XU Biweekly - Issue 2 - 5th April 2021

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Monday 5 April 2021 | No. 2

XU Biweekly

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The independent news source for Xero users, by Xero users

XERO TO ACQUIRE TICKSTAR

A HOTEL CHOCOLAT EASTER HAMPER

Driving adoption of e-invoicing globally T ODAY, WE’RE EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THE ACQUISITION OF TICKSTAR, WHICH PROVIDES E-INVOICING INFRASTRUCTURE AND EXPERTISE TO GOVERNMENTS AND BUSINESSES AROUND THE WORLD.

We currently use Tickstar’s technology to connect Xero customers to e-invoicing networks in Australia and New Zealand. This acquisition will provide us with continued access to e-invoicing networks, while providing Tickstar with additional resources to service its existing customers and acquire new ones.

Get paid faster with e-invoicing We believe e-invoicing is one of the next big innovations that will help small

businesses and advisors streamline their accounting work and get paid faster. E-invoicing provides significant efficiencies — reducing administration time, invoicing errors, and the risk of invoice fraud. It also makes it easy for governments and businesses to pay invoices faster, as the process is automated and there is no need to manually enter data or chase missing information. As adoption grows around the world, e-invoicing is likely to become a best practice standard and natural part of the cloud accounting process, like bank feeds and e-tax filing. In fact, some governments may mandate e-invoicing in the years ahead. This will be similar to what governments have done with Single Touch Payroll

in Australia, payday filing in New Zealand, and Making Tax Digital in the UK. So if you’re already using Xero, you’ll be in a better position to comply with any future e-invoicing legislation. Take a look at our e-invoicing fact sheet to find out more about e-invoicing, including how it works and where it has been adopted around the world.

Welcoming Tickstar to the Xero team Tickstar is based in Stockholm, Sweden, and provides e-invoicing infrastructure and services to customers around the world. Tickstar will operate as a Xero subsidiary company. Following the acquisition, we plan to expand Tickstar’s development team, so they can scale the platform and develop additional product

features for their government and business customers.

Investing in the future of e-invoicing This development in our e-invoicing capability is incredibly exciting, and we look forward to helping you realise all the benefits that e-invoicing brings. It also opens up opportunities for partners in our App Marketplace to access e-invoicing networks. However, we remain an open ecosystem and continue to welcome and support partners who use alternative access points or proprietary e-invoicing networks. In the meantime, it’s business as usual for our teams here at Xero, who continue to focus on building a seamless e-invoicing experience for you.

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Monday 5 April 2021 ISSN 2054-7234

9 772054 723006

02

P3 Fluidly partner with Virgin Money

P9

Jumio raises

$150M

By Chris Earley

I

N THE UK, OPEN BANKING HAS TRANSFORMED OUR LIVES, MAKING IT EASIER FOR CONSUMERS AND SMALL BUSINESSES TO SHARE DATA WITH CONSENT. IT’S POWERED NEW APPS COVERING A MULTITUDE OF USES THAT HAVE BEEN DESIGNED TO MAKE OUR LIVES EASIER.

From dashboards that help you track your finances, to seamless lending experiences allowing you to apply for finance in a few clicks. One of the most important uses of the sharing of this bank data is through powering accounting platforms like Xero. At no other time has it been more vital for small businesses to have an up-to-date view of their cash flow position. Before Open Banking, Xero had a number of direct feeds with the major banks, many of which required businesses to complete paper forms and could take weeks to connect. Fast forward to today and Open Banking has enabled them to instantly connect to a multitude of banks using their internet banking credentials. This is a vast improvement.

But there is an obstacle The implementation of Open Banking has been a huge undertaking. And in the early days, there were some growing pains, understandably so. But, performance has generally improved. There is however one outstanding obstacle that has been brought to us by

our accounting partners and small business customers. And that’s the requirement to re-authenticate using Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) (the entering of internet banking credentials) every 90 days.

So why is this an issue? Prior to Open Banking, bank feeds in Xero were typically ‘set and forget’. Meaning accountants could access their client’s Xero account and see an updated view of their financial position. Since Open Banking feeds came into play, feeds stop working after 90 days unless they are re-authenticated by the business. We believe that this has become an unnecessary measure. Accountants are now wasting valuable time chasing clients to refresh their bank feeds at least 4 times a year, sometimes more if their client has more than one business, or uses multiple banks. Open Banking was introduced to bring more competition and innovation to financial services.