XU Biweekly - Issue 41 - 22 October 2022

Xero is named one of the UK’s ‘Best Workplaces’ for women & in the tech industry

By Jen Surtees, Xero

MARKETFINANCE SECURES £30M CREDIT FACILITY TO EXPAND B2B PAY LATER OFFERING FOR SME'S

MARKETFINANCE,

to UK-based businesses.

BUILDING

AN INCLU SIVE, SUPPORTIVE WORKPLACE WHERE EVERYONE CAN DO THE BEST WORK OF THEIR LIVES SITS AT THE CENTRE OF EVERYTHING WE DO AT XERO

Actually it’s the thing that attracted me to Xero, and was the driving factor in most of our employees applying to join the team.

That’s why we are proud to be ranked so highly in two specific Best Workplaces lists – both in areas that are very close to our hearts.

The first is being ranked second in the UK’s Best Workplaces for Women. And the second is being named as the fifth Best Workplace in Tech (in the ‘large’ com panies category). This fol lows being named one of the UK’s Best Workplaces in

2022 earlier this year.

The recognition in these areas is so important to us as a business. As a growing technology company, we’ve been building a world-class tech and product team over the last few years so we can keep innovating and provid ing the best services for our customers. Last year we re designed our flexible work policy, to give our growing product and tech teams the

opportunity to work where they perform best — at home, in the office or a mix of both.

We’ve worked hard to cre ate a workplace that every one can be proud of, but there is always more work to do. This recognition pushes us to keep improving, and most importantly, to keep listening to and learning...

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THE LEADING FIN TECH CREDIT AND PAYMENTS COMPANY, HAS SECURED A £30M CRED IT FACILITY FROM VIOLA, THE ISRAELI TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT GROUP, TO EXPAND ITS B2B PAY LAT ER EMBEDDED FINANCE OFFERING FOR SMES.

Available in Sterling, US Dollars, and Euros, the facil ity will enable more online businesses to offer flexible payment terms of up to 90 days at checkout to buyers across multiple geographies. The agreement enables Mar ketFinance to provide credit worth up to £240m per year on rolling 45 - 90 day terms

To date, MarketFinance has made over £45m availa ble to more than 2,000 buy ers via embedded finance. With MarketFinance able to raise funds in a challenging global investment environ ment, and lend in local cur rencies, UK-based suppli ers are better able to serve buyers in Europe and North America, supporting their international growth.

Viola, which has more than $4.5bn assets under management globally, has previously invested a total of £75m with MarketFinance to support the company’s en try into the business loans...

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Cape partners with Codat to save SMEs thousands of hours on administrative tasks per year

AIRWALLEX, A LEAD ING GLOBAL FIN TECH PLATFORM, TODAY ANNOUNCED THAT IT RECENTLY CLOSED ITS SERIES E EXTENSION (“SE RIES E2”) WITH THE SAME US$5.5 BILLION VALUA TION, AND SECURED MORE FUNDS FROM EXISTING INVESTORS SQUARE PEG, SALESFORCE VENTURES, SEQUOIA CAPITAL CHINA, LONE PINE CAPITAL, HER MITAGE CAPITAL, 1835I VENTURES AND TENCENT.

HostPlus, an Australian in dustry superannuation fund, as well as a leading North

American pension fund also participated in this round. With an additional US$100 million, Airwallex’s total funding increased to more than US$900 million to pro pel the company’s global growth trajectory.

“The valuation under scores investors’ confidence in Airwallex’s core business value and fundamentals, and we are fortunate to have the continued support of our existing investors, and the confidence of new investors, as we pursue our vision to become the global econom ic infrastructure for mod ern businesses,” said Jack

Zhang, Co-founder and CEO at Airwallex. “The market environment remains chal lenging in the foreseeable future, and while we remain well capitalised, this addi tional runway allows us to continue our growth plans, product expansion, and hire some of the best talents in the world. By strengthening the breadth of our global reach and product offering, we can better empower our customers to unlock new market opportunities.”

The Melbourne-founded company accelerated its international expansion in 2021, successfully extend

ing its reach across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, serving three of the largest e-commerce mar kets in the world: China, the United States and the Unit ed Kingdom. Today, tens of thousands of modern busi nesses leverage Airwallex’s global payments and bank ing platform to process payments and move money efficiently anywhere around the world.

“We are building one of the world’s most powerful global payment and banking infrastructure,” Jack adds...

Find out more

CAPE,

AN INNOVATIVE EXPENSE MANAGE MENT PLATFORM IS SUING CORPORATE CARDS TO AUSTRALIA’S SMES, RE CENTLY PARTNERED WITH CODAT, THE UNIVERSAL API FOR SMALL BUSINESS DATA, TO AUTOMATE AC COUNTING ADMINISTRA TIVE TASKS AT SCALE.

Companies spend an es timated 520 hours a year on manual accounting and administrative tasks. Cape’s partnership with Codat will automate an estimated 50% of the tasks related to ex pense reconciliation, saving hundreds of hours a year for each business that uses it.

In the digital era, CFOs

face a double-edged sword: scaling their teams opera tional capabilities while pro viding strategic advice to management. To meet these challenges, finance opera tions need to be streamlined through automation to miti gate and alleviate time-con suming, monotonous tasks.

Cape is taking advantage of two aspects of Codat’s service to achieve the above. Firstly, Cape will utilise a push integration with Codat to store users’ Chart of Ac counts rules in Cape's plat form and then automatically sync transactions with Xero and Quickbooks each time...

The independent news source for Xero users, by Xero users

Read

New Apps & Updates

RAVE BUILD GENERAL UPDATE – 12 OCTOBER

By Cody Bunea

AT RE-LEASED, OUR “CUSTOMER FIRST” MANTRA IS AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHING WE DO. WITH THIS IN MIND, WE CHECK OURSELVES DAI LY BY ASKING, "IS THIS WHAT'S BEST FOR OUR CUSTOMERS?".

So, in a recent meeting, inspired by an initiative from Slack, we asked our selves - what does that mean in practice? We love our customers, but in what ways can we ex press that love?

The obvious answer most businesses will give is to continue to build

XU BIWEEKLY - No. 41 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

CEO: David Hassall

Managing Editor: Wesley Cornell Director of Strategic Partnerships: Alex Newson Communications Manager: Bethany Fulks Creative Assistant: Hatty Morton Advertising: advertising@xumagazine.com 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 2014-2022. 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: Office 1, Brunswick House, Brunswick Way, Liverpool, L3 4BN, 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.

great products and features that enhance their custom ers' ability to do their jobs well and make their busy lives much more managea ble. Although our customers get massive value from the big-ticket things we work on, the things that appear trivial often cause the most friction. Solving these lit tle pains can sometimes be just as important to our cus tomers as releasing the next game-changing feature.

What did we do?

We dedicated significant resources from our prod uct and engineering de partments to a two-week

customer love project, where we focused on the small stuff. Over these two weeks, our Prod uct & Engineering teams completed 86 individual enhancements related to removing friction and pain points, as reported by you - our customers.

Below is a webinar proudly showcasing all the incredible work we did in two short weeks, all with the goal of mak ing your Re-Leased expe rience that little bit more enjoyable.

Below is a webinar proudly showcasing all...

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Introducing expert agenda templates

By Corey Te Moananui

SNEAK

PEEK – THIS UPDATE GOES LIVE THE EVENING OF WEDNESDAY THE 12TH OCTOBER

Auto-filling’ fields fix when add ing/updating client/project details – Update

Some users reported browser auto-fill is sues when adding new clients and updating project information, this issue has now been resolved.

Client login creation update –Improvement

Previously when creating a new client login, the username was randomly generat ed. This has been updated to a ‘firstname. lastname’ format. Additionally, users can still replace this with the client’s email ad dress if preferred.

Find out more

October 2022 | Recurly Product launch summary

By Niraj Naik

Introducing eWidgets to elevate your team performance

By Vignesh S

By Rory Macrae

WE’VE

MADE HOSTING SMART ER CLIENT MEET INGS EVEN EASIER WITH THE LAUNCH OF OUR LI BRARY OF ACCOUNTING MEETING AGENDAS. WE’VE GOT AGENDAS THAT COV ER THE FULL CLIENT LI FECYCLE FROM DISCOV ERY AND ONBOARDING THROUGH TO COMPLI ANCE AND ADVISORY MEETINGS. WE’VE EVEN

GOT AGENDA TEMPLATES FOR ACCOUNTING TEAM MEETINGS!

How do I access expert agendas?

Our complete library of expert meeting agenda tem plates is available for free on our website.

To use an expert agenda...

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Fathom: Easier sharing, sticky headings for online reports, and forecasting improvements

By Calen Olesen

FOR SOME TIME NOW, YOU’VE BEEN ABLE TO SHOW FORECAST ED RESULTS FOR YOUR FINANCIAL KPIS IN YOUR FATHOM TREND CHARTS. WE’VE BROUGHT THAT CAPABILITY TO YOUR KPI TRENDS TABLES AS WELL!

Share your custom tables and financial statements with ease

If you spend time creating a custom financial statement or KPI table, then you may want to share it across com panies and groups in your Fathom organisation.

Previously, when a report containing a custom table was shared between com panies, the table would not appear in the report if it con tained individual accounts or headings or custom KPIs.

We've made some up dates to ensure your custom tables will be included in reports that are shared be tween companies or groups. 1. If custom KPIs have been added to a KPI table, Fath om will match those KPIs across companies if they are added to the KPI Li brary.

Keep reading

IN

KEEPING WITH THE SEASON, OUR ENGINEERS HAVE FILLED OCTOBER’S PRODUCT LAUNCH WITH NOTHING BUT TREATS. IN ALL, THERE ARE TWO NEW FEATURES AND ONE NEW SERVICE.

Here’s what’s new and why it matters.

New custom report builder: We’re hear ing from merchants that they want more and better subscription and billing data–and they want easy ways to get it. That’s the thinking behind the Recurly Builder, an easy and effective tool to create custom reports and dashboards all built into the Recurly app, which you can download for further analysis.

Read more

Introducing

By Amy Crooymans

ECOMMERCE

ACCOUNTING CAN BE COMPLEX, ESPECIALLY WHEN COM PARED TO TRADITIONAL BRICK AND MORTAR RETAILERS.

From selling large volumes of products across multiple sales channels in different states, provinces, or countries to dealing with multiple tax requirements, there’s a lot you need to account for.

That’s why A2X (and our network of ex pert ecommerce accounting and book keeping partners) exists! To automate your ecommerce accounting, save you hours a month, while providing you with the most accurate financials.

Find out more

ACCORDING

•

TO STATISTA, AN ORGANIZATION USES AN AV ERAGE OF 121 SAAS APPLICA TIONS. THERE IS NOW AN APP FOR ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING THAT’S DONE IN DAY-TO-DAY BUSINESS, AND MODERN COMPANIES HAVE BEGUN TO HARNESS THE TRUE POTENTIAL OF THESE APPLICATIONS TO BOOST THEIR TEAMS’ PERFORMANCE.

At Zoho TeamInbox, we’re constantly exploring different opportunities to help you reap the benefits of other applica tions to meet the needs of your busi ness. Integrating your shared inbox tool with other workplace tools can help you get more done while you’re managing your emails and other tasks. As part of our efforts, we’re excited to introduce our integrations with these applications:

• Zoho Desk

•

• Zoho Meeting

•

Zoho Desk

Customer-facing teams can often find it cumbersome to provide excellent cus tomer service to their customers. The Zoho Desk extension in Zoho TeamInbox lets you handle your tickets and perform customer-support activities right inside your email thread.

Some of the things you can do with this extension include creating new tickets, assigning tickets to yourself or someone on your team, viewing and managing the tickets assigned to you as well as unassigned tickets, changing...

NEW XERO CONNECTED APPS!

ZELT

UK - Your all-in-one people plat form for simple management. Man age everything from payroll, benefits, devices, apps and more in one central hub. From complex tasks to simple todo's, Zelt can help.

SPROUTANALYTICS

GLOBAL - A powerful analytics tools that imports all Xero data available and provides enterprise-grade analy sis. The easiest and fastest way to ana lyze data, uncover hidden insights and make smart decisions.

New ramp pricing feature unlocks more acquisition & retention options in Recurly

By Eric Holle

News & Updates

Rave Build NEW Feature – Bulk Reassignment of Schedule Tasks

By Corey Te Moananui

FROM

STREAMING SERVICES TO TA COS TO HEATED SEATS IN BMWS, PEOPLE SIGN UP FOR SUBSCRIP TIONS FOR A VARIETY OF REASONS. THE REASON THAT TOPS THEM ALL, THOUGH, IS PRICE.

Pricing is critical to the success of sub scription-based companies, not just dur ing the acquisition phase. Price is also the number one reason people cancel their subscriptions, which means offering the right price at the right time is essential to minimizing churn and scaling your sub scription business.

Recurly already offers more plan pric ing options than anyone–options that help you create and adjust subscription plans that attract new subscribers and re tain existing ones. But we’re not ready to stop there. We’re introducing a new...

Keep reading

SPOTTED ON LINKEDIN

WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT RAVE NOW ALLOWS BRANCH USERS TO SELECT A SCHEDULE ASSIGNEE AND REASSIGN ALL OF THEIR TASKS TO A DIFFERENT PERSON VIA THE PROJECT’S SCHEDULE ACTION DROPDOWN LIST.

With the options of re moving site staff and con tractors from the project, and notifying either/or both the old and new task assign ees if the schedule is live.

How to use RAVE’s new Bulk Reassign

ment of Schedule Tasks feature

1. You can access the ‘Re place Assignee’ feature, via the project’s schedule sub-tab’s action drop down – being the 3 dots to the right of the job num ber.

2. Then via the ‘Replace As signee in the Schedule’ pop-up:

3. Select the ‘Current As signee’ you want to swap out tasks for

4. Deciding if you want to remove the site manager/ staff or contractor from the peoples list for this

project, and whether you want to notify them of their removal*

5. Select the ‘New Assignee’, again deciding if you want notify them of their addi tion*

6. Choose an overnight or immediate notification*

7. With the option of adding a message to either party*

8. Finally clicking on the ‘Re place Assignee’ button to action.

ALL assigned tasks for THIS schedule only, will be reassigned to the new task...

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Changes to multi-factor authentication are coming for Australian customers

By Suzy Clarke

By Alex Hoffman

WEHINTED AT THIS A LITTLE WHILE AGO AND NOW IT'S OF FICIALLY HERE! WE'VE MOVED FROM OUR OLD QUICK AND ADVANCED REPORTS TO REPORT TEMPLATES.

Templates are easy to use and further sim plify the reporting experience on Syft. The new names are also intended to be easier to understand, so you don't have to spend time debating whether your reports are "quick" or "advanced".

At the end of the day, the process of build ing a report should be simple so that you can dedicate your time and energy to inter preting what the report says rather than how to put it together. Read all about our new report Templates below!

All about templates

If you take a look at the left side panel on Syft, you will see that Quick and Advanced Reports have now merged into Templates. So, as a result, the three tabs you find under Reports are now: Templates, Live Views, and Schedules.

Read more

By Ben Clendon

UX / Usability improvements

• Introduced the second tranche of a re vamped payouts table and form: divi dends in NZ portfolios

• Introduced some UX styling tweaks such as the typeface change on our page head ers

• Introduced a revamped onboarding screen, to align with our brand moving forward

• Improved the all trades report and holding page load time by 50% for users with Xero connections

Broker import functionality

• Introduced support for Stocktrade trade confirmations

Find out more

OVER

THE LAST FEW YEARS, OUR LIVES – AND BUSINESSES ACROSS THE WORLD – HAVE MOVED ONLINE AT A RAPID PACE. UN FORTUNATELY, CYBERCRIMINALS HAVE FOLLOWED AND ARE USING NEW, DIG ITAL METHODS TO TARGET AUSTRAL IANS. AT XERO, WE ARE CUSTODIANS OF YOUR DATA AND DO ALL WE CAN TO PROTECT THE INFORMATION HELD IN YOUR ACCOUNT.

One of the ways we do this is through multi-factor authentication (MFA), a pro cess designed to secure how you log in to Xero and verify it’s really you. An upcom ing Australian Tax Office (ATO) update

to MFA regulations means anyone that accesses an Australian organisation glob ally needs to re-authenticate their device every 24 hours when logging in to Xero.

So, tell me more about what's...

Find out more

Spotlight Reporting Release Notes

SEE THE LATEST FEA TURE RELEASES, PRODUCT IMPROVE MENTS AND BUG FIXES.

Customising Your Charts

Change the chart

1. From the Customise Lay out tab, locate the rele vant page and click Cus tomise.

2. Find the chart you want to change, then click Change Chart.

3. In the Change Chart win dow select the chart you want to use. A brief de scription of the chart ap pears on the right-hand side, along with informa

tion about the data used.

4. Once you're sure you want to use the chart, click Se lect.

If you can’t find the chart you’re looking for, you can create your own with our formula builder.

Change the chart settings

1. From the Customise Lay out tab, locate the rele vant page and click Cus tomise.

2. Find the chart you want to customise and click Edit. The chart options appear on four tabs.

Note: The Formulas tab

does not appear on certain charts. If the tab isn't visible, this means that the formulae on this chart can't be edited.

Change chart name and subtitle

1. From the Customise Lay out tab, locate the rele vant page and click Cus tomise.

2. Find the chart you want to customise and click Edit.

3. From the Chart tab, open the Title section.

4. Make the required chang es, then click Update.

Change X Axis / date range

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INSEPTEMBER OUR KEY PRIORITY CON TINUED TO BE OUR UX AND BRAND UPDATES WITH A PARTICULAR FOCUS ON SOME VISUAL CHANGES DUE TO BE ROLLED OUT LATER IN OCTOBER.

By Kendra Vant

Direct filing of the Singapore GST F5 return is coming to Xero

Sage Acquires Spherics to Help SMBs Measure and Cut Their Carbon Emissions

Supporting customers on their journey to net zero

LAST

YEAR, WE REACHED A SIGNIF ICANT MILESTONE IN OUR DATA JOURNEY WHEN WE BUILT MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHMS THAT WORKED TO ACCURATELY PREDICT YOUR TRANS ACTIONS’ CONTACT AND ACCOUNT CODES.

Whenever we invest in machine learning, our vision is always to give you more mean ingful time back in your day, so we’re thrilled that this work in bank reconciliation has been recognised as a top 10 innovation in the 2022 AFR BOSS Most Innovative Com panies list for just that.

Xero placed #7 on the technology industry list out of 700+ nominations, and is a direct result of our teams’ labour of love on helping reconciling transactions to become a more beautiful experience. Alongside some other fantastic innovations, we were recognised...

Find out more

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AutoEntry by Sage: New name, same great product

By Keir Thomas-Bryant

YOU

MIGHT NOTICE SOMETHING DIFFERENT ABOUT AUTOEN TRY TODAY, AND IN THE COMING WEEKS AND MONTHS.

We’re now called AutoEntry by Sage and have an amazing new look. This aligns with Sage’s refreshed brand that reflects the changing needs of its customers.

But aside from the fresh coat of paint, AutoEntry remains the same great prod uct you know and love. Our ecosystem remains open and independent, and we remain a market-wide solution.

“We continue to be laser-focussed on being the leading provider of data entry automation for accountants, bookkeepers and businesses,” said Sean Woods, Op erations Director for AutoEntry by Sage. “Answering the needs of accountants...

BGL

CORPORATE SOLUTIONS, AUS TRALIA'S LEADING PROVIDER OF SELF-MANAGED SUPERANNUATION FUND (SMSF), INVESTMENT PORTFO LIO AND COMPANY COMPLIANCE MAN AGEMENT SOFTWARE, IS PROUD TO AN NOUNCE THE APPOINTMENT OF ADRIANA CAVALLO AS ITS HEAD OF CUSTOMER EX PERIENCE (APAC).

“It has been a pleasure to watch Adria na grow and thrive with us both personally and professionally since she joined BGL in 2012,” said Ron Lesh, BGL’s Managing Direc tor. “Adriana has demonstrated the highest commitment to BGL, the team and clients and we could not be prouder to see her take on this new role.”

A qualified CPA with an MBA in Marketing, Adriana has contributed significantly to BGL over the past 10 years with roles in Support...

Find out more

SAGE,

THE LEADER IN ACCOUNTING, FINANCIAL, HR AND PAYROLL TECH NOLOGY FOR SMALL AND MID-SIZED BUSINESSES (SMBS), TODAY ANNOUNCES THAT IT HAS COMPLETED THE ACQUISI TION OF SPHERICS, A CARBON ACCOUNT ING SOLUTION TO HELP BUSINESSES EAS ILY UNDERSTAND AND REDUCE THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT.

The acquisition reinforces Sage’s commit ment to sustainability, in line with its pur pose of knocking down barriers so everyone can thrive. Sage has pledged to fight climate change and help protect the planet, by halv ing its own emissions by 2030 and becom ing net zero by 2040, by supporting SMBs to get to net zero, and by advocating for policy and regulatory frameworks to support the transition to a low carbon economy.

Spherics automates the process of calcu lating emissions by ingesting data from a customer’s accounting software and match...

Find out more

By Stuart Miller

CLOSE

You may have recently received an email from HMRC explaining that VAT-regis tered businesses will no longer be able to use this gateway to file monthly or quar terly VAT returns. Instead, you’ll need to submit them through Making Tax Digital...

Keep reading

Make billing a breeze with Smart Billing for Gusto

to calculate headcount.

> Put payroll billing on autopilot: You’ll never have to worry about employee headcount changes and managing varia ble costs manually.

> Take the hassle out of bundling Gusto subscriptions: Smart Billing automatically calculates the monthly cost of your cli ent’s Gusto subscription, so you get paid the right amount, every time.

Why connect Ignition with Gusto?

As well as taking advantage of Smart...

more

Australian owned tech company Annature to power eSigning across all NSW government agencies

In a strong sign of support, the NSW Gov ernment will also be embedding Annature’s eSigning technology into the buy.nsw Sup plier Hub, a portal used by over 39,000 sup pliers to bid on and win some $37B of work.

“This is a great moment for Australian tech - Annature is homegrown technology with the most secure and compliant electronic...

Find out more

The Making Tax Digital for VAT portal is closing. Here’s what it means for small businesses

THE NSW GOVERNMENT HAS SELECT ED AUSTRALIAN TECH COMPANY ANNATURE OVER SOME OF SILI CON VALLEY’S BIGGEST NAMES TO POW ER DIGITAL DOCUMENT AND CONTRACT SIGNING ACROSS ALL AGENCIES AS PART OF THE STATE’S CUSTOMER-CENTRIC DIG ITAL CUSTOMER SERVICE STRATEGY.

THE DOOR, PULL DOWN THE SHUTTERS. THE TIME HAS COME. HMRC IS CLOSING THE OLD VAT ONLINE PORTAL ON NOVEM BER 1.

By Sandeep Kotla

OCTOBER

A brief background

Zoho Corporation and cybersecurity

Keep

BGL joins Global Victoria on technology trade mission

BGLCORPORATE SOLUTIONS, AUS TRALIA'S LEADING PROVIDER OF SELF-MAN AGED SUPERANNUATION FUND (SMSF), INVEST MENT PORTFOLIO AND COMPANY COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE, IS PROUD TO BE PART OF A GLOBAL VICTORIA TECH NOLOGY TRADE MISSION TO ASIA'S MOST EXCITING BIG DATA, ANALYTICS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EVENT BIG DATA & AI WORLD, SINGAPORE.

“We were honoured to be

invited by Global Victoria, the Victorian Government’s trade facilitation agency, to join this trade mission and attend the Big Data & AI World event in Singapore,” said Ron Lesh, BGL’s Manag ing Director. “Being selected to exhibit at the Global Vic toria Pavilion with 15 other illustrious Victorian compa nies offering cutting-edge technological solutions is a remarkable achievement for BGL.”

The award-winning Big Data & AI World event in...

Find out more

By Pedro Sampaio

Russell Hamblin-Boone, awards judge

BGLCORPORATE SOLUTIONS, AUS TRALIA'S LEADING PROVIDER OF SELF-MAN AGED SUPERANNUATION FUND (SMSF), INVEST MENT PORTFOLIO AND COMPANY COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE, IS PROUD TO ONCE AGAIN WIN THE SMSF SOFTWARE CATEGORY OF THE SELF MANAGEDSUPER AND COREDATA SMSF SERVICE PROVIDER AWARDS.

“This is a sensational achievement by the BGL team. I could not be proud er of each and every one of them,” said Ron Lesh, BGL’s Managing Director. “In 2022, BGL has also received indus try recognition from SMSF Adviser Awards for SMSF Software Provider of the Year, International Business Awards® for Most Innovative

Company of the Year, Glob al Excellence Awards for Most Innovative Compliance Software Solutions Provider (Australia), Titan Business Awards for Most Innova tive Company of the Year and FinTech Breakthrough Awards for Best RegTech Solution, among many oth ers”.

Presented by selfman agedsuper and research house CoreData, the SMSF Service Provider Awards cover 16 categories related to investments and servic es available to SMSFs. The awards are based on a sur vey of industry participants conducted between July and September 2022 of 240 advisers and accountants who advise on and/or ad minister SMSFs.

Jeevan Tokhi, Head of...

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David Hassall, CEO of

#IWantToBeAnAccountant

ISN’T LIFE STRANGE? NOT A PILOT, DANCER OR

Share your story withus

#IWantToBe AnAccountant

needs to be translated into a language your clients can understand.

Nikki Adams, joint MD, Ad Valore

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I had no idea what I wanted to be, and if you’d have told me when I was at school what I’m doing now I wouldn’t believe you. I was very shy but heavily influ enced by my father, who was a business and systems analyst, and my first ‘boss’ who was a very charismat ic accountancy recruitment entrepreneur.

Where had that got to during your later studies (or not, as the case may be)?

I learnt on the job, leav ing school after A-Levels and going straight into the workplace. Since then, I’ve been very keen to learn con tinuously. I read avidly and have mentors both inside and outside the accountan cy profession.

When did you move into accountancy; why, and how?

I started in an accountan cy recruitment company at the age of 19, being given responsibility (directorship) very early running a finance team for a fast-growing company, and learning firsthand how hard it is to get a company from start-up to £6m and then being part of an MBO. After a career in London, I then had a fam ily and joined my husband in building an accountancy firm of our own.

How important is ac counting in your role – and how has being an account ant helped you develop in your career and as a per son?

Accounting has been the core of everything for me for most of my working life either directly in my role or now it is the industry our company is centred around.

Working in another industry and in general practice, has given me incredible insight into what a business own er needs to know to build a successful business.

Business strategy, risk management, credit/cash management, pricing, peo ple management, economic factors, geo-politics, busi ness analytics, technology integration, requirements for R&D/innovation grant fund ing, change management, marketing strategy, net working skills, presentation skills, public speaking... the list is almost endless of what I’ve learnt along the way!

The driver for me is work ing with micro and small...

Find out more

When

grow up...

Common automation mistakes and how to avoid them

By Jan Korecky, Datamolino

OVER

We have seen many great outcomes when using Datamolino with Xero and gained many useful learnings. For some of you, these tips may be old news by now. How ever, when talking to prospective clients, we often still see these mistakes around, so read on.

Keeping the paper as part of your process

These days, when every document is gen erated digitally, there is no reason to print and mail it to the customer anymore. Every time you need to handle paper, everybody loses out. It is simply a wasteful process.

How to break the cycle? Start where the document originates. Can it be sent as a dig ital PDF instead? We still see a lot of paper being processed, but once you ask your sup pliers, they typically are happy to send you your invoices via email. Have these emails automatically forwarded to your data cap ture software to save one more step in the process.

Not starting from scratch

Adapting old ways of doing things to a digital environment can be tricky. This can be true especially if you try too hard to rep licate your processes to exactly what they were in the physical world. Start from scratch and focus on the desired outcome using new digital capabilities. You will find that many steps of the old processes are unnecessary in the digital version, or can be combined in a way that allows you to complete them in one step.

Have your colleagues used to collect all the invoices for you to process in a folder on a shared drive? Invite them to your data...

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Rachael Powell, Chief Customer Officer, Xero

It was great to catch up with Xero’s own Rachael Powell at Xerocon London 2022...

XU:RECENTLY WE’VE SEEN THE RELEASE OF THE XERO CASH FLOW CRUNCH REPORT IN CONJUNCTION WITH ACCENTURE. COULD YOU TELL US A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT WHAT THAT IS AND WHAT IT’S LOOK ING TO DO?

RP: Sure. So I’ll just take a step back and talk about the XSBI, the Xero Small Business Insights program. We’ve launched this in Aus tralia first, followed by New Zealand and the UK. It anal yses aggregated and an onymized data that goes through our platform so that we can assess some of the trends that are happening in the small business econ omy. Now, that became in credibly important for us to help advocate for small businesses, particularly when the pandemic hit. So because we have real time

information, like trillions of dollars of transactions are going through our platform, we actually had more recent information about what was happening in the small busi ness economy than the gov ernment.

Then what we’ve done is we’ve actually launched the Small Business Index. So the Small Business Index is based on the XSBI data. And the Small Business Index basically helps us ascertain on a monthly basis, whether the small business econo my in these three regions is performing better or worse than average. So if it’s over a 100, it means that it’s do ing better than average. If it’s under a 100, it means it’s worse than average. And it’s based on four metrics. It’s based on time to be paid. It’s based on sales. It’s based on wages. And it’s based on employment growth for small businesses. So its XSBI

first, then we launched the index. The Index is a combi nation of these four metrics that gives us a snapshot, in a single number, of how small businesses are performing.

It’s been really interest ing in COVID because you can actually see the index going up and down with lockdown, open and close. So then what we’ve done is we’ve actually started to do some bespoke reports off the back of the XSBI infor mation. And the latest one is cash flow reporting. And that’s become even more important as we are now navigating different envi ronmental challenges. So it’s not just the pandemic, but it’s also rising interest rates, inflation in this environment, you’ve got Brexit as well and economic uncertainty.

So the cashflow report ac tually, is a lot of research...

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THE PAST 9 YEARS WE HAVE WORKED CLOSELY WITH OUR CLIENTS TO SIMPLIFY THE COL LECTION OF THEIR ACCOUNTS PAYABLE DOCUMENTS AND TO AUTOMATE THEIR INVOICE DATA ENTRY AND OTHER RELAT ED BOOKKEEPING TASKS.

By Katharine Yacovone

SO HERE WE ARE: SEPTEMBER. THERE’S ALWAYS BEEN A CER TAIN CHARM TO IT – WE’RE STILL WARM FROM THE GLOW OF SUMMER, AND TREATED TO THE SKY AND THE LEAVES TURNING BEAUTIFUL SHADES OF ORANGE AND GOLD.

Ghost? Ghouls? This month may be known for its spooks and scares, but you won’t find any frights here this Hallow een, just some cool new features to ex plore. That’s right, you asked and we’re here to fill your candy bowl.

As you get your costume together and plan which horror films to watch, we’re here to make running your busi ness (even) easier and more efficient. It’s nothing worth screaming over; it’s just what we boo.

Let’s take a look at the great new treats creeping your way this month.

All new Expense settings via mobile

Check your mobile app to see a re vamped Settings section built to make things even smoother. Define the ex pense information you need from em ployees, send an automatic nudge or freeze the card if you’re missing any thing, and more! Let’s get those expens es sorted.

Add your categories as you go

If you thought we were stopping at Settings when it came to expense man agement, you are very much mistaken. Now, instead of having to head back to the Settings menu to add categories, tax rates, or custom labels to your expens es, you can add that information directly from the transaction as you fill out your expense details via mobile. Smooth sail ing towards submission in fewer taps. Simple.

Card issuing? Meet API (paid plans only)

Want to automate your virtual card is suing? Now you can with our new API, and save time. Securely create new cards in seconds and automatically manage spend limits or freeze/unfreeze cards.

Treat yourself to new Rewards

Save on top-notch business tools; it's our treat. Manage your day-to-day with a $1000 credit toward Notion’s project management platform. Or find top talent with a three-month free trial for the lead ing recruitment software, Workable. Plus, in the US, enjoy 30% on a...

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New PayPal Rewards Program Helps Consumers Save Money in Time For the Holiday Season

PayPal consumers in the US can now earn points towards cash back through merchant offers, deals, and other discounts with the ability to redeem when checking out with PayPal.

PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. (NASDAQ: PYPL)

TODAY ANNOUNCED THE INTRODUCTION OF PAYPAL REWARDS, A NEW UNIFIED REWARDS PRO GRAM THAT GIVES CUS TOMERS AN EASY WAY TO SHOP, EARN, TRACK, SAVE, AND REDEEM RE WARDS AND OFFERS ALL IN ONE PLACE – THEIR PAYPAL APP. PAYPAL RE WARDS CONNECTS PAYP AL'S MERCHANT OFFERS, CASH BACK SAVINGS, AND SHOPPING PRODUCTS INTO ONE EXPERIENCE.

As consumers continue to navigate high prices heading into the holiday shopping season, deals, discounts, and cash back remain top priori ties, with 25% of consumers stating loyalty programs are the most important factor when deciding where to shop. PayPal Rewards pro

vides a ubiquitous rewards program, where consumers can earn PayPal Rewards points and save money through cash back and dis counts at participating re tailers. PayPal Rewards will build upon the nearly $200 million PayPal consumers have already saved this year so far through PayPal Hon ey-enabled cash back and discounts.

"With the financial chal lenges people face these days, brought on by rising prices and the need to tight en budgets, it can be frus trating to shop for everyday essentials or plan for the hol idays," said Greg Lisiewski, Vice President of Shopping and Global Pay Later. "Pay Pal Rewards makes it easy to find sales, discounts, and great deals when making a purchase with PayPal –through cash back, discount codes, or other rewards."

PayPal Rewards provides:

• One, Unified Rewards Program Across PayPal: Customers can combine rewards earned across multiple PayPal products and shopping experienc es including PayPal Honey browser extensions and the PayPal app, and in the future, various card prod ucts.

• Designated Rewards Des tination: Rewards will now be housed in a new part of the PayPal app, mak ing it simple to track and redeem rewards earned across many PayPal prod ucts and shopping experi ences

• More Ways to Earn: Cus tomers will be able to earn PayPal Rewards points in a variety of ways, including personalized engagement with the PayPal app...

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PayPal Ventures Invests in Northstar

New investors include GGV Capital, PayPal Ventures, Thomson Reuters Ventures, and Canvas Ventures. Since December 2020, Northstar has grown its customer base by more than 600% and supports innovative organizations such as Snap, Zoom, 23andMe, Virgin Orbit, and NerdWallet.

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NORTHSTAR, THE FINANCIAL WELL NESS BENEFIT FOR EMPLOYEES, TO DAY ANNOUNCED IT HAS RAISED $24.4 MIL LION IN NEW FUNDING LED BY GGV CAPITAL AND JOINED BY NEW INVESTORS PAYPAL VEN TURES, THOMSON REU TERS VENTURES, AND CANVAS VENTURES. EX ISTING INVESTORS M13, WORKDAY VENTURES, PARADE VENTURES, FOUNDATION CAPITAL, DESIGNER FUND, AND RRE ALSO PARTICIPAT ED, BRINGING NORTH STAR'S TOTAL FUNDING TO $40 MILLION.

Northstar’s financial wellness program guides employees through differ ent financial and life situ ations, and helps compa nies support their teams at scale through onboarding, open enrollment, equity events, and more. The ad ditional capital will enable the company to expand its products and global reach to further Northstar’s mission of bringing finan cial wellness to the 100%.

Employees in 18 countries can now work with North star, and the company has plans to expand to 30+ countries by the end of 2023.

Establishing and main taining financial stability has become increasingly chal lenging in today’s economic environment, accentuated by record-high inflation and job market volatility. Today, 42% of high earners making more than $100,000 a year and 70% of the millennial generation are living pay check-to-paycheck. Finan cial guidance has become a foundational need for Amer icans, but the traditional model for receiving financial advice typically requires in dividuals to choose between quality and cost. Northstar eliminates this compromise by redefining financial well ness and delivering it at scale through employers, the primary source of most wealth creation..

“Financial wellbeing is a universal challenge, and to day we face a dizzying array of complex decisions and tradeoffs, from understand ing debt paydown strategies to making retirement con tributions,” said Will Peng, CEO and Co-Founder of Northstar. “By working with employers, we are able to solve a problem for both the employee and the employer, as work is the decision point for so many financial and life choices. Northstar is bring ing different types of advice under one roof: financial, benefits, equity, salary.”

Northstar has developed a new set of advisory tools to support individuals in today’s financial environ ment. Rather than using the common call center model, Northstar employs full-time, in-house finan cial advisors (CFP®) and matches each employ ee 1-on-1 with a personal Northstar Advisor, who they work with on an on going basis. Northstar sup ports both their financial advisors and employees with tech, through a pro prietary suite of personal finance and total compen sation tools. Northstar em ployee members report an 83% average improvement in financial stress after meeting with their person al Northstar financial ad visor (Northstar member survey, 2022).

“Financial advice as a service has been around for many years, yet many consumers do not have access to financial ad visors, creating a huge market,” said Hans Tung, managing director at GGV Capital and Northstar board member. “We at GGV share Northstar’s vi sion that financial wellness should be universal for all employees. It is the next highly sought after...

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