XU Biweekly - Issue 48 - 11 February 2023

NEW XERO CEO

Once a Xero, always a Xero

By Steve Vamos

TODAY I STEPPED DOWN AS CEO OF XERO AND HANDED OVER TO MY SUCCESSOR, SUKHINDER SINGH CASSIDY. I DO SO WITH A LOT OF GRATITUDE AND PRIDE IN WHAT WE HAVE ACHIEVED OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS, AND CONFIDENCE THAT XERO IS IN GOOD HANDS FOR FUTURE SUCCESS AND GROWTH.

Deputy - Welcoming Our New CEO, Silvija Martincevic

By Ashik Ahmed

WHEN STEVE SHELLEY AND I CO-FOUNDED DEPUTY 14 YEARS AGO, IT WAS JUST AN IDEA. WE FELT THE PROBLEM OF

MANAGING, SCALING, AND GROWING WORKFORCES AND HAD ALREADY SOLVED THE PROBLEM FOR OURSELVES, BUT WE WANTED TO SOLVE IT FOR

EVERY ENTREPRENEUR.

That’s why we called ourselves Deputy – the trusted second-in-charge. From then until 2016, we achieved some early success in proving our product works and securing our first investor. At this time, I became CEO! The company has scaled 20 times since then to bring on 330,000+ global workplaces and 1M+ shift workers worldwide. This wouldn’t have been possible without the trust and support of all

of you. We believe Deputy is destined to make an even greater and more positive impact globally. On that note, I have an important and exciting announcement: Deputy has a new CEO, Silvija Martincevic, effective February 14, 2023.

Silvija has a proven track record and the right experience to grow Deputy while maintaining the culture of the business. She is a...

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After spending many years of my career at great US technology companies like IBM, Apple and Microsoft, having the opportunity to lead Xero, a company born in New Zealand, in a segment of the technology industry where Australia and New Zealand lead the world, has been the highlight of my career.

Xero has a purpose that serves a vital part of our economy in small business, which is so important to family, community, job creation, innovation and the health of our economy. Our #Human culture allowed me to feel at home in a workplace where I could be the real me.

The last couple of years have been tough. I don’t

think anyone could have predicted the lasting impact of a global pandemic and the resulting shifts we all had to make [and continue to make] to deal with economic and global uncertainty. But out of challenge came resilience, innovation and a new found respect for doing what is right and good.

Looking forward, I will continue to support Sukhinder and the team until the end of May when I finish up at Xero. Following that I plan to return to what I was doing before Xero, which includes advising, speaking and coaching leaders and teams (much easier than doing it) and finishing the book I’ve been writing for a couple of decades now.

I’ll also spend more time with my grandkids, watching NY Jets games live on Mondays (instead of after hours on stream), and traveling with my partner Cheryl and enjoying the great life we have together in NZ (A country I have grown to love) and Australia (a country I have always loved).

Thanks goes to the Xero leadership team, Rod Drury...

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The independent user news source for accounting apps and their ecosystems

New Apps & Updates

XERO'S LATEST PRODUCT NEWS — FEBRUARY 2023

IT’S TIME TO SWITCH TO NEW REPORTS

If you haven’t made the switch to new reports, we urge you to start moving your work across now, so you have plenty of time to get used to them before the older versions are retired. Here are the latest features we’ve introduced to new reports:

• The current column in Aged reports is now automatically hidden when it’s not needed (such as when ageing by invoice date) or if it’s empty

XU BIWEEKLY - No. 48

Newsdesk:

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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.

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• You can now run aged reports at the end of the current month by default, instead of ‘as at’ today’s date

• We’ve changed the Aged reports so that invoices which fall on the report’s date are now included in the first ageing bracket, instead of the Current column

• There is an additional option in the ageing periods dropdown menu in aged reports, that lets you return the report to how it was before the change

• A new tag that hovers over the graph in short-

term cash flow within Xero Analytics Plus lets you see when your Business Activity Statements and Pay As You Go Withholding amounts are due (Australia only)

• Global settings has been released in the US, allowing you to set preferences for specific organisations such as the default accounting basis, decimals, account codes and more

See how we’re Building on Beautiful

We’re making some...

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WorkGuru Release Notes07/02/2023

FEATURES. PROJECT PHASES

• Project phases can now be applied to projects, enabling users to report based off different elements of a project (E.g. Mobilisation, scaffolding, installations). Users can also invoice based off of project phases. Please review the video in this link for a more detailed overview. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=XE3LXLmztMQ

Quotes

• Permitted users can now see related quotes on quotes details tab that

show other revisions and their files

Bug Fixes: Assets

Fixed issue with invoiced links on asset details page Invoices

Date inputs on invoice index page now filter table automatically

Products

Fixed server response issues caused by images being saved to products

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Hirehop Equipment Rental Software adds a free maintenance app

HIREHOP (HTTPS:// WWW.HIREHOP. COM), THE CLOUD EQUIPMENT RENTAL SOFTWARE, HAS BEEN ADDING NEW FEATURES AT A RAPID PACE AND HAVE JUST RELEASED THEIR NEW MAINTENANCE MODULE THAT CAN ALSO BE RUN AS A PROGRESSIVE WEB APP ON ANY DEVICE. THE ADDITION IS FREE AND HAS BEEN AUTOMATICALLY ADDED TO THE SOFTWARE.

The maintenance module allows you to track repairs, log tests and services, move assets to dif-

WE’RE STARTING THIS YEAR WITH SOME IMPROVEMENTS TO MAKE CALXA EASIER TO USE AND THEN, THE BIG ONE, WILL BE CUSTOMISABLE DASHBOARDS. USABILITY INCLUDES THE METRICS CONFIGURATION, SIMPLIFIED CHANGES TO BILLING AND BETTER LABELLING OF XERO TRACKING CATEGORIES.

Making Calxa Easier to Use

Our team sits down regularly to look at how we can make Calxa easier to use. This year, we are planning a stream of more significant improvements. Let’s start with a few this month.

Group Metrics Will Be New in Calxa

We moved the configuration of Metrics to the KPIs & Metrics section. Here you can:

• Group them and sort them the way you want as well as choose where you want to use them.

• Use the same metrics across all your organisations to simplify your KPIs.

• Choose which business units need each metric so it’s much easier to edit budgets and actuals.

You will notice that you can now set a number format for Metrics, just like you can with KPIs. There is no immediate impact for this. However, in a few weeks we will add the option to choose them directly on reports and then it will be very important.

Billing

We’ve long had the option of separate roles for the payer and owner of a subscription but sometimes this becomes hard to work with. This is especially true for our larger accounting practices. Shortly we will simplify this and...

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NEW XERO CONNECTED APPS!

PAYTRAQER

GLOBAL - Automate your e-commerce accounting in Xero for Amazon, WooCommerce, PayPal, Stripe, Square, Clover and Authorize.Net sales with ease and precision. Reduce the time and effort required to record sales.

RESLY

AU - Resly combines the latest technology with simplified trust accounting, all wrapped up in an intuitive and easy to use system. Specifically built for management rights and holiday letting.

SYNCED

AU & US - Reduce data entry by automating document processing and publication from bills, receipts and supplier statements into Xero. Synced makes bill management and bookkeeping a breeze.

SUPER SIMPLE

AU - Easy to use software that allows you to quickly automate Superannuation Guarantee Charge Statements. Super Simple is designed to help you stay compliant with your superannuation obligations

ferent depots, change what an asset is, and much more.

The maintenance module is fully adaptive to all mobile devices, and can even use your phone camera as a barcode or QR code scanner. You can also use inbuilt or linked barcode scanners or an RFID reader.

Another unique feature is that it enables users to do batch tasks. So for example, if you have 50 items that you have just tested, you can use the bulk scan feature (even with the phone camera)

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PRICE ADJUSTMENT FOR YOUR HUBSPOT SUBSCRIPTION

BAS A GLOBAL COMPANY, HUBSPOT REGULARLY REVIEWS MARKET CONDITIONS AROUND THE WORLD IN ORDER TO ADJUST OUR PRODUCT PRICING APPROPRIATELY. WITH RECENT EVALUATIONS IN MIND, WE ARE INCREASING THE EUR AND GBP LIST PRICES FOR OUR PRODUCTS BY 6% ON MARCH 8, 2023.

Existing customers paying in EUR and GBP will see a 6% increase on their bill starting on their first renewal date

that falls on or after March 8, 2023. This change ensures our pricing properly reflects value across our global community of customers.

Please note, if you have subscriptions with different renewal dates, the price adjustment for each subscription will take place on their respective renewal dates.

Because HubSpot recently increased the price of Marketing Hub Enterprise (MHE), partners and customers with MHE won’t be impacted by this change. One exception to this is En-

terprise Suite customers, who were not eligible for the 2022 MHE change but will be eligible for this one.

We know you may have some questions, and have included answers below:

How can I find my renewal date?

Visit Account & Billing in your HubSpot account and go to the Subscriptions tab. Beneath your subscription(s) name, you’ll see a...

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Karbon - Release Notes 2023

THE START OF 2023 IS A GREAT TIME TO GET YOUR REPEATING WORK ITEMS IN ORDER. THE NEW KARBON PRACTICE INTELLIGENCE (KPI) WORKBOOK ALLOWS YOU TO DO JUST THAT—SO NOTHING FALLS THROUGH THE CRACKS.

Karbon

Practice Intelligence (KPI) newest workbook: Repeating Work

For many, it’s a busy time of the year: swamped with tax work while balancing all of the other tasks that are due. You might also be spending hours tracking and managing your team’s work to see that nothing falls through the cracks—that could result in surprises closer to April. If this sounds all too

familiar, discover how the Repeating Work workbook will alleviate the pain..

.. The Repeating Work workbook helps you track your progress and compares it with previous years. The visual indicators assist you to see where the work is and who it’s assigned to—which is a critical path to determining whether you are ahead or behind schedule. As a result, you are able to identify bottlenecks early and know how likely your firm is to get the work done on time.

Work items can easily fall through the cracks if you don't have all the information or if input is required from others on the team. To prevent this from happening, the Repeating Work workbook identifies which...

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DEXT: NAVIGATING ECONOMIC TURBULENCE WITH QUALITY CLIENT DATA

IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2023, HEADLINE INFLATION WAS PREDICTED TO PEAK AT 17%, THE HIGHEST SINCE 1980, BUT ‘SOME ECONOMISTS THINK INFLATION MAY HAVE ALREADY PEAKED’ AND THE BANK OF ENGLAND IS EXPECTING INFLATION TO FALL SHARPLY MID-2023.

The pound has recently dipped to its weakest against the dollar in nearly 40 years. Spiralling energy prices, hikes in business

costs across the board, and the largest fall in real wages since records began are all adding up to economic slowdown and supply chain volatility. Insolvencies are already up by a third with many businesses looking at their financing/refinancing options.

Thankfully, your clients have you, their trusted accountant/bookkeeper to hold their hands and navigate them through this period of uncertainty. By working together, you can get

New: Profit margin rows, reporting precision and performance enhancements

By Calen Olesen

GET UP TO SPEED WITH THE LATEST FATHOM PRODUCT NEWS. HERE’S A QUICK WRAP-UP OF THE FEATURES WE’VE RECENTLY RELEASED.

Add profit margin rows to the Profit & Loss

Keeping track of profit margins enables you to better understand and address changes in sales, cost, and expense management.

While Fathom has allowed you to include profit margins in financial statements

for some time, the margins could only be displayed in a Profit & Loss column. Based on your feedback, we have also added the ability to turn on profit margin rows in Profit & Loss statements.

Gross Profit, Operating Profit, and Net Income margins can be added as rows within a standard Profit & Loss.

If you prefer the EBITDA layout, then you can add the Gross Profit before Depreciation, EBITDA, and Net Income margins to a Profit & Loss statement.

To utilise the new profit

margins rows options, edit a Profit & Loss statement within a Fathom report. Under ‘Rows,’ check the option to ‘Show profit margins.’

Precision reporting with decimals

Limit confusion caused by rounded figures by enabling decimals in Financials and KPI tables.

Decimals were previously only available when rounding results to the thousands, millions, or billions. For...

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Joiin - New Features for January 2023

ahead of their numbers and future proof their business. But how do you do that in ways that remain manageable and profitable to your practice?

The answer is automated, accurate, real-time financial quality client data from which to generate your insights and deliver your recommendations. That’s why we have created a guide to proactively help clients navigate economic uncertainty...

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THIS JANUARY, WE'RE BRINGING YOU THE LATEST UPDATES, NEWS AND FEATURES FROM JOIIN:

• Previous Period/Previous Year/YTD comparison

• Report Filters - Date Locking

• Manual Companies - PL/ BS Format

• Report Pack Inline Edit

• Custom Report EditHide Hidden Elements

• Favourite Custom Reports

You can find out more about all of these features

By Simon Creighton

AMID STUBBORN GLOBAL INFLATION, TIGHTENING MONETARY POLICY AND ONGOING ENERGY AND SUPPLY CHAIN IMPACTS, IT’S IMPORTANT FOR SMALL BUSINESSES TO LOOK AT HOW THEY’RE MANAGING THEIR CASH FLOW.

Cash flow is king again and freeing up cash could be the difference for many in the year ahead. It’s likely many small businesses have a lot of capital tied up in receivables and inventory that they could turn into cash, something Waddle, a Xero company, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) are solving with Stream Working Capital.

In June 2021, CommBank developed Stream Working Capital in partnership with Waddle to give businesses access to funds using their outstanding invoices as loan security. Fast forward to today and CommBank’s digital lending solution has empowered cus-

tomers around Australia with faster access to cash flow to help run their business and accelerate growth.

I had the opportunity to catch up with CommBank’s General Manager for Working Capital, Elizabeth Huxley, to discuss the rollout of Stream Working Capital, how it can help small businesses facing tougher economic realities and what’s next in the CommBank and Waddle Partnership.

Find out more

in our Support Centre.

Previous Period/ Previous Year/YTD Comparison

We’ve delivered one of our most popular requests - now

you can compare previous periods alongside previous year and year to date on a single report. With our enhanced Compare filter option you can now Read more

iwoca hits net profitability as demand for SME capital surges

GROWTH: IWOCA REACHES NET PROFITABILITY IN Q4 2022 AND EXPERIENCES OVER 50% INCREASE IN NUMBER OF SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED BUSINESSES FUNDED ACROSS UK AND GERMANY.

FUNDING: This comes as iwoca increases its funding line with Pollen Street Capital from £125m to £170m.

The total number of customers funded across the UK and Germany - including all products and repeat customers - grew by over 50% in 2022 vs 2021. iwoca

funded 15,429 businesses in 2022, an increase of 54% from 2021.

To meet this surging demand, iwoca has increased its funding line to £170 mil-

lion with long-standing partner Pollen Street Capital. Other funding lines are also being increased.

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How CommBank and Waddle, from Xero, are unlocking cash in unpaid invoices to help small business grow

Xero Ecosystem Survey

2023

— have your say

2022 WAS ANOTHER BIG YEAR IN TECH, AND IT’S BEEN A COUPLE OF YEARS SINCE WE LAST HELD OUR ECOSYSTEM SURVEY AMIDST COVID-19. NATURALLY, WE HAVE A LOT TO CATCH UP ON.

The Xero Ecosystem Survey 23 is the chance for our developer community to tell us how we’re doing. Whether you’re an app developer or custom integrator, whether you work for a major bank or you’re a sole trader in start up — let us know what you love about working with the Xero ecosystem teams, what technologies you’re tinkering with, and where you see opportunities for Xero to improve.

Not only do we want to learn more about your organisation, how you develop apps, and why you integrate with Xero — but in the past 18 months, we also launched the new Xero App Store and a host of other changes to how we work together.

So please, grab a coffee and take 10 minutes to give us feedback, we’d love to hear from you… And as a sweetener, we also have a prize draw for three AU$1000 (or equivalent currency) Amazon gift vouchers on the line for three randomly drawn respondents.

There is no limit to how many of your team members can take the survey — we want to hear from as many people in your organisation who work with us as possible.

Key facts from the 2020 Ecosystem Survey:

• 52% of these surveyed said access to the Xero platform has been critical to achieving their goals

• 39% of partners say the Xero ecosystem represents ‘critical automation’ to them.

• 54% were focused on maintaining their market share, 33% on subscription-based growth, 27% on expanding into new markets...

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Trent McLaren, Accom-

plished

Thought Leader, Launches Global Consulting Firm, Journey

Xero included in 2023 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index

By Nicole Reid

XERO’S COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY, INCLUSION AND BELONGING HAS DRIVEN OUR INCLUSION IN THE BLOOMBERG GENDER-EQUALITY INDEX FOR THE FOURTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR.

Like last year, Xero is the one and only company headquartered in New Zealand to be included in the index, which is made up of 484 companies across 45 countries and regions. Our scores have improved each

of the four years we’ve been included in the index, and we’re pleased to see our progress demonstrated in

such a tangible way. We’re also proud that we... ...

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TRENT MCLAREN, A HIGHLY REGARDED EXPERT IN THE ACCOUNTING INDUSTRY, HAS ANNOUNCED THE LAUNCH OF HIS NEW GLOBAL CONSULTING FIRM, JOURNEY. THE FIRM IS FOCUSED ON PROVIDING EXPERT GUIDANCE AND SUPPORT TO TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES LOOKING TO SCALE THEIR BUSINESSES IN THE ACCOUNTING INDUSTRY.

With over 11 years of experience and numerous awards and accolades, Trent McLaren has established himself as a true leader in the field. He has collaborated with prominent tech companies such as Ignition, Weel, Intuit QuickBooks, TOA global and a list of other organisations. He has a thorough understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing these businesses.

Journey Consulting offers a range of services, including strategic planning, financial management, and growth acceleration, to help technology companies navigate the complexities of the accounting industry and reach their goals. Additionally, Trent’s wife, Melissa, who has 10 years of product management and customer experience experience, will join the firm and bring her expertise to the table.

"I'm excited to launch Journey and help tech companies take their businesses to the next level," said Trent McLaren. "The accounting industry is constantly changing, and I believe that technology companies have a unique chance to reshape it. Our goal is to assist these businesses in succeeding and making a lasting impact on the...

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Chaser CEO shortlisted for Outstanding Leader in Collections award

By Pedro Sampaio

IAM THRILLED TO SHARE THAT CHASER'S CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, SONIA DORAIS, IS A FINALIST FOR THE OUTSTANDING LEADER IN COLLECTIONS AWARD AT CREDIT STRATEGY'S LEADERSHIP AWARDS 2023.

The Leadership Awards celebrate resilience, innovation, and creativity in leadership, and award those demonstrating leadership across the full spectrum of credit and financial services.

Being shortlisted for this award is a real testament to Sonia's outstanding leadership at Chaser.

Since becoming CEO in January 2021, the business has achieved phenomenal results in terms of growth, product development, and company culture.

Outstanding Leader in Collections

Sonia is CEO at Chaser, a tech business and the highest-rated accounts receivables software provider, helping businesses around the world put an end to late payments. She's been listed in The... Read more

How to use e-invoicing and automated approvals for rapid AP processing

E-INVOICING HAS BEEN GENERATING A LOT OF BUZZ THE ACCOUNTING COMMUNITY, BUT WHAT EXACTLY IS IT? READ OUR ARTICLE TO LEARN ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF E-INVOICING AND WHETHER IT’S COMPATIBLE WITH APPROVAL AUTOMATION.

What’s e-invoicing and how is it different from sending invoices by email?

It sounds pretty obvious: e-invoicing is sending and receiving invoices electronically, however, it does not meany doing it via email with a PDF attachment. It is a far more efficient tool, and

utilising it can make your invoice processing much simpler.

E-invoicing allows invoices to be sent straight from the supplier’s accounting system to the buyer’s accounting system. This means the buyer does not have to deal with it manually, and the supplier has an easier way of dispatching it. All the invoices are effortlessly transformed into draft bills in the accounting system automat-

ically, making the process seamless and effortless.

One benefit is that it’s platform agnostic. That means the buyer and the supplier do not need to use the same accounting system. As long as both accounting systems use the global Peppol network, invoices can be effortlessly exchanged no matter who you’re doing business with – no compatibility...

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BGL IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE ITS BGL MASTERCLASS WILL RETURN AS A LIVE AND IN-PERSON EVENT IN MARCH 2023.

"We are excited to hit the road and catch up with our clients in Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart, Perth and Sydney," said Ron Lesh, BGL's Managing Director.

"The BGL Masterclass is a must-attend event for BGL CAS 360, Simple Fund 360 and Simple Invest 360 clients wanting to learn how to unlock the full potential of their software and boost their productivity".

Presented by BGL product experts Warren Ren-

BACK ON THE ROAD WITH XERO

den, Head of CAS 360, Jeevan Tohki, Head of Simple Fund 360 and Andrew Paszko, Simple Invest 360 Product Manager, the BGL Masterclass will cover topics including; new and key features and their benefits, best practice workflow and processes, essential BGL Suite integrations and time-saving tips, tricks, and shortcuts. Plus, attendees will get a sneak peek at BGL's product roadmaps. For more information and to secure tickets, please visit www.bglcorp. com/bglmasterclass....

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SPOTTED ON SOCIAL

WE ARE SUPER EXCITED TO BE A PART OF XERO’S ROADSHOW ONCE AGAIN THIS YEAR! WE WILL BE TRAVELLING THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF THE COUNTRY WITH ROADSHOW IN FEBRUARY. THIS GIVES US THE AMAZING OPPORTUNITY TO MEET NEW CLIENTS AND OF COURSE SEE ALL OUR CURRENT CLIENTS AS WELL AS OUR ECOSYSTEM PARTNERS TO CONTINUE TO SHARE THE BENEFITS OF WHAT AUTOMATED DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT CAN DELIVER TO ACCOUNTING FIRMS.

Showcasing our latest features

The last few months have seen a continued stream of FYI features being delivered to market. Such as…

• We’re excited to continue

to empower our clients to work smarter with the all new, and highly requested, Task Templates.

• Investing in supporting our clients to get the answers they need to problems quicker than ever before with our new Support Bot.

• Helping our clients on their individual Learning journey’s in FYI, providing an all new practical hands on experience using sample data to test and learn with our Prework

Plus, so much more to come…

Meet the team behind FYI

The Xero Roadshow series kicks off on the 7th of February in Geelong & Wollon and then works its way...

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By Sean Woods

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.

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 de-

mands 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.

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 rad-

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

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.

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

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

ical 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.

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

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 signup to the pilot programme ahead of time as of the 2023/24 tax year.

There remains industry-wide incredulity about

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...

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GAME-CHANGING

By Andrey Kustarnikov, G-Accon

IF 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-today 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, mid-sized nonprofits require full-service 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...

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By Alan Hyland, simPRO Software

UNDERSTANDING THE OVERALL HEALTH AND FINANCIAL STATUS OF ANY BUSINESS CAN BE DIFFICULT WITHOUT THE RIGHT INSIGHTS AND REPORTS. FOR YOUR TRADE CLIENTS, DAY-TODAY 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.

Consistently 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.

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 devices - including separate warehouses, work vehicles, and site locations.

Trade clients can also use the extended Report View to see the quantity and value of stock items according to

part number.

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. 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.

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 loss on similar... Keep reading

Clay

the founder and owner of Wellstead Solutions described his experience with

and proved that this add-on is a game-changing tool for any business.

ADD-ON FOR THOSE WHO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE

Meet the new way to earn more crypto. Hello Staking!

By Kirsty Daniel

WHETHER YOU’VE BEEN HOLDING SOME CRYPTO FOR A WHILE OR YOU JUST GOT STARTED, THERE’S STILL SO MUCH POTENTIAL TO UNLEASH - IT’S TIME TO PUT YOUR CRYPTO TO WORK! STAKING MEANS TEMPORARILY ‘LOCKING’ YOUR CRYPTO AND GETTING REWARDED FOR IT WITH... GUESS WHAT? MORE CRYPTO!

Here comes the science bit: staking involves participating in proof-of-stake blockchains to support the security of the network, similar to mining. Examples of proof-of-stake blockchains include Ethereum, Cardano, Polkadot, and Tezos. As an incentive for securing the network, participants are compensated with rewards.

Today, staking your own crypto is a challenge for most investors, as it can be highly technical and complex. But don't worry, we take care of all those things so you don't have to.

Data Privacy Day 2023: How to protect the privacy of your small business? Learn from our experts

GoCardless opens up access to its global bank payment network

THIRD PARTY PAYMENT PROVIDERS CAN NOW SERVICE

THE FAST-GROWING ACCOUNT-TO-ACCOUNT PAYMENTS MARKET VIA A SINGLE INTEGRATION TO GOCARDLESS

GoCardless, a global leader in direct bank payments, has launched GoCardless Embed, a new integration for third party payment providers to access its global bank payment network and reap the benefits of bank-tobank payments.

GoCardless Embed, which

Data privacy – the buzzword of buzzwords

So, what is Data Privacy? In simpler terms, it can be defined as the practice of preservation of personal data that complies with data protection laws and regulations. This means only you own your own data, and only you determine who it’s shared with. This is true for both individuals and organisations. Unfortunately, data privacy breaches happen regularly in large and small businesses.

A report by Statista indicates that during the third quarter of 2022, around 15 million data records were exposed worldwide through data breaches. Leakage of sensitive data (personal and organisational) such as emails, passwords, debit/credit card details can be considered a data breach. This...

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Update on PayPal's Transformation

THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE WAS SHARED WITH PAYPAL EMPLOYEES BY PRESIDENT AND CEO DAN SCHULMAN.

Over the past year, we made significant progress in strengthening and reshaping our company to address the challenging macro-economic environment while continuing to invest to meet our customers’ needs. While we have made substantial progress in right-sizing our cost structure, and focused our resources on our core strategic priorities, we have more work to do. We must continue to change as our world, our customers, and

our competitive landscape evolve.

Addressing these changes requires us to make hard decisions that will impact some of our colleagues. Today, I’m writing to share the difficult news that we will be reducing our global workforce by approximately 2,000 full time employees, which is about 7% of our total workforce. These reductions will occur over the coming weeks, with some organizations impacted more than others. We will treat our departing colleagues with the utmost respect and empathy, provide them with generous packages, engage in consultation where required,

and support them with their transitions. I want to express my personal appreciation for the meaningful contributions they have made to PayPal.

Change can be difficult –particularly when it includes valued colleagues and friends departing. We will face this head-on together, drawing on the unparalleled scale of our global platform, the strategic investments we have made to strengthen our core capabilities, and the trust and loyalty of our customers.

Over the next days and weeks, your leaders will...

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comes white labelled as standard, allows payment providers to integrate GoCardless’ global bank payment network straight into their platform through a single, simple API that provides access to:

• bank payment schemes in

the UK, Eurozone and US, with more to come in the near future • end-to-end payment processing capabilities for bank-to-bank payments including reconciliation...

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Revolut announces Ultra, a new top-tier membership

to join the waitlist to unlock 5% cashback on purchases made in their first month with Ultra.

A NEW UNPARALLELED MEMBERSHIP PLAN, ULTRA, TO CUSTOMERS IN THE UK AND EUROPE.

The new top-tier plan, boasting exceptional perks, is coming in spring 2023. New and existing customers are encouraged

der and want to build a steady passive income, they also aim to enjoy life, keep up to date with the latest trends and travel...

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Wise - Q4 2022 Mission Update

OUR MISSION IS TO BUILD MONEY WITHOUT BORDERS — MAKING IT MOVE FASTER, MORE CONVENIENTLY, TRANSPARENTLY, AND EVENTUALLY FOR FREE. READ HOW MUCH CLOSER WE GOT TO OUR MISSION FROM SEPTEMBER TO DECEMBER 2022.

Mission Round-up

In Q4, 5.8 million of you moved £26.4 billion on Wise. This Mission Update high-

Tara Massoudi, Revolut General Manager of Premium Products, said: “More of our customers are interested in financial products offering better convenience. This growing consumer market is focussed on a new definition of luxury, one that is functional. Although these high-earning consumers are climbing the career ladlights improvements to Wise in Q4 2022. While our average fee for sending money didn’t get closer to zero, we improved the speed of transfers, and introduced new features for the Wise Account and Wise Business.

You can boost your GBP, Euro, or US dollar balances by holding your money in an interest-earning asset, order biodegradable Wise eco cards, and easily view your total balance to spend across all currencies. We also got even better at spot-

ting and preventing fraud.

Wise Business account holders can now earn 1% cashback in the UK, sync bills with Xero, put their logo on Wise Business cards, and more.

Our fees.

Our average fee increased.

Fees moved in the wrong direction. In Q4, the average Find out more