaking at the time, but it was one-directional. I think I began searching for

“Google Sheets Integration” when a prospective client expressed interest in getting more detailed reporting. That led me to G-Accon, where I discovered that I could pull reports and upload data!

Which G-Accon features were the most useful to you? Did you discover any new features that made your life easier?

Clay: It’s hard to say what’s most valuable, but the feature that is probably most important to me is uploading journal entries. I do some complex journals each month based on several factors (like donations to specific campaigns needing to be credited to certain classes, related credit card processing fees getting assigned to those classes, etc.). Years ago, I calculated this in Google Sheets and manually entered the values into the Accounting application. Being able to upload journals has been an absolute game-changer.

Have you faced any difficulties while using G-Accon solutions? How did you deal with them?

Clay: It took me a bit to understand some of the concepts of G-Accon (like how templates are created on each page that

“Being able to upload journals has been an absolute gamechanger.”

you can update/modify/delete), but it didn’t take long to learn. I have also had a few issues with processes not working as expected (journals uploading twice, fields becoming unmapped, etc.). The support team has helped assist me through these issues, though.

What does your work experience look like? What kind of reports do you create? How do you integrate G-Accon into your work?

Clay: I do all the work for my business and my clients in G-Accon (it’s a little complex to share at this point, and the extra licenses would not be fully utilized). The primary ways we use G-Accon are for uploading journal entries and pulling P&L reports, all of which I now schedule to run automatically! This all feeds into sheets that I use to create dashboards for my clients.

How have G-Accon solutions affected your business?

Clay: G-Accon has been crucial in allowing me to reduce my time doing something a computer can do while also minimizing errors (no copy/paste or manual entry). This has allowed me to scale my business.

How do you spend the time that was freed up with G-Accon?

Clay: The extra time and mental capacity has allowed me to focus my attention on other aspects of my business like developing standard operating procedures, refining processes, and developing our offerings. This has had a compounding effect. It has also given me more space in my schedule for things like a morning run or spending additional time with my family.

Thank you for your time, Clay! We appreciated chatting about your business and your experience with G-Accon.

If you are a changemaker with a nonprofit and are looking for help with operations,etc., Clay

and his team are ready and eager to help! You can find more information and get in touch at wellsteadsolutions.com

Finally, if you are interested in being featured on our G-Accon blog/our next magazine issue or just want to explore G-Accon business solutions, feel free to reach out to us! We strive to make your business more efficient and would love to get in touch.

Disclaimer: Comments by Clay Sandoz about G-Accon were not solicited or paid for in any form. He freely offered his honest thoughts and statements.

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Why online payments should be an option on your Xero invoices

@PinPayments

Chris Dahl, Co-CEO, Pin Payments

Chris Dahl is co-CEO at Pin Payments and has a wealth of experience across both web, business and software development.

If you’re operating a small business and want to improve how you take payments, now might be the time to reconsider your options and optimise your business operations by offering online payments from your invoice.

Before you decide on the right payment option for your business, it’s essential to consider your audience, check any costs involved and the growth and longevity of your business.

We’ve pulled together a list of online payment options - outside of cash, available for your SMB.

hy offer online payments for your invoices?

Businesses with outdated payment options may miss out on potential customers looking for digitally savvy businesses.

When choosing a payment provider, make sure you do your homework. Ensure you select a partner that understands your business needs and can grow with your business. Pricing, support and integration with your accounting system should be part of your selection criteria.

Online payment options for your business

Debit and Credit Cards

Offering Debit and Credit Cards as an online payment option

is now the norm instead of the exception. Most online payments system will streamline and simplify your accounting by integrating with Xero as a payment option. Offering online payments can prevent human error issues that often come with cash payments, automate your refund process and streamline your bookkeeping.

Some businesses are wary of the transaction fee they incur when offering online card payments. If cost is an issue, look for providers who provide the flexibility of passing on fees to your customers through surcharging.

Digital wallets: Google Pay and Apple Pay

Digital Wallets allow users to store their banking information

and identity documents on their mobile devices, replacing the need to carry around a physical wallet. The Digital Wallet adoption rate is soaring, and this trend will likely continue. Between March 2020 and March 2021, the number of monthly digital wallet transactions increased by 90 per cent, rising from 36 million to 68 million in Australia alone.

Most users are familiar with using Digital Wallets for tap-and-go or online shopping payments. Businesses may not be aware that they can add Google Pay and Apple Pay as payment options to their Xero invoice.

Direct debit

Direct debit allows you to debit funds directly from your customer’s bank account.

for Xero users, by Xero users.

In today’s digital world, there are many ways to accept payments. However, the pandemic fast-tracked the move to digital payments and away from cash.

However, this payment method can come with additional administrative work, such as setting up a Direct Debit authority form between you and your customer.

Direct debit is most suited to scenarios where you’re charging customers on an ongoing basis (e.g. weekly or monthly). Card payments are more appropriate for one-off or irregular payments.

Xero

“I really do believe that this is something that can help make our clients lives better by not being so stressed about people owing them money.” ~Cheryl Sharp, CEO Pink Pig Financial

YOUR 14-DAY-FREE TRIAL TODAY visit us at satago.com

International accounting insights: how to send money to China from the UK with WorldFirst

This article is

The Chinese manufacturing industry has seen massive growth over the last decade –– to such an extent that it is now viewed as the world’s number one manufacturing hub. For e-commerce brand owners looking to source products for their online stores, Chinese manufacturers listed on AliExpress, Alibaba, may be their top choices in supplying goods. Additionally, it has never been easier to send money to China from the UK.

For accounts teams, barriers to trade with Chinese businesses have broken down significantly in recent years. You no longer need to open an account with a Chinese bank and hold funds in CNH –– or wait several days for a Chinese payment to be processed.

This article will explain how to send money to China from the UK and outline how the WorldFirst relationship management team can help accountants and their clients build closer ties with Chinese suppliers.

Trading in renminbi reduces currency risk

One of the critical areas where

accounts teams need to minimise risk is currency conversions. China has two currencies, both of which are known colloquially as renminbi (CNY and CNH). CNY is used for domestic transactions, whereas CNH is used for international trade. You can find out more about why China has two currencies here, but for the scope of this article, all you need to know is CNH and CNY trade one-for-one –– so it won’t affect your business’s profits.

Using CNH to pay a Chinese supplier can alleviate transactional currency risk in your supplier agreements. You can purchase goods for a set price, and your suppliers won’t have to negotiate an exchange rate buffer when they quote you. Accounts teams can also agree on Forward Exchange Contract terms should you need to make a large supplier payment on a set date.

Sourcing suppliers from reputable marketplaces

There are a couple of well-known online marketplaces where international e-commerce brands can find reputable Chinese manufacturers, including:

• AliExpress

• Alibaba

Simon Smallwood, Head of Partnerships, WorldFirst UK

Before joining WorldFirst Simon worked for a number of years with an SME and Accountancy focused Fintech business, having previously spent 8 years working for an Internationally focused UK based SME that he co-founded and is still running today. This provides Simon with a great insight into the benefits technology can bring to SMEs in managing their finances and the opportunities for Accountants, Bookkeepers and business owners alike.

These platforms provide accessible communication channels between buyers and sellers, reassuring international brands that they can verify a supplier’s export licenses and customer satisfaction scores. We would always recommend going through one of these platforms to minimise the risk of getting scammed.

Please note: Accounts teams still need to make sure manufacturers comply with Chinese business regulations before signing any deal.

Each of the above marketplaces mentioned accepts several forms of payment from international brands. However, some methods may be easier to access than others.

Options for sending money to Chinese suppliers

There are multiple options for sending money to China, and some can be costlier than others.

Telegraphic Transfer

Telegraphic Transfer (T/T) is a method for making international payments to Chinese suppliers. But, the service carries a

Xero users, by Xero users.

@WorldFirstLtd

accounting and bookkeeping firms that have yet to embrace digital commerce practices, the good news is that it isn’t too late.

significant amount of risk to e-commerce buyers. For example, suppliers may ask you to pay a deposit, which may affect a company’s cash flow and, therefore, not be the best option for smaller brands. Furthermore, intermediary fees can be higher than using a money transfer service. There may be the opportunity to find a better exchange rate elsewhere.

International credit/debit cards

It is possible to pay for goods with an internationally accepted credit or debit card. In the case of paying Chinese suppliers, very few companies will take this payment method. Accepting card payments may open suppliers up to fraud or chargeback requests. Processing fees can also be expensive and the costs are likely to be passed on to the buyer.

Using WorldFirst and Alipay to send money to China from UK Alipay is a preferred payment method on many Chinese supplier marketplaces. To set up an Alipay business account, you have to sign up to their website and provide various business documentation and ID. It takes two to three days for your account to be approved.

By topping up your Alipay business account with CNH, you can make direct payments to suppliers through the platform.

If you are looking for an easy way to top up your Alipay account, transferring funds from the WorldFirst World Account could

be your best option, as well as the quickest. We can make sameday currency transfers, provided you meet our payment cut-off deadlines. WorldFirst also tracks up-to-the-minute FX rates to provide customers with the best deal on exchanging currencies.

Make WorldFirst your international payment gateway partner in all foreign transactions

With WorldFirst, you can get full support in setting up with financial hedging instruments like Forward Exchange Contracts (FECs) and minimise currency exchange risk to international brands. We can offer you affordable rates on spot and forward contracts and give accountants access to live FX data to help you make informed economic decisions for your client’s business.

By signing up to World Account you’ll be able to access same-

day and next-day payments in many cases, and be able to keep track of transactions in your financial statements, through the WorldFirst Xero integration.

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For more information on how your accountancy or bookkeeping practice can benefit from partnering with WorldFirst, contact the Accounting partnerships team on: +44 (0) 207 801 2388

Email simon.smallwood@ worldfirst.com

Or visit our website: www.worldfirst.com/uk/

How to really listen

Iam often asked what the best approach is to begin a conversation with someone I am concerned about. Maybe I have noticed a change in their behaviour. Perhaps they are absent from meetings or social or sporting gatherings. I may have noticed when I am with them, they are not present and seem distracted. These could be signs that my friend or colleague is struggling. The fact I am aware of these changes in behaviour means I can then “check in” with them and ask them how they are doing. There are many ways of approaching someone and asking how they are, so let’s looks at some tips to help you start a conversation with someone you are concerned about.

Sometimes, all someone needs is to be listened to.

If you notice someone behaving differently or struggling in some way, it’s a good idea to see if there’s anything you can do to help. You might be worried about saying the wrong thing. We can often feel a little apprehensive before starting a conversation. Be courageous and start by simply asking ‘How are you going?’ or

‘What’s been happening?’ Showing care and empathy will help the person relax and feel comfortable sharing. Sometimes, all someone needs is to be listened to - it can be a big help. Listening is very powerful and will show the person you care.

Becoming a good active listener takes practice. But what does it really mean?

Genuine intent and active listening

Active listening means giving your full attention to the person speaking. It means having a genuine intent to hear that person’s story. Put your phone away and focus on what they’re saying, rather than thinking about what you’ll say next. Listening becomes all about the person speaking, their story, their sharing, their challenges. The focus is on them and not how their behaviour has impacted you.

How to start

There’s no perfect way to start a conversation – approach them in a way that feels comfortable. Be genuine, open and speak to them as you normally would. You don’t

Tim Hoopmann, Speaker and Trainer

Experienced founder with a demonstrated history growing small business. Strong entrepreneurship and professionally skilled in Business Planning, Cloud Technology, Sales, Marketing, and Operations Management. A passion for helping small businesses use technology as a key enabler to increase productivity and decrease costs.

A volunteer speaker for beyondblue, an Australian organisation that works to raise awareness of anxiety and depression, reduce the associated stigma and encourage people to get help.

need to offer advice or have all the answers. It’s about listening and not about fixing them. Here are some ideas:

• ask the person how they’re feeling in general

• gently and supportively explain changes you’ve noticed in their behaviour

• encourage them to talk about what’s happening in their life –avoid questions which may only need a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.

Show you care by listening respectfully

• Listen without judgement –don’t interrupt with advice on how to ‘fix’ a situation, and don’t feel as though you need to solve their problems.

• Make sure you understand –repeat back to the person what they’ve told you and ask them to clear up anything you don’t understand.

• It’s okay to not know what to say – just be honest with them and let them know that you care. For example, you could say, ‘I don’t know, but we’ll

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

figure it out together’ or “I can’t image how you must be coping, but I am here to support you”.

• Sit comfortably with silence – there’s no need to fill every ‘awkward’ gap in conversation. Plus, sometimes people need time to open-up and giving them some silence may help them gain the courage to share with you.

• If you have heard about mental health support programmes or mental health help lines that have helped others, you may feel comfortable to suggest these. It’s more about informing them rather than telling them what to do.

What to avoid

There are a few things to be mindful of avoiding when actively listening to someone:

• don’t rush them – give them the time and space they need to talk with you comfortably. It may take a bit of time for them to share with you.

• don’t stigmatise – for example, don’t tell them what they’re experiencing ‘isn’t normal’. It’s normal to experience mental health challenges.

• don’t dismiss them - don’t tell them to ‘snap out of it’ or ‘stop worrying’ because it’s not that simple. Saying something like ‘you’ll be fine’ isn’t very helpful.

• don’t blame them for how they’re feeling.

• don’t pretend to be an expert – you don’t need to solve their problems or have all the answers for them.

Instead, let them know you’re grateful to them for being honest with you - ‘Thank you for telling me and trusting me’ - and remind them that you’re there for them. Letting them know that their conversation is confidential can be very reassuring.

There are many mental health support programmes

Depending on the situation there are great support programmes for people who are struggling. Making yourself familiar with these programmes is a great way to learn more about mental health and then offer these to someone in need. Here are just a few:

• Anxiety and Depression Support – Beyond Blue www.beyondblue.org.au

• Small business owners metal health coaching programme –Beyond Blue - New Access for Small Business

• Supporting yourself and small business – Beyond Blue – A Small Business Learning Course http://www.headsup.org.au/

If things sound concerning

• If you are concerned that someone you know may be thinking about or is talking about self-harm or suicide, and they are under 25 years old, call Kids Helpline on 1800 51 1800.

• Alternatively, call Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.

• You can also offer to help the person make an appointment with a health professional or find other information.

Listening can be a huge help

Being an active listener can make a massive difference to someone who is going through a tough time. It’s okay if the other person doesn’t want to talk - respect their choice but don’t let it throw you off. It is their journey, and they may need time to openup and share. Let them know you are there to support them whenever they need to talk. Keep reminding them that you care and are available to listen to them when they are ready. These acts of kindness go a long way in supporting those who are struggling.

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

The quest for work life balance – an accounting industry evolution

@cchaustralia

Rakesh Naidu, Head of Product, Wolters Kluwer Asia-Pacific

Rakesh Naidu is the Head of Product for cloud tax and accounting software for Wolters Kluwer in Asia Pacific. Rakesh is passionate about designing solutions that solve customer problems and make it easier for customers to achieve their desired outcomes.

This article is

Wolters Kluwer surveyed 430 Australian and New Zealand accounting and tax professionals earlier this year, presenting our findings in the 2022 Tax Season Challenges Report: Accounting evolution: how firms adapted to the global landscape in 2022.

One of the key findings in the report was that the number one issue faced by accountants in 2022 was achieving work life balance. In fact, the top 3

challenges were all related to time – or lack thereof. For many accountants, there are simply not enough hours in the day.

Top 3 issues faced by accounting firms in 2022

1. Work life balance

2. Finding time to identify opportunities to add value to clients

3. Obtaining correct data and information from clients on a

timely basis

Wolters Kluwer 2022-23 Tax Season Challenges Report

Fifty-nine percent of the survey respondents confirmed their number one issue this year was work life balance. This isn’t surprising; amidst a backdrop of a global talent shortage, accountants are needing to do more with less. Forty-six percent of respondents said their major challenge was finding time to add value to their clients. Again, with accountants struggling to find the hours in the day to complete fundamental compliance work, making time to generate advisory work can feel impossible.

Finally, the third most common issue faced by firms this year, with 45% of respondents was chasing client information. This isn’t new and was also reported as a major challenge in our survey last year.

Interestingly, when queried on key business goals for the year, time was again a key theme. Firms reported their number one strategic goal in 2022 was to

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

“The number one issue faced by accountants in 2022 was achieving work life balance.”

More accounting firms in ANZ are looking to technology to help them achieve work life balance in the post-pandemic landscape

Source: Wolters Kluwer 2022 Tax Season Challenges Report: Accounting evolution: how firms adapted to the global landscape in 2022

improve operational workflows and standardise processes. This came in ahead of revenue growth; indicating that firms are looking to gain efficiencies of time and thus improve profitability and ultimately aid work life balance.

All of these challenges are underpinned by the fact that accounting and tax professionals provide “always-on services” in a post-pandemic economy. Small to medium businesses account for 97% of all businesses across Asia Pacific. These SMBs look to their accountants as their most trusted business advisor. SMB clients are expecting higher levels of service and advisory from their accountants, while employees are looking for firms that are ahead of the curve. Going forward, successful firms will empower their people, optimise workflow and embrace technology to help them address their key issues and tax season challenges of the 2022-23.

Embracing technology

Technology is proving to be a bigtime saver for accounting firms in Australia and New Zealand. Firms reported that technology is reducing the number of hours spent per client and enabling

them to focus on core business rather than administrative duties.

Wolters Kluwer 2022-23 Tax Season Challenges Report

For the last 50+ years, Wolters Kluwer has been equipping firms in Australia and New Zealand with the cloud-based technology and tools they need to gain these efficiencies of time. This is enabling firms to do more with less to enhance service offerings and contribute to firm growth and profitability.

From our intelligent cloud-based practice management software which helps to automate tasks and workflows, to our compliance tools such as CCH iFirm Tax; there are a host of solutions available.

Automated workflow streamlines repeatable processes, minimising errors and improving both efficiency and communication between team members. Over 76% of all firms stated the most important area when preparing a tax return is to prepare it with minimal data entry and clicks. By optimising workflows and streamlining

processes, tax technology can save valuable hours each day.

In our compliance suite, we also have the must-have tool for any accountant who deals with investments: CCH iFirm CGT Reporter. With unrivalled historical capital gains data and powerful portfolio worksheets, this can save hours producing reports on shareholdings dating back to 1985.

To support in business growth and client advisory, we have predictive intelligence tools, such as CCH iQ Client Match which identifies clients who may be impacted by a recent tax event –again saving you time from having to do this process manually.

And to simplify the process of connecting with clients, there is CCH iFirm cloud-based Client Portal and integrated e-signatures tool.

At the end of the day, our products are designed to help you reclaim hours in your day to do what’s most important to you and your business.

“Going forward, successful firms will empower their people, optimise workflow & embrace technology.”

Post-pandemic, we are seeing the conversation shift from “productivity” to “work life balance” and Wolters Kluwer is here to support you in this goal.

About the Wolters Kluwer 2022-23 Tax Season Challenges Report

The Accounting Evolution: how firms adapted to a changing landscape

The pandemic triggered a fundamental shift in the values and attitudes of individuals across Australia and New Zealand (ANZ).

In 2022, future-focused firms are embracing digital technologies to empower their people and engage their clients.

Digital transformation has enabled remote work and virtual interactions at scale, providing opportunities for professionals to work anytime and anywhere. As an industry that values time, (and never seems to have enough of it), advanced technology promises to improve efficiency and free-up capacity. But has it worked?

Do early adopters of technology report higher revenue? Does a simplified workflow boost profitability? And - across an

Source: Wolters Kluwer 2022 Tax Season Challenges Report: Accounting evolution: how firms adapted to the global landscape in 2022

industry experiencing a talent squeeze - do advanced techstacks help to attract and retain loyal and talented staff?

The Wolters Kluwer 2022 Tax Season Challenges survey aimed to address these questions. Download the report to read the key findings.

Download now.

FIND OUT MORE...

Need some more info on time saving cloud technology for your firm?

Learn more about CCH iFirm

Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

There’s no more hiding from Digital Commerce

@dextofficial

Freddie Minns, Senior Practice Solutions Expert, Dext

With five years in practice, and an expert understanding of the entire Dext product suite, Freddie fully grasps our customers’ needs and the commercial value Dext offers. Having spent his time at Dext working closely with and helping firms optimise their workflow with digital commerce businesses, Freddie also offers leading insight into modern accounting trends and the role Dext plays in making them happen.

article

Purchasing behaviour has changed beyond all recognition in recent years.

Whilst retailers have driven this change as a way to reduce their footprints, organisations of all shapes and sizes - across all sectors - have had to adapt to facilitate automated digital transactions, whether online or in-store. So accounting firms have had to adapt too.

Our traditional processes and systems no longer cut it, and our clients are demanding a different type of service too. They need us to provide real-time insights into their finances, to help them develop business agility.

Understanding your clients’ business model, current and future, is key to establishing how best to add strategic value and build agility into their business finances so that they can adapt to digital commerce trends.

5 Digital Commerce Trends Impacting Accountants

1. B2B and B2C Commerce

The pandemic brought about a shift in business-to-business buying behaviour, making fully self-serve online procurement commonplace. In an increasing number of scenarios, companies

are now running, B2B, B2C and D2C models - or indeed a more intricate combination. Whilst this might not directly impact accounting practices, knowing the space in which clients operate will help determine the type of financial insight needed to accelerate growth. For example, returns and exchanges in the B2C environment are commonplace, so giving them good visibility of these processes and metrics will be critical. Especially as this aspect of online purchase can make or break their customers’ experience.

2. Omni-channel sales and multiple payment options

Cash on delivery, credit cards, debit cards, mobile wallets, cryptocurrencies - the payment options businesses need to support today to enable customer choice are diverse, plentiful and growing year on year. As are the number of sales channels beyond face-to-face, phone and website; all of which need to be unified in a seamless experience, both front and back-end.

Clients’ sales channels may include:

• Mobile (mCommerce)including peer-to-peer (P2P) payment platforms

• Social selling directly through social media platforms

• Gaming - including VR commerce where brands launch virtual lines

• Live streaming - i.e. placing an order via a virtual event

3. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL)

The BNPL trend - payments in instalments, over a long period of time, typically interest-free - is an incredibly attractive one to shoppers and merchants alike. It speeds up the checkout process, increases order value size and reduces cart abandonment rate like no other model. So it’s easy to see why the growth trajectory for BNPL transactions over the next five years is so steep. For the same reason, there are also plenty of BNPL platforms and plug-ins to choose from, some of which might form part of your clients’ tech stack.

4. Loyalty Programs

Again, Loyalty Programs work for both shoppers and merchants, and when executed well, offer hyper-personalisation that improves customer lifetime value, increases brand advocacy and results in a wealth of valuable consumer data and insights.

Often Loyalty Programs sales require the ability to track cash

magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

For accounting and bookkeeping firms that have yet to embrace digital commerce practices, the good news is that it isn’t too late.

inflow as unearned revenue, and clients will benefit from any insight that accountants can provide to support such initiatives.

5. Commerce Intelligence

Getting digital commerce right is often make or break. It’s why more and more companies are now investing in analytics platforms to unify their data to provide a complete overview of performance, with the goal of fine-tuning their marketing strategy. As the old adage goes, ‘junk in, junk out’, so ensuring clients get return on their investments in commerce intelligence platforms requires a robust approach to data accuracy and a deep dive understanding of their financial health.

Why Modern Firms Must Leverage Commerce for Profitability

For accounting and bookkeeping firms that have yet to embrace digital commerce practices, the good news is that it isn’t too late.

For that, automating digital commerce accounting practices is essential. Virtually every business now transacts digitally, and accounting firms that embrace tech that simplifies digital commerce are in the right position to service their clients.

By offering clients a smart, digital sales accounting solution as part of your service, you can:

• Relieve the collective team from ‘busywork’.

• Help scale processes effectively.

• Facilitate an accurate and real-time view of clients’ assets, liabilities and equity.

• Support proactive decisionmaking that could future-proof client businesses.

Agile cash flow management is ultimately key to client success. So accounting firms could, for example - with the time saved from automating commerce data processing - help clients consider their sales trends to identify which platforms are costing them the most. Or help them explore ways to stand out from the crowd by investing in top digital commerce initiatives such as the new sales channels, VR/AR, hyper-personalisation, retention schemes, or fulfilment flexibility capabilities.

Without automation of commerce data processing and management, carving out the time to clients and providing the insights they need to accelerate their growth comes at a very high cost. This typically limits the firm’s worth to ‘number crunching’ and reduces the opportunity to remain profitable.

Whereas leveraging technology like Dext Commerce, firms can make their clients’ pain points disappear and tap into their hopes and dreams for their business. It’s not only a great way to cement existing client relationships, but will also allow the firm to demonstrate accounting specialism in a rapidgrowth market. This could be the game-changer you need for your firm’s growth.

Digital commerce isn’t going anywhere. It’s crucial that accountants and bookkeepers invest in the best solution for such clients to take on this opportunity to expand and future-proof their practices.

“Without automation, carving out the time to provide the insights clients need comes at a very high cost.”

Updates and new releases from Xero connected apps

AccountancyManager accountancymanager.co.uk

AccountancyManager are pleased to announce the release of workflow. Get complete consistency in how jobs are completed across your practice – as they move from one person to the next. Break tasks into subtasks, allocate subtasks to different people and keep track with a progress bar. Our new workflow tool elevates the automated task management system to increase organisation, visibility, and control.

AutoEntry autoentry.com

AutoEntry by Sage: New name, same great product! With our amazing new look, AutoEntry remains the same great product you know and love. Our ecosystem remains open and independent, and we remain a market-wide solution, whether you or your clients use Xero, Sage, QuickBooks or other major accounting packages. We continue to be laser-focused on being the leading provider of data entry automation for accountants.

Crezco crezco.com

Crezco is now the first open banking platform to offer international account-to-account payments as well as our Accounts Receivables and Payables solution.

You can add/import contacts and payables in 50+ currencies from

your favourite accounting/payroll platform.

Using the same technology as our award winning Accounts Receivable product, you can now process multiple and international payments as seamlessly as one domestic payment.

ExpenseOnDemand expenseondemand.com

1. Counter Approvers

In the first instance, the line manager/approver approves all the claimant’s expenses. Now with the Counter Approver (CA) turned ON, where expenses are above the Approver’s “delegated authority” these expenses will flow to the Counter Approver (up to 6 levels) who has the authority to approve the amount.

Therefore, when the expense is above the “line managers” delegated authority, then it goes to the next level for counter approval.

2. Delegates

Claimants can assign another colleague to create and submit expenses on their behalf.

3. Smart Notifications

Based on AI, the app will provide data useful to help manage their employee expenses better

4. Vendor Management

Supplier invoices now can be fully process ie submitted, approved and exported to Xero for payment

5. Subscriptions available now in Canadian Dollars CAD$

Canadian customers can now pay for ExpenseOnDemand now in Canadian Dollars.

6. Mileage Segregation

Enhanced approach to making it easy to setup the function

G-Accon accon.services

• Consolidated Reports

Cloud Templates Upload Library

• Multi-Currency Service

• Budget Variance by Tracking Category Report

• Budget vs Actuals by Tracking Category Report

• A large set of additional filters to create your own report

NextMinute nextminute.com

Ability to upload take-offs.

Practice Protect practiceprotect.com

Back for its second edition with more insights and trend data, the 2022 Accounting Cloud Apps Report provides the definitive answer to the most popular apps among Australian accounting and bookkeeping firms.

Tidy tidyinternational.com

Cloning Sale and Purchase Orders

In

you can now

previously

Xero users, by Xero users.

created sales and purchase orders. This is useful if you have repeat orders or have similar orders for different customers/suppliers.

Special Delivery Instructions

Under your customer information, there is a new field where you can add special instructions for each delivery address. This is seen on the sale order and is available in custom templates.

Landing Costs

You can now assign proportionate landing costs to items when you

receive purchase orders in Tidy.

When “Total Cost” is selected, landing costs are automatically assigned a percentage to each line item based on their total cost.

When “Manual” is selected, you can manually adjust the percentage of landing costs assigned to each line item. Landing costs must total to 100%. The total will appear red if landing costs have been under-or overapplied.

Total Time for Week/Month In TidyWork and TidyEnterprise,

when writing time against a project, you can now see the total time entered for the week. The total appears near the top-right of the screen and includes all time entries.

Xero App Partners of the month

Xero’s app marketplace has over 1,000 apps which help small businesses and their advisors reach their goals. Each month Xero celebrates an app partner who stands out for helping small businesses thrive.

Xerocon New Orleans Special

Amaka is extremely proud to be part of Xero’s App Partners of the Month, particularly with our shared focus on democratising access to technology for accounting professionals and small businesses.

You can automatically sync data from e-commerce, POS and e-signature platforms to Xero with Amaka’s accounting integrations and save dozens of hours every month that would otherwise be spent on data entry and

reconciliation. There are a huge number of apps you can connect to, including Square, DocuSign, Shopify, BigCommerce, Revel and Impos to name a few.

At Amaka, we believe everyone should have access to enterpriselevel automation without the enterprise-level price. We offer our integrations on a freemium pricing model, while those that have been built in partnership (i.e. Square and DocuSign) are completely free-of-charge. All customers have access to

Find out more: amaka.com/integrations

unlimited support through video calls, live chat and a helpdesk. Following our community-based and partnership-first approach, Amaka is now trusted by over 40,000 users globally. We’re now the second most-reviewed app on the Xero App Store across including Australia, the US and the UK with over 630 5-star reviews.

Discover Amaka’s entire range of accounting integrations and book a 30-minute walkthrough to see how you could take advantage of our solutions.

Unlike traditional business banking, Relay is designed to fit into your accounting workflow— not complicate it. Relay is an online banking and money management platform keeping financial advisors and their clients on the money.

Connect business banking to your accounting tech stack to see exactly what your small business clients are earning, spending and saving. With Relay, you get

reliable bank feeds that integrate directly with Quickbooks Online and Xero, secure access to client banking using your own login and ultra-detailed transaction data for speedy reconciliation.

“The number one priority in this market is improving bank feeds. We are at a tipping point. We want to call out Relay who is championing technology in this space,” says Xero Country Manager, Ben Richmond “We don’t want to be a bank. We want to partner with banks to

Find out more: relayfi.com

improve the experiences for small businesses and their advisor.”

As we approach year-end, now’s the perfect time to hit reset on your finances. Relay helps you stay organized for tax season by automatically collecting W-9 forms from contractors. Plus, with up to 20 free checking accounts, you can easily set up a reserve account to save for taxes throughout the year.

Bank with Relay: www.relayfi.com

users, by Xero users.

yft Analytics strives to empower accountants and business owners to make better data-driven decisions, by tapping into transactionlevel data for the most granular reporting.

Syft is proud to have been featured as an App Partner of the Month at Xerocon NOLA 2022, as well as winning Xero App Partner of the Year for New

Zealand and App Partner of the Year for the UK. These awards are a testament to Syft’s commitment to innovation. We are constantly expanding and improving our platform to respond to the needs of our users, so they can more deeply understand their financial data and make informed decisions.

Syft integrates seamlessly with Xero to provide insights across

Find out more: syftanalytics.com

data assurance, customisable financial reports and practice oversight. Syft provides an excellent user experience, with fast, knowledgeable support and agile feature development. Finally, Syft’s Knowledge Center and the newly-launched Syft Campus helps users upskill with self-driven learning.

To test out Syft’s reporting for organization, start a free trial

e’re excited to be App Partner of the Month –and to feature in XU Magazine articles that share how ApprovalMax helps businesses to save time and create more efficient workflows, while keeping auditors happy.

ApprovalMax is the #1 tool to get bills and expenses approved quickly. It replaces paper and email approvals with automated multi-role and multi-tiered approval workflows. ApprovalMax integrates with platforms such as Xero to unlock powerful efficiencies for approvers and

finance teams. Not only does it streamline the accounts payable process, but it also gives you better spend control and helps with regulatory compliance.

“Our customers say ApprovalMax is a game-changer that delivers improved efficiency, time savings, easier compliance, as well as data accuracy,” says Helmut Heptner, Managing Director at ApprovalMax. “We’re thrilled that our integration with Xero is transforming and automating the approval process for so many businesses, especially in North America, and that together we’re

Find out more: approvalmax.com

helping so many businesses go paperless.”

Lastly, the most rewarding part about being a Xero App Partner is being recognised in the Xero community. We’ve also been recognised by Xero as App Partner of the Year in both NZ and the UK. It’s a great honor, as it reflects our contribution to the accounting community around the world.

Offer: If you would like to try ApprovalMax, you can start a free 14-day trial here.

Xerocon New Orleans Special

Xerocon New Orleans Special

nPay helps accountants and bookkeepers scale your services with outstanding payroll and HR software.

They get top ratings from experts like Forbes and PCMag because they get things right for every kind of client you serve, backed by 30+ years of payroll experience and expert support. OnPay makes it easy to offer a payroll service your way (and save a lot of time) with:

• Automated payroll calculations

and tax filings — accuracy guaranteed

• Clients organized in one intuitive dashboard

• Flexible permissions to manage payroll or delegate responsibilities

• The best Xero integration with customizable line item mapping

Through their Partner Program for accountants and bookkeepers, you’ll also get a higher level of service. OnPay Partners get special perks like free payroll for

Find out more: onpay.com

your firm, exclusive support, and revenue sharing as you add more clients. Their team will even do all the work to switch your clients over from their current provider plus handle all the filings, W-2s, and 1099s at year end.

Right now, you can get free payroll through 1/31 for every client you switch to OnPay.*

Check out OnPay.

*Terms and conditions apply.

nce you understand the Hubdoc-XeroPlooto process, that’s where you really, automate the process. And that’s what has contributed to our growth, absolutely.” – David DiNardo, CEO at Envolta

Plooto’s Cloud Automation allowed Envolta to Grow Revenues by 400% in less than three years

Plooto is an Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable platform that allows accountants and bookkeepers to work faster, wow their clients, and scale

their practice – it’s a staple in any firm’s cloud accounting tech stack. Over 400 accounting & bookkeeping firms across Canada and the United States use Plooto to better serve their clients and today, Plooto has helped scale the payment processes for over 8,000 Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses.

Plooto syncs with Xero by pulling contact details and outstanding payables & receivables data while also integrating with any bank account in Canada and the United States to then complete those payments. The result is a fully automated payment

Find out more: plooto.com

process that moves money using the contact’s method of choice (including cheques!). Whether sending money domestically or internationally, Plooto’s platform and its features save accountants and bookkeepers hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars each year.

In essence, Plooto allows firms to move entire payment operations to the cloud and eliminate data entry, manual payment processing and reconciliation. Interested? Book a Consultation Call or email us at partners@ plooto.com.

Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

igured’s integration with Xero is second to none as Figured was designed and built to work together with Xero from the beginning. This commitment to a seamless customer experience through the integration is illustrated by our 4.7/5 rating in the Xero app store.

Data flows automatically between Xero and Figured to enable Farmers and their advisors to track all the financial data and on-farm production, with no

double handling or costly data errors. The ability to bring in Xero data means farmers can create a budget for the year ahead in just minutes from the previous year with the click of the ‘import’ button in Figured’s planning grid. And then they can adjust to create an accurate forecast based on any changes anticipated in the year ahead. They can also easily track how they’re going against their plan with daily transaction data flowing into Figured from Xero as they reconcile.

Find out more: figured.com

Figured’s support team has a +95% positive customer satisfaction score from users and our focus on continuous improvement has resulted in achieving our ambitious Net Promoter Score target in 2022. We’ve also reached a new milestone of 30,000 licences worldwide which speaks to the appetite for Figured in the agri community.

Find out more at figured.com

If the only update your software gets each year is price, it could be time to switch

Switching is easy, liberate your software with CCH Accelerate

With Wolters Kluwer you can have a seamless system that makes better use of your time and budget. Plus we’ve made switching easier and quicker than ever before. Transform your practice with our new product bundle CCH Accelerate

› a full cloud-connected suite solution

› seamless data conversion from your existing solution

› full project coordination and services

› a value-driven package which more than covers the cost of implementation

› an easy onboarding process, including flexible staff training and eLearning

› a dedicated account manager and a direct line to a support team

Xero users, by Xero users.

What they’ve been working on... Updates from Xero

This article origitanted from Xero. You can read the original update here

The final Xerocon of 2022 brought together our Australian, New Zealand and Asia-based accounting and bookkeeping partners, and Xero app partner community, to get inspired, learn and most importantly to reunite as a community.

Xero launches ‘Changing world of work’ reports

Managing a workforce in today’s ever changing regulatory environment is taking its toll on small business employers, with 47% in Australia and 36% in New Zealand stating managing employee processes is negatively impacting their mental health, according to our Changing world of work reports launched at Xerocon Sydney.

The reports shine a light on the workforce challenges that small businesses face, the workplace experience of their employees, and the critical role of technology in this changing world of work. They show how important our suite of employee management tools are for business owners, and what a vital role advisors play in helping them create an empowering and positive experience for employees.

Planday beta unveiled for Australian businesses

To help make essential employeerelated processes more seamless for Australian small businesses and their people, Xero is building an integration with Planday. The beta marks an important stage of Planday’s entry into Australia where it will enhance Xero’s broader set of employee management tools including Xero Payroll, Xero Expenses and Xero

Me (a simple self- service app for employee timesheet, leave and expense management).

Xero Payroll plus Planday empowers small businesses with accurate employee time and attendance data and seamless scheduling, to help support payroll compliance and rostering, while also enhancing the employee experience through a range of intuitive people management tools. The Planday beta is available now for eligible small businesses using the Retail and Clerks Awards in Australia.

New features introduced in Xero to simplify payroll compliance

At Xerocon, we showcased our recently- added start, end and break times functionality in Xero Me. This feature helps small businesses capture accurate employee timesheets, save time on manual processes for a faster pay run, and support timesheet record-keeping requirements.

Also showcased was payroll history — a comprehensive, accurate, and trustworthy audit trail of updates made to employee details in Xero Payroll (Australia only). This new feature allows all payroll administrators

in Australia the ability to identify, audit, and reconcile their payroll quickly and accurately.

XSBI special report highlights late payments challenge for small businesses

Cash flow continues to be an issue for small businesses, according to our latest Xero Small Business Insights (XSBI) special report. Crunch: Cash flow challenges facing small businesses, Part II, released at Xerocon Sydney, found that almost half of all invoices owed to small businesses in 2021 were paid late.

Prepared by Accenture with the support of Xero, the report analyses comprehensive inflow and outflow data from over 200,000 small businesses across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom to understand ‘cash flow red flags’ – the early warning indicators that a small business is heading for cash flow trouble.

New pilots announced for Xero Analytics Plus

We announced two new pilots at Xerocon Sydney to help small businesses and advisors understand their business’ health and plan for the future

magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Updates from

with confidence. The first, available exclusively to Australian businesses, involves the addition of BAS and PAYG payments in Xero Analytics Plus’ short-term cash flow tool, to help customers get a more accurate forecast of their cash flow.

The second beta will allow Xero Analytics Plus users globally to predict upcoming payments for bills and invoices (including payroll) over the next 90 days. These betas will be available

to select Xero customers in the months ahead, and extend on other recent updates, including the ability to provide bulk management of planned and expected payment dates for overdue invoices and bills.

Refreshed job manager released to Xero Insiders

Xero has redesigned the job manager tool in Xero Practice Manager, to help advisors easily find and track jobs, their status

and due date — all in one place.

It will also help them monitor progress, assign and prioritise client jobs, and see where budgets may be exceeded, helping them efficiently manage client jobs from end to end.

The redesigned job manager has already been released to a small number of accounting and bookkeeping partners via early access in Xero’s Insider’s Program. It will be available to all Australian Xero partners later this year.

Xero’s Diversity Pledge to nurture more female inventors

When it comes to how we deliver our commitment to innovation, we believe that patents are a proxy for it. That’s why we’ve signed the Diversity Pledge. It’s an exciting step, and a move that symbolises a meaningful focus for us on ensuring the innovative contributions of more females are recognised in the patent applications we file each year.

By signing the Diversity Pledge, we’ve committed to identifying,

Ecosystem

Xero partners with Procore, offering cloud construction management tools

We are pleased to partner with global construction management platform Procore, which joins the Xero App Store in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand markets. The new Procore integration helps solve some of the biggest challenges small and medium construction firms face by enabling them, and their financial advisors, to connect field and back office teams with real-time, accurate, financial data in the cloud. This in turn supports

Newsnurturing and showcasing to a neutral third-party our efforts in bringing more female inventors to the fore. The three-year pledge timeline (of which we are currently in year two) offers us a robust framework in which to collate our baseline inventor data, pilot proposed ways we can improve on it, before finally submitting those metrics for external analysis.

Latest product news

We’ve made a number of updates to Xero over the past month, with

a focus on helping customers manage their compliance needs.

In Australia, we’ve introduced new earnings categories in Xero Payroll to support Single Touch Payroll (STP) Phase

2. In the UK, we’ve launched document packs in Xero HQ, which allows accountants and bookkeepers to easily collate documents and get them electronically signed by clients.

For more details on our latest releases, check out the blog

the delivery of multiple complex projects on time, and on budget.

Xero partners with Cogo to help small businesses take positive climate action

We’ve partnered with Cogo to launch the Cogo Business Carbon Manager app in the Xero App Store, to help our Australian customers understand, measure and reduce the carbon footprint created by their businesses. The app is free, with enhanced paid features launching later this year. Xero and Cogo will also continue to collaborate to educate and

support small businesses on their sustainability journeys.

New additions to the Xero App Store

Last month we welcomed over 15 new apps to the Xero App Store. These include AI-powered advisory platform interVal (US and Canada only), B2B payments solution Libeo (UK only), and business intelligence and reporting app GoSimplo

for Xero users, by Xero users.

MTD for Corporation Tax: 9 things to tell clients

t a time when accountants are readying for MTD ITSA, it might feel premature to discuss MTD for Corporation Tax (MTD for CT).

After all, HMRC and the government have repeatedly stated it won’t arrive until the 2026/27 tax year, at the earliest.

But you might find it’s a subject raised by clients. After all, it’s only natural to ask if corporation tax (CT) will follow now VAT and Income Tax have been digitalised. They may ask what they should expect.

Here’s some key points you might want to share.

It’s based on what little information HMRC has provided so far, in various communications (chiefly its consultation documents).

None of the info below is certain. Some of it is barely more than speculation. All of it should be taken with a pile of salt as high as the Burj Khalifa.

But it’s all we have right now, pending publication of documents

such as draft legislation for MTD for CT, or the opening of the MTD for CT pilot programme. Based on how VAT and ITSA were rolled out by HMRC, further official documentation is unlikely to arrive until 2024 at the earliest.

1. What’s required for MTD for Corporation Tax

At the moment, HMRC says the following is likely for the average CT client:

• Digital record keeping.

• Quarterly summary updates of income and expenditure, sent to HMRC via MTD-compatible software.

• An annual CT return, again sent via MTD-compatible software.

Agents such as accountants should be able to supply a full MTD for CT service. However, as with VAT and ITSA, the client can’t simply wash their hands of it. They will still need to observe new or additional digital recordingkeeping practices.

2. Mobile accounting apps could be used for MTD for CT

In its consultation document, HMRC suggests the following:

An expert on all matters relating to accounting, Brian has a deep understanding of not only AutoEntry but how customers use it.

Brian is dedicated to helping both the product grow and helping customers and users get the best from AutoEntry.

“For some smaller companies, their main interface could be a smartphone app, which could also be used to raise invoices, receive payments and record purchases.”

Larger businesses will use more sophisticated apps, of course, or a mix of software—but there remains the digital linking requirement as with MTD for VAT (with no mention of any softlanding period, yet).

3. Different rules for different types of businesses (or sizes)

In its response to its MTD for CT consultation, HMRC says: “From the outset, the Government has appreciated that a ‘one size fits all’ design would not support the diverse needs of the UK CT population and that the design would need to be flexible and tailored for different parts of the population.”

If we speculate based on what else HMRC says in the consultation response document, it might be that the level of detail required in the digital record keeping and/or quarterly reports is the differentiating factor. There’s also a suggestion the quarterly reporting provision

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

@AutoEntry

Brian Carolan, Product Owner, AutoEntry by Sage

Brian Carolan is Product Owner at AutoEntry. He has been working at the organisation since before its launch, helping guide development and success of the worldclass accounting automation product.

clients ask about MTD for Corporation Tax then

need to be ready. Here’s nine things that HMRC has said so far.

might be dropped for certain types of business.

4. HMRC is targeting a £2.1bn Corporation Tax gap

HMRC says digital record-keeping will reduce errors and people simply being careless. It’s also got an eye on deliberate noncompliance, of course.

Incidentally, in March 2022 HMRC reported that MTD for VAT had delivered “estimated additional tax revenue” of £57 per business, or as much as £195 million in 2019 and 2020—higher than the previous estimate of £115 million.

So, it appears the MTD initiative is considered by HMRC to be both working and justified—meaning ITSA and CT are less likely to be delayed.

5. Get clients ready for realtime “nudge messaging”

Because MTD for CT and the software used will offer a realtime view of tax liability, HMRC expects to be able to immediately tell businesses in real-time, presumably within their MTD-

compatible accounting software, when they’re doing something wrong.

It’s not yet clear if this will mean an end to brown envelopes pushed through letterboxes, or if nudge messaging will supplement emails and letters.

6. Businesses could switch to MTD for CT as soon as April 2024

As with MTD for Income Tax Self Assessment (MTD ITSA) and then MTD for VAT, HMRC wants to test MTD for CT through a pilot programme—and mentions this could start as soon as 2024’s tax year. Businesses can opt-in to this, assuming they have software that’s MTD-ready and the correct digital linking in place.

It’s not yet clear if there will be any limitations on business type or size, as there was with the MTD for ITSA pilot, where simpler entities are only allowed right now. But HMRC says it intends to mirror the way the ITSA pilot was rolled out—so we might expect this to be the case.

Nor is it yet known if businesses will be able to opt-out of the pilot once they opt-in.

7. HMRC thinks accountants might be able to increase fees

HMRC says that the cost of additional technology is likely to be paid for by efficiencies saved, and reminds us that it’s all tax-deductible anyway. But it admits that, for businesses with a quarterly reporting obligation, MTD for CT could require additional “reassurance” from agents such as accountants—and that this could lead to additional fees.

8. Digital exclusion is possible

Those whose location, disability or personal beliefs prohibit the keeping of digital records will once again be considered digitally excluded, as with MTD for VAT or MTD ITSA.

The good news is that if the individual or business has already been deemed digitally excluded by HMRC then it’s likely this will also apply to MTD for CT— although it isn’t clear right now if a fresh application to HMRC will be required, or whether HMRC will automatically apply the exclusion.

“The level of detail required in the digital record keeping and/or quarterly reports is the differentiating factor”

And just in case it isn’t clear, HMRC points out that if a business is already exempt from filing CT returns online then they will also be treated as exempt for MTD for CT.

Insolvency procedures are once again likely to lead to exemption.

9. Charities/nonprofits/amateur sports groups might get a special version of MTD for CT

In its response to the MTD for CT consultation, HMRC says it is “open to exploring a more bespoke design for [charities/non-

profits] that reflects their specific circumstances”.

This is undoubtedly because many of these organisations, although registered for CT, have small turnovers and volunteer staffing—and the burden of MTD for CT therefore is considered disproportionate.

Automation: Be ready for more MTD

As the increasing requirements of MTD continue to build for practices and their clients, there’s only one sane way forward: Automate as many workflows and processes as

possible. This not only saves time but also increases the potential for revenue and better client service offerings.

AutoEntry is the market leader in data entry automation. It transforms days of data entry work into hours while reducing concerns about accuracy. Give it a free, no-commitment trial by clicking the link below. Learn more about AutoEntry by Sage, including a limitedtime special offer for 3 months free:

OUT

New to the Xero App Marketplace

Approveit approveit.today

Create and approve Purchase Orders from Slack without the need for manual copy/pasting. Build purchase order approval workflow in minutes and automatically create new purchase orders upon approval.

Bitwave bitwave.io

A digital asset finance platform to manage the interesction of accounting, tax and compliancre for cryptocurrency, DeFi and NFTs, pur- pose built to help mitigate digital as- sets challenges.

Clevero clevero.co

TCRM & Business Management

Solutions for Small Business. Track, manage, and automate all aspects of your day-to-day operations with their SaaS offerings, reducing the need for multiple productivity apps.

Cogo cogo.co

A personal carbon manageme nt assistant to help you manage and measure your buisinesses carbon foot- print, then share your progress with customers and stakeholders. Take sim- ple climate action for your biz.

Inter-val inter-val.ai

A better way for financial and advisory-focused institutions to help their business owners to make better, more informed financial decisions by leveraging real-time valuation data.

NaggingPanda naggingpanda.com

Turbocharge invoice payment reminder funcrtionality with Nagging Panda’s essential business tool for higher quote acceptance rates and faster payments, allowing you to see who pays on time and who doesn’t.

NetNada netnada.com.au

A simple way to run your business sustainability on autopilot, from carbon footprint measurements to sustainability reports to automated sustainability initiatives. Make sustainability a strength in your business.

SproutAnalytics sproutsoft.io

A powerful analytics tools that imports all Xero data available and provides enterprise-grade analysis. The easiest and fastest way to analyze data, uncover hidden insights and make smart decisions.

Taxify taxify.ae

We support our users in the UAE take data from their Xero accounts and through our unique VAT Wizard populate a FTA compliant VAT return

Zelt zelt.app

Zelt lets you manage your workforce efficiently across HR and IT in one central hub. Reduce new joiner onboarding time to under 10 minutes, run payroll and pay staff in under one minute, equip your team with new rental laptops with a few clicks, and much more.

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Faster payments, for free, that reconcile instantly

Embedded payment links on your Xero invoices with Crezco

This article is

Ralph is the co-founder and CEO of Crezco. With a background in both technology and payments, Ralph saw the introduction of open banking payments as the missing technological innovation required to better address invoice payments. At Crezco, Ralph focuses on building a strong culture and awesome products. Ralph believes a product should be so intuitive you could use it with your eyes closed.

Discover how to reduce late payments, fees and time-spent on administrative tasks. Too good to be true? Our customers disagree…

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the propensity to be paid is inextricably linked to the convenience of payment. Inconvenient payment methods, like manual bank transfers, are subject to human

inertia and human error. Few businesses hurry to pay their suppliers, but if you introduce friction to the payment process you will easily lose their attention as they look to address something less painful.

Credit-control and cashflow plagues all SMEs, introducing a more convenient checkout cannot help those unable to pay, but it is a free option to make life easier for those who can. Unlike card payment checkout solutions, subject to high fees and slow settlement times, Crezco processes payments up to £1,000,000 in real-time for free!

Wait, free? How so?

We process account-to-account payments and have directly integrated with over 400 banks and 500 million bank accounts in the UK and EU. There is an upfront cost to this, but not an ongoing cost. We have no middleware payments suppliers so our ‘cost of goods sold’ is nonexistent.

If it doesn’t cost us, we think it shouldn’t cost you. As crazy as that might sound, you used to pay to send an SMS, but no longer do with instant messaging. We thought we’d make payments equally cheap and convenient.

for Xero users, by Xero users.

@CloudsolveAU

Ralph Rogge, CEO, Crezco

“Nothing comes from nothing”. Once again, how is Crezco free?

We are a VC backed fin-tech. More than anything on our balance sheet, our most valuable asset is happy customers. With happy customers the rest comes easy (relatively). Single domestic payments are free and will remain free, but we have built further premium (“paid for”) products like bulk payments and international payments which bring value to our users and bring revenue to our company.

What are account-to-account payments?

Account-to-account (open banking) payments move cash from one account, say your client’s account with HSBC, directly to another account, perhaps your account with Barclays, via domestic payment rails, like Faster Payments. There are no middle clearing, settlement and merchant accounts which need to settle the funds first.

Account-to-account payments solution

Payments are instant, free and frictionless and there is no need for customers to share debit card or account details.

How does account-to-account payments collection work?

Crezco integrates with your favourite accounting software providers, like Xero, QuickBooks, QuickFile and Zoho. We recently won Xero’s Emerging App of the

Year. Just connect Crezco to your chosen accounting software and go back to work as normal. Each sent invoice will now have an embedded payment link attached. Your customers click the link to make an account-toaccount transfer. No need for your customers to enter card details or manually process the payment, which leaves room for human error and inertia, as long as the invoice is under £1,000,000, Cont...

Crezco will process the payment in real-time for free and handle the reconciliation within your accounting software. Our clients call it a “no brainer”. You increase the convenience for your customers, and save yourself time and money.

How does bulk payment work?

We love our Accounts Receivable solution, and so do our customers, but businesses make payments too, not just collect them, so we have built an Accounts Payables solution. Whether paying suppliers or employees, you can create contacts and bills in Crezco and pay them with one click. To make it easier, just import your Xero bills into Crezco and you are ready to go.

The first account-to-account international payments solution

In addition to our Accounts Receivable and our Accounts Payable solutions, we have built the first international account-

to-account payments solution in the world! This means you can now seamlessly receive and make payments to over 100 countries in 50+ currencies. Domestic bank transfers are painful, international bank transfers are significantly more so, and Crezco is here to make it easy.

Okay, so what are the five key benefits of Crezco?

• Get paid faster: adding Crezco payment links to your invoices increases convenience for your customers, eliminates human error and settles payments in real-time

• Reconcile automatically: Crezco reconciles all your payments within your accounting system immediately, saving you hours of administration

• Save on fees: Crezco is the

only payment solution to settle payments under £1,000,000 instantly for free - it is only the premium optional products Crezco charges for

• Onboard clients: Crezco has built a partnership dashboard for accountants to easily add and manage their clients, helping them save time and money

• Fraud protection: Crezco has built a proprietary machinelearning data analytical system, called Sentinel, protecting against invoice fraud, pushpayment fraud and chargebacks

FIND OUT MORE...

Learn more about our account-to-account payments solution: crezco.com/ industries/accounting

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Accountex Australia presents Balancing the Books

New CPD-accredited forum coming to Melbourne

Alex Haughton, Commercial Director - Accountex, Diversified Communications

Alex is an experienced Commercial Director with over 10 years’ experience working in high growth, high performance, and transformational environments. Alex is passionate about developing partnerships through live events, creating environments that have a clear vision, inspiring return on investment and an impactful approach to the community that it serves.

Alex has a deep understanding of live events and is now focused on shaping the future of events for Accounting Professionals in Australia. Alex loves developing an independent platform serving Australian Accounting Professionals and the Vendor community that it partners with to build a community and to enable connection and collaboration.

After the official announcement of Accountex Australia coming to Sydney in March 2023, the team are excited to bring an exciting new forum to Melbourne in celebration of ‘International Accountants Day’ and part of ‘Global Bookkeeping Week’.

Balancing the Books will be taking place on 10 November 2022 at The Edge, in Melbourne’s Fed Square, and is a half-day forum designed to celebrate the professional advisory community and reflect on 2022 alongside key industry influencers.

“Balancing the Books gives us an opportunity to reflect on the past year alongside both tech vendors and advisors from the profession.

I can’t wait for an afternoon of productive, independent debate toward a more robust industry while we celebrate International Accountants Day plus Global Bookkeeping Week,” said Alex Haughton, Accountex Commercial Director

The afternoon’s program will cover four topical areas including: Building Team & Culture, Tech Partnering with the Profession, Drivers of Growth & Innovation and Keys to Implementing Effective Systems in Your Firm. Each session will feature an impressive panel of industry leaders and experts, addressing some of the key challenges and major talking points of the industry.

“Understanding how to implement technology and unlock innovation has the potential to make advisors’ roles easier. This is our foundation for what we look to as our contribution to this thriving industry,” said Alex Haughton, Accountex Commercial Director.

The first session of the day, Building Teach & Culture, will feature Alexi Boyd, CEO of COSBOA, Nick Sinclair, Founder of TOA Global and Will Buckley, Country Manager at Xero. This session will explore the challenges and opportunities of attracting talent in a post pandemic world, the changing dynamics of the labour force market and what accountants and bookkeepers can do to ensure their business is well positioned to care for the needs of current and future team members.

Other expert speakers that have been announced include:

• Gavin Fernandes, Senior Partner Manager, MYOB

• Andrew Conway, CEO, Institute

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

@AccountexAus

• Daniel Tramontana, Chief Operating Officer, BGL Corporate Solutions

• Noel Tiufino, Managing Director, My Accounts

• Rebecca Mihalic, Head of Accounting – APAC, Ignition

• Matthew Addison, Executive Director, Institute of Certified Bookkeepers

Held on 10 November 2022 from 3pm – 7pm, this afternoon of thought-provoking panel discussions also includes networking drinks and canapes, offering delegates a unique opportunity to network with peers from the profession, progressive tech companies and key membership bodies well into the evening.

accountexaustralia.com.au/

Building Team & Culture Panel Speakers: Alexi Boyd, Nick Sinclair & Will Buckley.

Getting ready for MTD for ITSA

Your questions answered

As you’re no doubt aware, Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax Self Assessment

is coming. From April 2024, approximately 4.2 million sole trader businesses and landlords with turnovers above £10,000 will be included. HMRC has been drip-feeding information about MTD for ITSA to the accountancy industry for some time now.

e hear from our customers that they’re finding it difficult to keep on top of the guidelines. Yet we are still over eighteen months away from the introduction of MTD. How will things progress as the deadline draws closer?

Why accountants and their clients must prepare for MTD now

At Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK, our customers face similar challenges. They’re already dealing with a lot of information and complexity, and trying to maximise productivity. MTD adds another dimension to the race to understand how accountants can embrace technology to move forward in their profession.

Accountants need to be on top of MTD so that they can advise their clients. It is often small business owners who may struggle with the transition. The new provisions need to be understood sooner rather than later, or the scope for misunderstanding may increase. Accountancy practices

will also save time in the long run by preparing for the upcoming changes now.

Migration to new HMRC-approved software is likely to run more smoothly if accountants don’t put MTD to one side. The sooner accountants reach a clear understanding of MTD, the greater the benefit will be for practices and their clients. Below, we’ve provided our answers to some key questions that we continually hear from our customers.

What key steps will ensure compliance with MTD for ITSA?

1. Digital records must be maintained in HMRC-compatible software, or software that is digitally linked to HMRCcompatible software.

2. For each qualifying business, quarterly updates will need to be submitted to HMRC, as well as an end-of-period statement.

3. A final declaration that includes all other taxable income should be submitted by the usual 31 January deadline.

4. Tax should be paid as usual

by the same deadlines that exist today.

What information needs to be recorded to be compliant?

For each transaction, the following data points must be recorded digitally.

1. The date of the transaction

2. The transaction amount

3. The category of expenses the transaction relates to

4. The trade or property business the income relates to

If the business is retail, daily gross takings can be recorded rather than recording every single transaction. However, this only applies if it’s unreasonable for the business to keep digital records of every individual sale.

Businesses must also confirm whether they keep their records based on cash accounting or accrued accounting.

Can accountants use their clients’ paper records to key into compatible software such as CCH? And when must this be done?

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK

Wolters Kluwer are experts in providing software and services to tax and accounting professionals who work in complex, compliancedriven environments. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with specialised technology and services.

In HMRC’s view, one of the key benefits MTD for ITSA will provide is an increase in accuracy, due to digitally recording the transaction in real time. However, the legislation does not stipulate when digital records should be created, and so it is anticipated that some clients may continue to maintain paper records, and the accountant will become the digital recordkeeper prior to quarterly submission. To cover this scenario, we provide a spreadsheet template that can be prepared with the data required, and then uploaded into CCH for submission to HMRC.

Does the turnover threshold of £10,000 or more apply to property and trade businesses added together, or to each business in isolation?

The threshold applies to the individual taxpayer’s grand total in turnover, derived from all relevant businesses and properties. For example, within a financial year, if a client receives £5,000 income from their sole trader business and £5,500 from rental income on a property, they must follow MTD for ITSA rules when submitting their tax return.

If the combined turnover is more than £10,000 per annum, should it include employment income too (for example £30,000 salary, £3,000 selfemployment)?

No. Quarterly submissions are only a requirement for the mandated sources of business and property income. All other income, including employment income, will form part of the annual declaration process after the end of the tax year.

When a client registers for VAT, are they automatically enrolled into MTD for ITSA?

They aren’t enrolled automatically. It’s up to the client or their accountant to enrol for the relevant tax reporting schemes individually.

What about missed deadlines?

There will be a teething period, as people get used to the new procedures. So how will HMRC handle missed deadlines while businesses are getting synchronised with the new reporting deadlines? In the short term, we believe there will be a ‘soft touch’ approach. In the longer term, a points system will be introduced for all taxes. Each missed deadline will accumulate a point, and points may mean penalties. However, the dates and point thresholds of this scheme haven’t yet been published.

We are your MTD partners

Wolters Kluwer will be launching its MTD-compliant software shortly. Our priority has always

been to transform the customer journey into a seamless, endto-end digital experience. MTD has made this a more pressing priority, with more accountantclient interactions than ever as a result.

We are committed to helping our customers get to grips with MTD. Our experience of the transition to MTD for VAT stands us in good stead to deliver for our customers, as we move towards the transition for ITSA. Accountancy practices can be confident we’re on hand to guide them through the process, so that the transition is achieved smoothly and in good time, ahead of the April 2024 deadline.

The above information is adapted from the brand new Wolters Kluwer ebook, “Destination: MTD”. Available to download from the Wolters Kluwer website right now, it addresses best practice in compliance with MTD for ITSA. It also clarifies many of the misconceptions that exist within the accounting community. We hope it will become a handy reference tool for our customers.

Find out more...

Learn more about how Wolters Kluwer can support you.

Economic Turmoil vs Christmas Parties

To Manage and Process

Entertainment Spending As

Are

Almost three years have passed since the Coronavirus pandemic struck, and this has had a huge impact on businesses across the globe. This year is set to be the first festive period since 2019 with no COVID restrictions interrupting Christmas festivities which is expected to cause a surge in travel and entertainment expenses as office Christmas parties are back.

As a global expenses app, ExpenseOnDemand monitors trends in business expense management to ensure that our cutting-edge technology always complements business requirements and helps control and manage employee expenses throughout the year.

Since September our data has shown that mileage and travel expense and claims have increased by 21% and entertainment claims by 15% showing that employees are spending more time visiting contacts, clients, and colleagues. As we enter the festive period, we are expecting these trends to increase further meaning for many businesses Christmas

To

Levels

entertainment spending is expected to reach pre-pandemic levels for the first time.

Travel expenses have increased by 21% and entertainment claims by 15% as trends show employees are spending more time visiting clients and contacts.

Many businesses are also expected to host staff Christmas parties for the first time since 2019 and with many workers now working remotely employee expense claims are expected to eclipse pre-pandemic levels as millions of workers leave their homes to meet work colleagues and celebrate the festive period.

Over the Christmas period, increased client and staff entertainment mean that there is an influx of employee entertainment claims that can often be hard to monitor. If your business doesn’t currently automate expenses this is a good period to implement a solution such as ExpenseOnDemand.

Beware of Bogus Claims Employee claims have always

@ExpenseOnDemand

Sunil Nigam, CEO & CoFounder, ExpenseOnDemand

We launched ExpenseOnDemand in 2003 with a vision to enable companies & their employees globally to focus on their core job by offering a smart, simple & intuitive expense management solution. We continually update our technology to make our solutions current and affordable to everyone.

When not at work, you will catch me mentoring young entrepreneurs, debating Indian history & global economics, reading a book, or cooking a meal for the family.

been difficult to monitor and manage especially when you have a larger workforce with a manual process and in today’s environment. Many employees also favour using their personal bank and credit cards for expenses to benefit from rewards and Air Miles. Our innovative tech is helping firms automate processes, spot duplicate receipts, and easily authenticate claims often saving them thousands or even millions in costs every year.

Whether you employ 5 or 200 people, it has become imperative that you source the right tech to automate as many business processes as possible to protect your business and staff for problems that remote working can cause. One of these issues has been the rise in ‘bogus’ employee expense claims and we have published some of the dubious expenses that have been uploaded to our app to illustrate how our leading automated tech solution has handled these and flagged these to our clients, saving businesses thousands every year.

Businesses around the world are losing billions in employee expense fraud but cutting-edge

for Xero users, by Xero users.

expense management tech is rapidly helping alert firms to false claims and put an end to over-compensation for claims.

The data published showed some extraordinary claims including a belly dancer receipt for over £2,500 added to a hotel expense, £950 for a single taxi journey and £800 for a hairdresser. Another client has seen huge savings after a group of employees had been overcharging for business mileage with the total claim reaching £1.2m but once analysed through the app this was reduced to £800k.

A multinational firm quickly adopted the client tracking functionality on the app when their entertainment expenses claims totalled over £2m in 12 months.

Ensure you pay your Employees Promptly

Millions of staff have to pay upfront for expenses with petrol and entertainment topping the list of these costs. As things are getting tighter for many, especially during the Christmas period, a recent report highlighted that nearly a fifth (19%) of employees* want their organisations to speed up the time it takes to process their expenses.

Confusing expense policies, manual processes and cash flow issues often cause delays to employee reimbursement, but delays can have consequences including impacting morale, and business activity and even causing staff to leave organisations.

Many businesses that already have processes in place and expense caps will need to adjust these for the festive period as claims often increase due to a busy period of client and employee entertainment.

As more employees work remotely, expenses have naturally become more complex to manage and it is now more important for businesses to source the right solution to help manage these expenses. ExpenseOnDemand integrates and transfers data between Xero/ Sage and QuickBooks and offers a truly tailored solution to mirror business processes rather than forcing firms to change to match the tech.

The team at ExpenseOnDemand has also updated its app to make it easier for firms and employees to work from home offering a simpler and automated solution. Our market-leading app makes life easier for employees and can also allow businesses to process and pay expenses faster.

At ExpenseOnDemand, we integrate and transfer data between Xero/Sage and QuickBooks ensuring the app remains a market-leading service, but we also allow businesses to hand-pick what services they need, and we can tailor our solution to mirror their current business processes rather than forcing them to change to match our tech.

How does ExpenseOnDemand benefit businesses and their staff?

ExpenseOnDemand works seamlessly with staff working remotely or hybrid. Employees no longer need to send paper claims to claim their expenses and they can benefit from:

1. Claimants and Approvers can use the app within minutes.

2. Photograph receipts and submit & approve expenses in seconds.

3. Approvers can view and manage all historical claims.

4. ExpenseOnDemand ensures no duplicates with any employee claims.

5. Expenses can be made in any currency.

6. Finance can choose from 100+ functions.

To find out more about how ExpenseOnDemand can help your business please visit – www. expenseondemand.com

* The Inconvenient Expenses study, conducted by Just Eat for Business

What do Xero customers say about ExpenseOnDemand

Great features at a great price! By far the best app in this space! The new features that have come in the past 6 months makes it stand out - looking forward for more to come. Pricing also now works well for our business with

“I would recommend ExpenseOnDemand. It is very user-friendly and it integrates with our Xero seamlessly.”

an employee strength of 100+.

- Alice Lawson

Time saver & value for money ExpenseOnDemand and Xero combination is amazing. What used to take me hours by doing manually, now takes just minutes to do it online. Once it’s set up, it is very intuitive to use.

- Radhika Kapoor

So easy

No more spending hours on expense approvals and reports! ExpenseOnDemand makes it so easy. Setup is quick and short and integration with Xero, so smooth without any problem.

- Steve Hunter

Great combination to use

Our company has been using both ExpenseOnDemand and Xero for almost 1 year now. We had great experience with the easy integration for all of our employee expenses. It is quite simple to track for what expense is being incurred, so that when we go to reports, we know exactly where the expense was incurred and for what. It has made our lives so much easier on a monthly basis. We will definitely recommend using ExpenseOnDemand / Xero together for the business.

- Sophie Watson

Want expenses & more - check this one!

I have a small company of about 50 employees. Using ExpenseOnDemand, the approval process is so easy and smooth and I can access it from anywhere. The expense policy function ensures the employees adhere to the reimbursement policy of the company. Great product!

- Jessica Baker

for Xero users, by Xero users.

“A Festival of Bookkeeping”: Reasons to attend ICB’s Bookkeepers Summit

@ICBUK

Rosalia Munro, Head of External Communications, Institute for Certified Bookkeepers

Rosalia is an experienced communicator and is passionate about business and accounting issues, having previously held roles in small business policy and levelling up the accountancy profession at ICAEW.

As ICB’s Head of Communications, Rosalia supports the organisation in upholding the standards of the bookkeeping profession, helping businesses to succeed and operating for the benefit of the many.

Rosalia Munro explores the five reasons for why you should attend the Bookkeepers Summit on 7 and 9 November

On 7 and 9 November, the great and the good of the accountancy world will descend on the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers’ annual Bookkeepers Summit. A vibrant extravaganza of talks, networking opportunities and software providers; this really is a one-stop shop for any bookkeeper looking to keep their finger on the pulse and enhance their professional skills.

This year’s Summit will be bigger and better than ever, with a jam-packed agenda covering all that bookkeepers need to run a successful business, even in the current climate. Our in-person event, just a stone’s throw away from Waterloo Station will also get you back into the swing of networking at a truly breathtaking venue that overlooks the Houses of Parliament. Our virtual Summit is also simply bursting with content, fully interactive and completely on-demand.

If that’s not enough inspiration for you, we’ve listed a few reasons that we think you should come to our Summit:

1. Learning for life

Every day is a school day in bookkeeping, with tax and compliance changes that affect your practice happening all the time. The newly installed Government administration and the likely direction change in business and tax policy will also create an environment of flux. Bookkeepers and payroll professionals will need to negotiate this to effectively support their clients going forward.

This year’s Summit will seek to cut through the legislative confusion and provide bookkeepers and payroll professionals with the guidance and clarity they need to navigate these troubled waters. Superstars from across the accountancy sector such as leading light, Rebecca

Benneyworth CBE FCA; accounting legend, James Ashford and payroll guru, Ian Holloway, will be taking to the stage to tell you what’s on the horizon in the accountancy world.

The changing compliance landscape can also feel overwhelming to bookkeepers, so we’ve asked star of the Dark Money Files podcast, Ray Blake, to team up with ICB Director of Compliance, Mike Jardine, to demystify the Anti Money Laundering rules and provide an electrifying insight into their experiences of financial crime.

for Xero users, by Xero users.

Jo Fairley, Co-Founder of Green & Black’s Chocolate

2. On the shoulders of giants

Want to be a business mogul?

Find out how at our in-person event when Jo Fairley, Co-founder of Green & Black’s Chocolate, takes to our mainstage to tell you about her journey as an entrepreneur and gives you tips on how to run a successful business. Check your free Summit delegate packs for a sweet treat she’s snuck in for our conference attendees!

3. Become a digital disruptor

It’s not just new legislation that’s important for bookkeepers to understand, but rather how advances in tech will affect their practices. With the move towards digital currencies and Making Tax Digital, it’s clear that tech is going to be a hot topic in the coming months. With that in mind, we’ve got the very biggest hitters from the software world like Xero Managing Director, Alex von Schirmeister, to talk to attendees about how you can use platforms like his to turbo-charge your practice.

to boost productivity, help serve clients and enable practice expansion. Our virtual and inperson Bookkeepers Summit will give you the chance to interact with around 30 different vendors to explore which products will work best for your practice and bag some exclusive discounts in the process. It’s a win-win!

5. Network, network, network

Alex von Schirmeister, Xero Managing Director

Digitisation is not only affecting how we do business but what we pay with, and a knowledge of how to handle cryptocurrency will be increasingly important in bookkeeping. Never fear, though! We’ve got Joe David, Founder and Managing Director of cryptoaccountancy firm Myna, to give you the inside line on crypto and how to deal with it in your practice.

4. Cut a deal

Bookkeepers across the country agree that updating your bookkeeping software is crucial

Life as a self-employed bookkeeper is highly rewarding but can sometimes be insular. With multiple deadlines to meet and clients to serve, it’s easy to remain glued to your desk, but as the poet John Donne once said, “No man is an island.”

We are incredibly proud of our uniquely dynamic and supportive membership base. For that reason, the Bookkeepers Summit is the perfect place to gather business intelligence and pick up those handy tips and tricks from colleagues that will really make your practice thrive. If you’re looking to start or expand your practice or need to find specialist bookkeeping skills or additional manpower to service your clients, coming to the Bookkeepers Summit is the way to go.

We’ve worked in a whole host of opportunities for attendees

to meet and interact with peers, both at our online and inperson Summit. Our in-person event gives you a chance to get back into the networking swing, with pre-Summit drinks on 6 November, special breakout areas for mixing in the conference hall, and an exclusive parliamentary breakfast on 8 November. We’re also taking the party over to our virtual platform for the online Summit, with virtual lounge access and social events providing a great place to have indepth chats with our incredibly friendly members.

As we’ve seen, attending the Bookkeepers Summit is great for updating your knowledge, upskilling and growing your practice. If you’re tempted and want to join 1,000 of your peers at the world’s biggest gathering of bookkeepers, hurry to buy your tickets today at www.bookkeeperssummit.com. For a £10 discount on tickets, enter code XUVIP at check out.

FIND OUT MORE...

To book your ticket today, visit:

Above: The Bookkeepers Summit

“Attending the Bookkeepers Summit is great for updating your knowledge, upskilling and growing your practice”

Xero App Partners of the month

Xero’s app marketplace has over 1,000 apps which help small businesses and their advisors reach their goals. Each month Xero celebrates an app partner who stands out for helping small businesses thrive.

Xerocon Sydney Special

Ibelieve we were amongst the winners this month due to our ongoing focus on producing high performance tools for accountants and bookkeepers to streamline, automate and bring visibility to the many elements of a Xero based practice.

With every practice having different app stacks and their own unique way of doing things, the idea is that they can pick and choose the tools that resolve pain

points specific to their practice.

Most recently we’ve released into open beta our beautiful workflow tool that leverages off of a practices XPM client list to give visibility of everything happening within their practice. With the ability to create tasks through repeating templates or directly from client meeting notes, phone calls, or literally any tool across AccountKit, this is going to bring some smiles to their workflow management.

Find out more: account-kit.com/

AccountKit can also be utilised as a light CRM, with a central view by client group of all correspondence, documents, client maps, integrations and the many tools in one place. Otherwise, our superpower for Xero practices is the automation and streamlining of everyday processes that post entries direct to Xero for equipment finance, division 7a, inter-entity loans and so much more.

ider wins App Partner of the Month ‘Xerocon Sydney 2022’ Special Edition.

In September, along with a number of accountants, bookkeepers and other tech companies; the Aider team travelled to Sydney for Xerocon. We showcased our new Advisory Intelligence Platform that we built to help accountants and bookkeepers take their client data in Xero to a whole new level.

Connecting seamlessly with Xero, Aider’s Advisory Intelligence Platform pulls data and turns

it into actionable insights for advisors. Aider helps advisors identify urgent issues that require their attention, as well as identify opportunities to up-sell. It provides an aggregate view of all of their clients’ data in one place, at the same time as acting as an early-warning system.

This month we were honoured to be recognised as one of Xero’s App Partners of the Month –‘Xerocon Sydney 2022’ special edition. We believe we won this title based on our commitment to empowering accountants and bookkeepers with the use of artificial intelligence as a tool in

Want to see how Aider might help your practice?

Download our brochure

their business. We believe that with smart systems like Xero and Aider, accountants and bookkeepers can take some of the stress out of their lives, and let automation take care of the data analysis and administration for them. By using the two tools in synergy, we believe that advisors can have more control in their professional lives, as Aider will always keep them alerted of which clients’ need their help and why.

Aider helps accountants and bookkeepers become the proactive advisor their clients need.

users, by Xero users.

Following on from a successful Xerocon in London in July, the Calxa team made an even bigger impact at the Sydney event in September. Their two demonstrations to an overflowing crowd of accountants were well received.

Calxa’s session ‘Unleashing the Power of Xero Tracking Categories’ attracted many accountants working with NGOs. Their interest was on learning more about how to create flexible budgets by tracking category,

which roll up to the organisation level. Combining that with reporting on one, some or all, and you have a powerful reporting tool. For those who need to report on the intersection of 2 tracking categories or on departments across companies, Calxa helps manage those tasks as well.

Whilst businesses are cutting out hours of tedious spreadsheet work consolidating multiple Xero entities in foreign currencies. Calxa offers the largest range of currency options of any of the

Find out more: calxa.com

Xero reporting solutions. Whether you need to consolidate 2 companies or 100, Calxa can help you manage that easily.

Being an early adopter to the Xero App Store has given Calxa the opportunity to help more Xero customers with their management reporting challenges. So, it is no surprise Calxa was selected as Xero’s Staff Pick of the Month.

Find out more about Calxa here.

Find out more: workguru.io

Xerocon Sydney Special

orkGuru is incredibly proud to have been named a Xero App Partner of the Month - particularly after all the brilliant apps we saw exhibit at Xerocon. We’re absolutely thrilled to be considered.

I think the award comes from our relentless pursuit of platform improvement, and the speed with which we deliver our updates.

WorkGuru has been a Xero App Partner for a few years now, and our commitment has always been to listen to our customers,

and work with our partnersparticularly the team at Xero. Since we launched publicly at Xerocon 2019, we’ve released over 1000 updates to the platform, including customer and partner feedback every step of the way.

We’re very proud to be the most complete job costing and project management app in the Xero Ecosystem, and with our features including everything from CRM, Quoting, Timesheets, Purchasing, Inventory, Invoicing and Forms, we’re a powerful solution for Xero clients.

Xerocon was fantastic for us, and we really embraced the opportunity to engage with the accounting and bookkeeping community - and talk with them about the value that we can provide to their clients.

We’re always happy to chat to anyone about their job costing requirements, and would encourage you to reach out to the team at info@workguru.io or book straight into the calendar for a demo at https://calendly.com/ workguru

Xerocon Sydney Special

GL provides the complete Xero integration solution.

With 30+ years of trust in the accounting software space, BGL delivers Australia’s award-winning and leading cloud-based company compliance management, SMSF and portfolio administration software solutions.

The BGL Suite (which includes CAS 360, Simple Fund 360 and Simple Invest 360) provides two-way integration with Xero Practice Manager allowing clients

to efficiently manage client and contact data across four applications in a single database –a dream for any professional firm.

Features include client and contact synchronisation, prompts to review a client/contact before synchronisation, notification of duplicate client/contacts, the ability to add clients/contacts in bulk, view client/contact relationships and change history. Plus, a brand-new user interface to view and filter the integrated client list.

Find out more: bglcorp.com

“So, if a client’s details change in the BGL Suite, this change is automatically updated in Xero Practice Manager, providing seamless practice management integration for professional firms,” says Ron Lesh, BGL’s Managing Director. “Plus, when client or contact details change in any of these apps, BGL’s company compliance software, CAS 360, will prompt clients to prepare all the relevant ASIC compliance documents.”

Find out more: modano.com

T

here’s been a seismic shift in the attitude of accounting firms towards the provision of high quality business advisory services based on investment banking quality financial modelling and reporting.

5 years ago most firms at Xerocon didn’t even know what a 3-way financial model was, now they’re realising that this core skill set is a necessity if their goal is to empower their clients and maximise their growth potential.

Modano is the first Xero app to transform Xero data into a live 3-way financial model with custom forecast drivers, scenario analysis, dashboards and monthly performance reporting.

Xero tracking categories can be used for business unit profitability analysis, and multiple Xero organisations can be consolidated with eliminations. Then things like valuations can be added for strategic advisory.

We’ve also gamified business

Learn More advisory training, packaging our two decades of training everyone from KPMG to Goldman Sachs into an interactive step-by-step learning and assessment system, meaning that any accountant can now provide high quality business advisory services to their clients.

This is a major step forward in empowering Xero users with strategic insights previously only available to larger businesses with bigger budgets.

Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Help trade clients down tools and dig into data

5 reports for financial growth

Understanding the overall health and financial status of any business can be difficult without the right insights and reports. For your trade clients, day-to-day tasks involved in running service, project and maintenance work often keep them busy, so they rarely have time to look at data. But by not paying attention to data within their business, they are missing an opportunity for growth.

onsistently dedicating time to review and manage business data enables your trade clients to identify workflow blockages, eradicate outdated information, pinpoint discrepancies in revenue and much more. As their expert advisor you can be the driving force behind this change, encouraging them to run these reports as part of their regular data analysis processes.

Whether you have clients already using simPRO, or you’re new to the software, we’ve put together the top five reports that are available in simPRO to help your trade clients take their business to the next level.

1. Price Discrepancies Report

This report helps monitor materials and supplier costs, and helps identify when your clients may need to switch suppliers to get a better price for them and their customers.

Trades clients can review individual items on supplier invoices, such as price

discrepancies, applied credits and updated pricing.

2. Stock Value Report

Stocktake is a time-consuming task for many businesses. Controlling the amount, location and type of inventory is a huge job in itself, then add to it the need to regularly account for the value of materials and you’ve got a big (and frequent!) headache for the business.

With an extensive wealth of knowledge, Alan has supported many businesses implement simPRO successfully. A keen problem solver, Alan always strives to find solutions to ensure businesses achieve their desired outcomes through harnessing the right tools and the data within. Over the last 8 years Alan has built up his experience working in Operations, Business Analysis and Project Management Roles. Prior to simPRO, he was involved in a multi-million pound IT software rollout across the UK.

3. Job WIP Report

Not every job progresses in a straight line from start to finish, especially right now, where there are frequent fluctuations in material costs.

“Data-driven decision making helps trade contracting professionals improve processes & their bottom line.”

It’s important to be able to stay on top of job progress at every stage, as timeline disruptions cut into cash flow, especially if your trade clients don’t regularly invoice.

The Stock Value Report helps track the value of inventory throughout the year. It displays an overview of the value of stock across all of your storage devicesincluding separate warehouses, work vehicles, and site locations.

“You can be the driving force behind this change, encouraging them to run reports as part of their regular data analysis processes.”

Trade clients can also use the extended Report View to see the quantity and value of stock items according to part number.

That is where the Job WIP Report can help. It shows trades clients which jobs are partially or not yet invoiced, which helps identify issues early on so they can manage cash flow and other jobs accordingly.

4. Profit / Loss Report

Profit and loss analysis helps trades businesses assess their performance by reviewing the profit/loss status of invoiced jobs.

By evaluating profit and loss per job, you can help your trades clients understand:

• Which jobs are most profitable

• What common factor causes a

for Xero users, by Xero users.

@simprosoftware

Alan Hyland, UK Senior Implementation and Professional Services Officer, simPRO Software

loss on similar jobs

• Types of work that are most profitable for the business

These insights help them increase efficiency, save on costs and grow the business as a result.

5. Customer Rank Report

Ranking customers by factors such as turnover, profit margin and average invoice value helps trades clients to understand which customers are their most (and least) loyal, and therefore, most valuable.

Customer value is underpinned by customer engagement. The

more engaged a customer is, the more loyal they’re likely to be and provide steady income - which in turn improves cash flow. This analysis also helps the business identify which customers they need to engage with more in order to maintain a good longterm cash flow position.

Data is the key to unlocking optimal operations management

Data-driven decision making helps trade contracting professionals improve processes and improve their bottom line. With over 60 reports available in simPRO to measure operational efficiency,

there’s no better way to help your trades drive growth.

If you’re looking for ways to add real value back into your trade client’s business, and get visibility of data and reports that will transform the way your trade clients’ make important decisions, contact us.

Accounting & Finance Show Singapore 2022 was a huge success!

Laura joined Terrapinn in 2018 and launched the first edition of the Accounting & Finance Show Asia. The show works to drive up the adoption of digital technologies amongst SMEs, enterprises and accounting firms in Asia. The fifth edition of the event returned to Singapore this September, and now Laura and the Terrapinn team are planning for the 2023 edition, scheduled for 10-11 October 2023.

t was wonderful to be back in-person! The long-awaited fifth edition of The Accounting & Finance Show returned in-person to Suntec Convention Centre, Singapore on 21-22 September 2022, bringing together 2,000 of the region’s finance leaders and accounting firms to discover the latest digital innovations to help them to streamline their finance function and transform

their business. For the first time since 2019, attendees were finally able to catch-up with industry friends and meet new potential partners in-person, and the buzz of being back faceto-face was palpable.

Over the two days, there were over 80 insightful sessions with 120 expert

speakers sharing their insights across 4 theatres of practical and insightful content covering digital innovation, finance transformation, business growth and digital practice.

Daemeter Consulting

Our Sponsors showcased a range of innovative digital solutions designed to transform the way that accounting and bookkeeping firms operate and grow their practices. They included Xero, Aspire, Spenmo, Peakflo, KeyPay and many more.

The exhibition floor was bustling with action as hundreds of networking opportunities and meetings were arranged onsite and online. Whilst attendees were sipping on coffees and bubble teas provided by the exhibitors, they were able to benchmark the latest solutions for their

- the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

@accandfinshow

Laura Binns, General Manager, Accounting & Finance Show Asia, Terrapinn Asia

attendees loved the practical and topical conference sessions and the chance to meet with a whole range of solution providers all under one-roof.

“2 days spent at the show were incredible & I had many key takeaways which could be implemented in my organisation.”

businesses and discover the latest innovations. Many attendees signed up for new solutions right on the show floor!

Our event app platform, powered by AI, enabled our attendees, speakers and sponsors to navigate the event, access additional resources and information and

make connections. Attendees and Sponsors were able to reach out to one another even before the event began.

“I like how many service providers in the ecosystem are gathered in one place, enabling you to learn more about the products. A valueadded experience!”

Serendipity

With more attendees, more sessions and more sponsors and exhibitors, The Accounting & Finance Show Asia will return to Suntec Convention Centre on 10-11 October 2023.

If you would like to get in front of thousands of accounting and finance leaders and decision makers who are actively looking for new solutions and services, get in touch with us now to discuss how you can join us next year!

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Get in touch with us now at: calendly.com/perry-zhao/ let-s-talk

Xero

From The Trenches...

From The Trenches is proud to launch the first ever Australian Accounting Industry Awards for 2022. XU

speaks with CEO and industry influencer Trent Mclaren on the launch of the awards.

XU: Trent, tell us more about the awards? Firstly, why do they even exist? You’re not exactly reinventing the wheel here. Awards programmes exist all over the world including your home country, why are you investing so much time into this?

Trent: It’s a great question, and you’re right accounting awards programmes are rampant in most countries. They’re a lot of fun and in most cases do a good job of celebrating the right people.

But I think that’s also my point, as we had this idea I spoke to quite a few people and asked them, “What would you say if we were to launch a new awards programme?” The first question, like yours, was why? But the follow-up was overwhelmingly positive.

A lot of people are unhappy with the current format of awards in this country. They don’t believe the programme has the practitioners best interest at heart. They believe there are award categories that are commercially influenced, and not focused on practitioners who are actually on the tools all day everyday.

We’re hitting reset on the awards format and have one clear vision in mind.

How do we celebrate the right people, in the right way, in the fairest way possible.

All of our judges are practitioners, industry body CEO’s, and leading thought leaders and influencers in Australian Accounting. Not lecturers, not people who have never filed a tax return. Real

humans - who have walked the walk.

Our categories are not broken down based on what we can commercially sell to vendors. We’re trying to be uber transparent on what we’re hoping to achieve to help bring the industry on this journey with us.

We’re not trying to make a million dollars on this thing, we’re trying to shine the spotlight back on our community. At a minimum I expect we’ll cover our costs, because it needs to be sustainable now and in the future.

XU: You’re taking a few jabs here at the media companies that have been serving the industry for quite some time, what makes you think you can do it any better? Why should people trust you?

Trent: We are where we are. These initiatives must have balance and I think currently, there’s an imbalance that heavily sways to commercial needs.

To counter this we made some really clear decisions: Blind judging, no one knows the names or details of the applicants. Judges won’t know the ethnicity, gender - nothing.

Our goal is to shortlist 3-4 people per category. No 10+ people shortlists. Going for the oscars approach. Centralising around the 3 or 4 best people in their category.

All categories are focused on where an accountant or bookkeeper is at in their journey. We also introduced categories we believe the industry should

care about like the “Client Impact Award” and our “Community award.”

XU: That’s all really interesting, but why are you guys investing so much time here? You all have full-time jobs, you’ve been involved in other tech startups and accounting communities.

What’s your motivation?

Trent: Anyone that knows me, will know that I throw a lot of energy into big projects. I like to take big swings, and thankfully when it connects - I’ve been fortunate to see a lot of good done for the industry.

Yes - We operate From The Trenches in our spare time. Which hopefully speaks volumes to how much we care about this community and how it transforms over time.

We’re hyper critical, because we’re opinionated and bullish on what we believe the everyday accountant and bookkeeper needs. They’re our people.

XU: Thanks for your time Trent, it sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into the project.

XU Magazine is happy and proud to be a supporter of the Australian Accounting Industry Awards and we look forward to hearing how it all unfolds on the 1st of December at the awards gala night.

for Xero users, by Xero users.

clients to do

and users of all major account ing sof tware packages.