XU Biweekly - Issue 16 - 16th October 2021

Saturday 16 October 2021 | No. 16

XU Biweekly The independent news source for Xero users, by Xero users

Crezco raises £3m to make B2B payments as easy as B2C payments L

ONDON-BASED FINTECH START-UP CREZCO HAVE ANNOUNCED THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR SEED FUNDING ROUND FOR £3M.

additional payment products to the market and to new markets further abroad.

We’ve already doubled the headcount in the last 4 months.” Ralph (CEO)

Funding

Solving a problem

UK-founded Crezco provide free payments that settle instantly and integrate with the likes of Xero and QuickBooks to reconcile payments automatically. The solution is designed to bring the convenience of the B2C payments to the historically neglected B2B payment space and hopes to remove trade borders globally to promote international trade.

“We’re thrilled to announce such a strong raise.

The capital will now be used to expand the team to bring

Founded in 2020 by Ralph Rogge and Igor Pikovsky, Crezco have already secured integration partnerships with big names in the accounting sector like Xero and QuickBooks. Early customer reviews are shining a bright light on the company who are plugged into millions of bank accounts across the UK and Europe.

“While many companies just repackage already existing solutions and change the UI, the product remains the same. Open banking is new

technology creating new solutions for old and painful problems.”

The B2C payments space has progressed significantly from the introduction of card payments in the sixties to more recent innovations such as ApplePay, but B2B payments like invoicing have stayed the same. They lack the convenience of B2C contactless payments and are full of friction points. This is where Crezco comes in.

PSD2 and open banking presented us with an opportunity to make B2B payments as convenient as B2C card payments, but without the processing fees and delays associated with cards.

Via our open banking API...

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Accounting software with a purpose.

XERO AWARD

WINNERS! T

HE XERO AWARDS AUSTRALIA FY22 CELEBRATES THE DIVERSE BUSINESS COMMUNITY ACROSS AUSTRALIA AND ALL IT HAS ACCOMPLISHED. THE WINNERS HAVE NOW BEEN ANNOUNCED AND THIS YEAR IT WAS A THREE DAY EVENT!

Co-founders Ralph Rogge and Igor Pikovsky

Starting from the 12th October 2021, Xero dropped the winners of their three award categories: Partner, App Partner and Small Business and the People's Choice.

The awards were presented by Managing Director of Australia and Asia, Joseph Lyons, alongside comedian, actor, TV and radio host, Nazeem Hussein.

Partner Awards • Accounting Partner of the Year: Future Advisory • Bookkeeping Partner of the Year: Vital Accounts • Enterprise Partner of the Year: RSM Australia • Innovative Partner of the Year: YOUtax

• Community Partner of the Year: Together Business Australia • Cloud Champion of the Year: All In Advisory

App Awards • Practice App of the Year: ChangeGPS • Small Business App of the Year: ServiceM8 • Emerging App of the Year: Azupay • Financial Services App of the Year: Moula

Small Business Awards & People's Choice • Small Business of the Year: Two Bays Brewing Co • Emerging Small Business of the Year: PlateitForward • Sole Trader of the Year: Apparatus Quo • People's Choice: MKS Group A massive congratulations to all of the winners from the team here at XU, and a big well done to all of the brilliant finalists too!

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Accounting software with a purpose.

Saturday 16 October 2021 ISSN 2054-7234

9 772054 723006

15

New Apps & Updates

2 XU Biweekly | No. 16

Saturday 16 October 2021

September 2021 AroFlo Updates

Introducing the Xero App Launcher

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ELCOME TO THE SEPTEMBER EDITION OF AROFLO’S NEWSLETTER: A MONTHLY ROUNDUP OF OUR RECENT PRODUCT ENHANCEMENTS AND UPDATES.

By Joanna Bellis

W

E'RE EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE NEXT ROUND OF WORKFLOWMAX INVOICING IMPROVEMENTS GOES LIVE TODAY. Now your invoices can show even more detail about a job or project’s progress compared to your original quote. You can add new merge fields into your custom print templates that will pull in detailed information on your invoice about: • Quoted/estimated amounts • Previous invoice amounts • Total claimed amounts • Total unclaimed amounts or balance remaining

This functionality will be great for keeping your customers informed of what’s...

By Adam Moore

X

ERO’S NEW APP LAUNCHER BRINGS FUNCTIONALITY TO THE TOP XERO NAVIGATION, ALLOWING XERO USERS TO LAUNCH THEIR CONNECTED APPS FROM WHEREVER THEY ARE IN XERO. This provides a seamless experience, keeping our shared customers in their flow so they can get their work done faster.We’ve been running a closed beta to test the experience with a few app partners, and the Xero users who have their apps connected, and it’s gone really well. We’re excited to open our App Launcher beta up to all apps using Sign In with Xero. Keen? Check out the...

XU BIWEEKLY - No. 16

www.xumagazine.com ‘Xero’ is a trademark of Xero Limited (New Zealand). XU Biweekly and XU Magazine is collaboratively produced by an independent group of Xero users and is not affiliated in any way with Xero. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © XU Magazine Ltd 2014-2021.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher.

XU Biweekly is published by XU Magazine Ltd (08811842), registered in England and Wales. Registered office: 12 Jordan Street, Liverpool, L1 0BP, United Kingdom. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. XU Magazine Ltd cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information.

If you submit unsolicited material to us, you automatically grant XU Magazine Ltd a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in all/any editions, 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 Ltd nor its employees, agents or subcontractors shall be liable for loss or damage.

The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily the views of XU Magazine Ltd, its editors or its contributors.

SLYP & DIVIPAY'S PARTNERSHIP

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SUTRALIA'S FIRST ALL-IN-ONE SMART CORPORATE CARD AND EXPENSE MANAGEMENT PLATFORM, SLYP, HAS BEEN MADE EVEN MORE CONVENIENT BY THEIR NEW PARTNERSHIP WITH DIVIPAY. The partnership is a game-changer for business owners, assistants, finance teams, bookkeepers, accountants and employees.

Now, when DiviPay users tap their DiviPay...

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You Can Now Track Clients' Stock Levels in Dext

Xero

Newsdesk: If you have any news or updates that you would like us to consider for inclusion in the next edition of the XU Biweekly, please email us at: newsdesk@xumagazine.com

Advertising: advertising@xumagazine.com

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CEO: David Hassall Managing Editor: Wesley Cornell Director of Strategic Partnerships: Alex Newson Communications Manager: Bethany Fulks Subscription Assistant: Kacey Wright Creative Assistant: Hatty Morton

This month we introduced the ability to generate a unique email address for quotes – a convenient way to collect email correspondence by adding the quote email address as a recipient.

By Anna Curzon

N THE MONTH THAT’S BEEN, WE’VE BEEN HARD AT WORK IMPROVING THE WAY YOU DO YOUR MOST-IMPORTANT ACCOUNTING TASKS, HELPING TO MAKE YOUR REPORTS, INVOICES AND CONTACTS EXPERIENCE EVEN BETTER. LET’S DIVE IN.

Y

OU ASKED AND THEY LISTENED! DEXT HAS INTRODUCED THE ABILITY TO TRACK CLIENTS' STOCK LEVELS AND HOW MUCH THEY SPEND ON RESOURCES.

If you’re a practice user, you can now change the font size of your PDF reports in Xero HQ. We’ve introduced a new feature...

Dext have added support for Products & Services on the Cost side for Xero and Quickbooks Online, to help you give even better support to your clients.

The new feature will allow you to see exactly what they can do to improve, grow and be more profitable.

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Find out more

New features Change the font size of reports in Xero HQ – Global

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MOVE OR COPY A CHART IN SPOTLIGHT REPORTING

F YOU HAVE A CHART WHICH YOU WOULD LIKE TO KEEP, BUT MOVE TO A DIFFERENT PAGE, OR IF YOU'D LIKE TO CREATE A NEW COPY OF A CHART, YOU CAN DO THIS WITH OUR NEW OPTIONS.

• Filter By Category Option • Payment Management You can find out more about all of these features in our Support Centre.

Filter by Category Option

Xero Tracking Category or QuickBooks Class, you can now choose which category options to include in the report output. The new Options drop-down provides a list of available options for the selected Category - simply check the options you wish to include in your report.

Filter by Category Option When running reports...

When running reports by

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FINTECH STARTUP, CLARITY, LAUNCHES NEXT GENERATION BUSINESS PLANNING SOLUTION

This can be useful if you've created a custom chart which you now want to show elsewhere on your report without the need to recreate it, or if you want to have multiple copies of a chart to filter to different tracking categories.

• To create a copy of a chart • To move a chart to a different page

5D Planning enables accountants to plan their small business clients’ futures from every dimension

By Aynsley Damery

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BPAY IS COMING TO DIVIPAY

L

A

For Joiin In October 2021

S WE MOVE INTO OCTOBER WE'RE DELIGHTED TO UPDATE YOU ON THE LATEST UPDATES, NEWS AND FEATURES FROM JOIIN.

ATER THIS MONTH LAUNCHING THEIR WITH BPAY.

DIVIPAY ARE INTEGRATION

C

LARITY IS DELIGHTED TO ANNOUNCE THE LAUNCH OF 5D PLANNING, ENABLING ACCOUNTANTS TO PLAN THEIR SMALL BUSINESS CLIENTS’ FUTURES FROM EVERY DIMENSION THAT TRULY MATTERS.

BPAY will feature as an additional payment method available through DiviPay's Bills Product.

After uploading PDF bills into DiviPay, they code and extra the data, send for approval and then pay bill using EFT. You will now be able to use BPAY too!

This means you won't have to login to your bank accounts to pay bills or share bank details with your team.

Business planning is critical for success. Yet surveys show that fewer that 5% of small business owners have even a very basic financial plan. When asked, accountants often give the following responses; “clients don’t ‘get it’", “clients don’t understand the value”, “clients don’t want to pay for it”, or, as a firm, “we don’t have the resources, structure or time”, or “we’re totally overwhelmed by compliance work”.

5D Planning sets out to solve these challenges.

Clarity CEO, Aynsley Damery, said, “Our next-generation business planning is like nothing accountants have seen before. It’s delivered in a way that’s both beautifully elegant and simple. Simple enough that more of their team members can get involved in delivering business advisory services...

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News

4 XU Biweekly | No. 16

EXPANDLY FEATURE SPOTLIGHT: MULTI LOCATION MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONALITY

DEXT LAUNCHES IN AUSTRALIA

E

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SPOTTED ON LINKEDIN

World Mental Health Day:

Be empathetic, be #human

A sneak peek at the exciting exhibitor lineup for Xero Roadshow Asia 2021

By Nicole Reid

A

XCITING NEWS FOR OUR AUSTRALIAN READERS, AS DEXT COMMERNCE HAS OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED DOWN UNDER. The launch opens up many Aussie firms' ability to take on more clients by simplifying the collection and categorisation of sales data from 16 e-commerce, point of sale and payment platforms, such as Stripe, Shopify and Square.

Saturday 16 October 2021

Read about our new Multi-Location Management functionality and what it can do for you

A

S OF THIS WEEK, PREMIUM USERS OF EXPANDLY CAN NOW MANAGE THEIR STOCK LEVELS ACROSS MULTIPLE LOCATIONS FROM WITHIN ONE CENTRAL PLATFORM. OUR NEW MULTI-LOCATION MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONALITY ENABLES THE USER TO MANAGE PRODUCTS, STOCK, ORDERS, RETURNS AND PO’S AT A LOCATION LEVEL. THEY CAN: • Easily set up locations in Expandly and manage stock levels efficiently across their storage locations • Set up location orders to determine where to pick stock from when orders are...

S WE CONTINUE TO TRY TO FIND OUR FEET AND ADJUST TO NEW WAYS OF WORKING AND LIVING, I DON’T THINK I’M THE ONLY ONE FINDING IT HARD TO KEEP TRACK OF THINGS – ESPECIALLY DURING THESE TIMES. It’s World Mental Health Day today.

And, regardless of where we are in the world and how we might regard a person’s sense of self, it’s obvious that we’re living in unusual times. It feels like an understatement to say that looking after our mental health is really important.

The global World Mental Health Day theme this year is ‘mental health in an unequal world’. For me, this is about acknowledging people around the world have very different and in some cases unequal experiences balancing their mental health including access to help and support.

As such, it’s so important that we...

By Devere Bryan

W

HILE WE MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO MEET FACE-TO-FACE THIS YEAR FOR XERO ROADSHOW ASIA 2021, OUR COMMITMENT TO SHOWCASING THE MOST INNOVATIVE BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY TO OUR ACCOUNTING AND BOOKKEEPING PARTNERS REMAINS UNCHANGED. This year, we celebrated the exciting milestone of 1,000 app connections and connections to over 300 banks and financial service providers. We also unveiled the Xero App Store - an all-in-one platform for small...

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Calling the rockstars of accounting: Xero Awards entries now open for UK, South Africa and Ireland

WELCOME TO THE AMERICAS EDUCATION MONTH

By Tony Ward

R

EADY TO DIVE INTO A STACK OF WEBINARS COVERING EVERYTHING FROM BUILDING YOUR BUSINESS TO IMPROVING LEADERSHIP AND WELLBEING AT WORK?

Xero Education Month is your chance to jump in a month-long learning experience brought to you by experts from around the world. You’ll hear from the Xero team, as well as from members of our wider community and external professionals, who are ready to help you do beautiful business.

You’ll have access to a range of education webinars and in-person events (where possible) that cover: • Xero tips and tricks to drive efficiency in your business • Thought leadership to challenge your thinking • Wellbeing advice to help you support yourself and your team

Find out more

A

E ARE THRILLED TO ANNOUNCE THAT ENTRIES FOR THE XERO AWARDS ARE NOW OPEN FOR OUR UK, IRELAND AND SOUTH AFRICA ACCOUNTING, BOOKKEEPING AND APP PARTNERS.

T XERO, OUR GOAL IS TO HELP YOUR BUSINESS OR PRACTICE THRIVE BY PROVIDING REPORTS THAT ARE EASY TO USE, WITH VALUABLE INSIGHTS YOU CAN TRUST. WE’VE HAD TWO VERSIONS OF OUR REPORTS FOR A WHILE NOW – THE OLDER VERSION AND OUR ‘NEW’ REPORTS, WHICH IS WHERE ALL OUR EXCITING NEW FEATURES AND ADDITIONAL VALUE CAN BE FOUND.

The last year has again amplified the important role that our partner community has played. Many of you have been the first line of support for small businesses as we all navigate our way out of the global pandemic. The impact your support has on our local communities is immeasurable.

There’s no doubt you’ve experienced some tough times over the past year. But we know amongst it all that there have been good times – even great times – too. We know there have been successes. And we want to hear those success stories and celebrate them with you.

The Xero Awards are our chance to celebrate you and share your stories. That’s why we encourage you to put your practice forward, because we think you’re worth...

In the months ahead, as we ramp up our investment in technology, you’ll start seeing even more value packed into our new reports. They’ll have features you love in the older version, with even more functionality and a refreshed design. It’s all part of our vision to provide you with a custom suite of reports to help you get answers fast, and streamline your financial analysis.

I’ve already shared some of our recent enhancements to new reports, including the ability to tailor your Account Transactions report, add Total and YTD columns in Profit and Loss reports, add watermarks, and change the font size in Xero HQ. We can now give you a sneak peek into some of the other exciting changes that are on their way in the months ahead.

Read more

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By Ashleigh Gibson

W

Want to increase your client satisfaction?

Board our spacecraft and work with AdvanceTrack by booking your call with our team

01 ENGAGE 02 ONBOARD 03 DATA 04 AUTOMATE 05 CHECKS 06 LEARN 07 COMMUNICATE

Book a Zoom meeting with our team advancetrack.com/start-here/ www.advancetrack.com Where Quality and Security comes as standard

Events/Features

6 XU Biweekly | No. 16

Saturday 16 October 2021

XU MAGAZINE IS CPD CERTIFIED

TACKLING CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY SCHEME ABUSE

THE UK GOVERNMENT IS KEEN TO TACKLE THE ABUSE OF THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY SCHEME (CIS)

By Ian Holloway

W

A

E HAVE BEEN W O R K I N G CLOSELY WITH THE CPD CERTIFICATION SERVICE TO HAVE OUR ARTICLES CPD CERTIFIED.

S CIS DEDUCTIONS ARE A LARGE PART OF MANY PAYROLL AND BOOKKEEPING PROFESSIONALS’ DAY-TO-DAY LIVES, IT IS SENSIBLE TO REPORT ON THIS LOGICALLY, CULMINATING IN THE ACTION THAT EMPLOYERS WILL HAVE TO TAKE FROM APRIL 2022.

From April 2021 At the March 2020 UK Budget, a consultation entitled ‘Tackling Construction Industry Scheme Abuse’ was published. This proposed further measures on the perceived abuses of the Scheme already tackled in part courtesy of provisions in the Finance Act 2021, Schedule 6.

In short, one of the measures in Schedule 6 gave HMRC the powers to amend the number of CIS deductions claimed on a sub-contractor Employer Payment Summary (EPS) where they identify or suspect that inaccurate amounts have been claimed.

It is worthwhile reading HMRC’s Policy Paper dated 26 March 2021 for full details of the changes to the Scheme...

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ISSUE 28 OUT NOW! X

T

There are 8 awesome sessions spread across the gave to give you an insight and refresh on 18 awesome Xero Connected Apps. The day will feature Calxa, Fathom, Spotlight Reporting, Moula Pay, earlypay, Waddle, Dear, Unleashed, WorkGuru.io, Clarity Street, CloudSolve, TradiePad, Waypoint, WhichAddOn, SMB Consultants, Practice Connections, WorkflowMax and more!

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Q&A with Amreeta Abbott, CEO/Founder, Annature U: WE WERE EXCITED TO SEE THE RECENT LAUNCH OF ANNATURE AND INTEGRATION WITH XERO. WHAT LED YOU TO STARTING IT?

HE NEXT DIGITAL *APPY FRIDAY* SERIES IS COMING UP THIS MONTH WITH XERO REFRESH.

As you read through our sister publication, XU Magazine, any article that shows the CPD Certified logo has been approved to count towards your CPD points.

AA: After we sold NowInfinity, I knew straight away what I wanted to focus on next and this came from my own experience of dealing with out-dated eSignature providers, who stopped innovating and over pricing for their services. It left a sour taste in my mouth. It didn’t feel right. So out of that pain and frustration of having to deal with big eSignature companies, I decided that I could do it better.

XU: Why do you feel like people need a digital signing solution?

AA: It’s 2021, the world has been forced online because of COVID. No one is printing, signing, scanning or dropping signed documents to the post office anymore. It’s inefficient, it slows down entire workflows. It’s not secure and it’s just unnecessary.

XU: Before you founded Annature, what were you doing? What is your background in?

AA: Prior to founding Annature, I had recently departed Class Limited. Class had acquired my first startup which a lot of the accounting community loved.

NowInfinity. It was corporate compliance software, to help streamline business entity setups directly integrated with the government’s online portals.

XU: How have you found the experience of setting up your own FinTech businesses?

AA: Thankfully it’s not my first rodeo, but I love it.

There’s so much innovation here in Australia. I’m constantly amazed at all the awesome things happening in space. Thankfully a lot of my existing network were really interested in what we were doing, because like me, they’ve also been burned by incumbent providers and were screaming for a better way forward. Which we know and believe is Annature.

XU: As a female entrepreneur, do you feel like your gender impacted how you were perceived in this sector?

AA: I think women in business get the raw end of

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the deals sometimes. We’re not all loud-mouthed and extroverted, and we don’t need to be. The boardroom used to be dominated by conflicting personalities but I think we’re starting to see a real turning point in the last few years. We’ve got more women on-board than ever before. There are some amazing female role models out there that are really paving the way forward. I’m just happy to help do my part!

XU: In what way have your past experiences helped you with starting Annature?

AA: Understanding the

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grind and the hustle that’s required. 1+1 doesn’t always equal 2 when you’re building a business. Sure you can rely on previous experiences but it will only get you so far.

What got you here, won’t get you there. My existing network, and an understanding of how the ups and downs of entrepreneurship flows is in-valuable.

XU: Annature was started during the Covid-19 pandemic. How do you think this impacted setting up the business?

AA: We are a little...

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Classifieds

XU Biweekly | No. 16

Saturday 16 October 2021

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TUTORIALS CASE STUDIES INTERVIEWS NEW APPS NEW RELEASES

ISSUE 28 OUT NOW!

Features

8 XU Biweekly | No. 16

Don’t wait to get paid

Saturday 16 October 2021

Invoice finance with Hydr is a powerful tool to optimise cash flow

By Nicola Weedall

C

O-FOUNDERS NICOLA AND HECTOR DISCUSS HOW HYDR GOES BEYOND MARKET NORMS TO ENCOURAGE MORE SMALL BUSINESSES TO CONSIDER INVOICE FINANCE..CO-FOUNDERS NICOLA AND HECTOR DISCUSS HOW HYDR GOES BEYOND MARKET NORMS TO ENCOURAGE MORE SMALL BUSINESSES TO CONSIDER INVOICE FINANCE...

There is not a single company that enjoys waiting to get paid. Long payment terms are tough to manage; late payers are simply behaving badly. Both issues have a detrimental impact on cash flow.

Invoice finance, done well, can help businesses get paid almost immediately for the products or services they have delivered and invoiced, rather than waiting out the payment terms, hoping that their customer will honour them.

It’s a powerful concept, yet many don’t use it. Having studied the market, we think we know why – invoice finance has been

made overly complicated, pricing is opaque at best and the application process can take days, sometimes weeks.

We’re changing that. We launched our proprietary platform exclusively with Xero earlier this year with simplicity, transparency and a seamless digital experience at the heart of our proposition. We go beyond market norms to encourage more small businesses to use this tool to optimise their cash flow.

Our integration with Xero is central to our proposition. You can onboard within minutes and we can give funding decisions in real time. Once on our platform, you raise your invoices within Xero, just as before, we automatically detect this and then for the customers we have agreed to fund, we pay 100% of the invoice value (not 70% or 80%) minus our fee within 24 hours.

There’s more. Our deep Xero integration means you will always know when your debtor pays us back and we’ll allocate that payment to your Xero account and offset

HELPING PRACTICES PROSPER WITH MAKING TAX DIGITAL FOR INCOME TAX & WOLTERS KLUWER

By Evan Jones

H

OW CAN ADVISORS CAPITALISE ON MAKING TAX DIGITAL FOR INCOME TAX TO GROW THEIR PRACTICES AHEAD OF APRIL 2023?

When speaking with accountants, it’s clear that most are aware of the changes that Making Tax Digital for Income Tax will bring, in terms of the vast increase in the number of submissions being made.

What advisors really want to know is what they should be doing now to make sure they are well prepared. Advisors are also keen to explore how they can capitalise on Making Tax Digital for In-

come Tax to transform and grow their practices ahead of April 2023.

Making Tax Digital is part of HMRC’s ambition to become one of the most digitally advanced tax administrations in the world.

Inevitably there is bound to be a certain amount of trepidation as MTD fundamentally changes the way the tax system works. What might the penalties be for clients, or for the practice, if the rules are not diligently followed?

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (MTDfIT) is no exception. Some practices fear that their clients won’t understand it and that it

your Hydr fee to an expense account of your choice, enabling a seamless reconciliation without you needing to do a thing.

Complex, opaque fee structures are not for us! Rather than subscriptions, listing fees, daily interest calculations and added credit insurance, we simply quote you a single, all-inclusive fee that is fair and fixed. We want you to know exactly what you will pay to receive 100% of the value of your invoice.

Every invoice is credit insured and our fee will never change – even if your customer is late to pay.

In addition to our proprietary software and charging fair, fixed fees, we’re also human. We’re experts in lending and collections, it’s what we do every day. We want to be regarded as an extension of your finance team, as well as an extension of your Xero capability. Building strong relationships with your customers is as important to us as paying your invoice within 24 hours, so any...

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XU Hub may lead to increased time and effort with no associated increase in revenue or, even worse, a drop in practice productivity.

However, there are many tangible benefits to MTDfIT that could contribute to sig-

nificant business growth and development opportunities.

Practices could potentially see an increase in compliance revenues...

is now live on Apple News!

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EMBRACING FINANCIAL PROCESSES TO POWER A NEW FUTURE

FOLLOW OUR SISTER PUBLICATION... I

By Nicki Letts - Tidy Int

N A COMPANY LED BY INVENTORS, HOW DO YOU INTRODUCE PROCESSES THAT WILL FEED GROWTH AND INNOVATION, NOT STIFLE THEM? THAT WAS THE CHALLENGE FACED BY THE FINANCE TEAM AT FULCRUM3D.

@xumagazine @xumagazine @XU Magazine

Fulcrum3D is a classic startup story. Like many great businesses, the Australian tech company was founded by people who are passionate about providing a solution to a problem. Back in 2011, the problem was how to measure and provide reliable data for renewable resources, such as wind and solar. To solve it, a team of renewable energy specialists based in Sydney came together to invent technologies that could provide precise data to predict electrical output from

wind and solar farms.

Fast forward to 2021 and Fulcrum3D’s products and solutions are being used by the renewable energy sector worldwide. In fact, its flagship Sodar wind monitoring system is one of only five remote sensing instruments globally considered to provide bankable wind data by leading independent consultants.

As the business has grown, so too has the breadth of products and services they provide. That’s the thing about inventors - they never stop innovating.

Finance manager, Stephanie Schreiber, explained that...

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FinTech News

10 XU Biweekly | No. 16

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By Dan Leberman

I

T HASN’T BEEN AN EASY YEAR AND A HALF FOR MOST SMALL BUSINESSES. THE PANDEMIC UPENDED THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT, AND FORCED RETAILERS OF ALL SIZES TO ADAPT QUICKLY. WHILE DIGITAL PAYMENTS WERE ALREADY ON THE RISE, SOCIAL DISTANCING MEASURES BOOSTED THE DRIVE TOWARD DIGITAL — AND MERCHANTS FELT THE PRESSURE. The Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted small businesses, and businesses owned by u n d e r s e r ve d populations have been hit especially hard. To stay afloat and remain competitive, businesses are shifting strategies, adopting new technologies and turning to data to better understand and serve their customers.

PayPal is committed to helping these organizations to continue to grow. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, PayPal launched resource pages for merchants and consumers, facilitated over 75,000 Paycheck Protection Program loans to small businesses in the US, waived check-cashing fees

for stimulus checks in the US, and launched new products to aid small businesses adapting to the new-normal.

This included the ability to take payments using PayPal QR Codes and buy now, pay later solutions such as PayPal Pay in 4 in the US. In June 2020, PayPal also pledged a USD $530 million commitment to support black and minority-owned businesses, strengthen minority communities, and fight economic inequality.

In December of 2020, it announced an additional USD $5 million grant program for black-owned businesses as the Covid crisis continued.

Small businesses will increasingly continue to rely on new technology and digital commerce tools, as consumer expectations around flexibility and choice grow. PayPal remains committed to aiding in the growth and success of merchants around the world, through new products and solutions, as well as corporate social impact programs and community activism.

How Small Businesses Can Thrive in the...

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Our stated mission is to become the go-to spending solution for forward-thinking teams everywhere.

That means taking bold steps to show more businesses, of all shapes and sizes, the difference Pleo can make to their spending and their culture.

So, how’s this for bold? We’re going Free.

Our Free price plan means new users can take advantage of Pleo’s most popular features, for up to 5 users – at no charge.

Ready to go Free?

The word “free” has a special power, so maybe you’ve already heard everything you need to and are ready to start using Pleo.

We love that energy…

And you’re in luck.

The Free price plan is live, right now, in the UK, Germany, Ireland, Sweden and Denmark. It will follow later this year in Spain.

And shout out to the customers in Germany who showed such a keen appetite for Free during the trial over the last few months. We've learned a lot from you!

The Free price plan includes a select catalogue of Pleo features – for up to 5 users.

That includes physical...

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Practice Ignition Expands R&D in Toronto to Focus on North American Market W E'RE EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE OUR PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING A NEW RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT (R&D) TEAM BASED OUT OF NORTH AMERICA IN TORONTO. THIS TEAM WILL CONSIST OF NEW ROLES FOCUSED ON DESIGN, PRODUCT MANAGEMENT, AND ENGINEERING TO SUPPORT THE COMPANY'S INNOVATION AND CUSTOMER EXPANSION GOALS IN THE REGION. "Strategically, this decision aligns with a number of the company's goals and objectives and we see this as a critical step in scaling the

platform and deploying software to our thousands of customers around the world, many of whom are in North America," says Dane Thomas, CPO and co-founder of Practice Ignition. "We know Toronto is a leading technology hub and will enable us to find world-class talent to join our team and our journey to transform how accountants and bookkeepers engage clients, create efficiencies and get paid."

The investment in Toronto will allow Practice Ignition to strategically focus on overarching product development, with a focus on U.S. and Canadian cus-

tomer needs. The team will join the existing marketing, sales and customer experience teams already based in Toronto. The R&D team will work closely with and report into Practice Ignition's product team headquartered in Australia.

"We're excited to expand our team in North America to include product centricity which will enable us to move faster at a global level while helping us respond to regional-specific customer needs," says Matt Kanas, Head of Americas at Practice Ignition.