Monday 17 May 2021 | No. 5
XU Biweekly The independent news source for Xero users, by Xero users
Stripe will acquire TaxJar to help internet businesses with tax compliance S TRIPE, A GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY COMPANY THAT BUILDS ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE INTERNET, TODAY ANNOUNCED THAT IT HAS ENTERED INTO AN AGREEMENT TO ACQUIRE TAXJAR, A LEADING PROVIDER OF SALES TAX SOFTWARE FOR INTERNET BUSINESSES.
Local sales taxes applicable to online commerce have proliferated in recent years, with more than 11,000 different sales tax jurisdictions in the United States alone. For internet businesses, accurately tracking, calculating, reporting, and filing taxes is a large and growing burden. Indeed, one of the top requests from Stripe’s users over the past five years has been for assistance in navigating sales tax. “There’s a reason TaxJar has been a top choice for businesses: their software tools make it incredibly easy to handle sales tax,” said Dhivya Suryadevara, Stripe’s CFO. “With TaxJar, we will help millions of internet businesses running on Stripe with their sales tax and make it easier for them to sell internationally. And as a CFO, I’m delighted to welcome so many new colleagues who care deeply about taxes!” As economic infrastructure for the internet, Stripe’s products go far beyond payment acceptance. Stripe’s revenue platform helps internet businesses make more money
while relieving the burden of tedious, administrative tasks. Stripe’s Adaptive Acceptance feature, for example, uses machine learning to retry network declines in real time using optimized routing and ISO 8583 messages, helping improve authorization rates and recover revenue that would otherwise be lost. (With Adaptive Acceptance, Twilio achieved a 1% uplift over a 12-month period.) Similarly, Stripe Billing provides more than 100,000 businesses—including Atlassian, Slack, Smartsheet, and DoorDash—with a series of micro-optimizations that increase revenue and cash flow. By intelligently suggesting the right payment methods, including direct bank debits, Stripe Billing’s hosted invoices get paid three times faster than traditional invoices. As the latest addition to Stripe’s revenue platform, TaxJar will help businesses automate tasks such as: • Providing accurate sales tax rates at checkout, tied to the exact street address of the customer. • Automatically submitting tax returns to local jurisdictions and remitting the sales tax collected. • Producing local jurisdiction reports to show sales and sales tax collected—not only for each state, but for relevant counties, cities, and other special jurisdictions.
RELAY RAISES USD $19.4m TO INCREASE THE SUCCESS RATE OF SMALL BUSINESS By Yoseph West
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ODAY, WE’RE ANNOUNCING THAT RELAY HAS RAISED A TOTAL OF USD $19.4 MILLION, INCLUDING A $15 MILLION SERIES A LED BY BAIN CAPITAL VENTURES WITH PARTICIPATION FROM BETTER TOMORROW VENTURES, GARAGE CAPITAL, TRIBE CAPITAL, PANACHE AND AMARANTHINE. We’re so proud of the work our team has put in to get here, and motivated by the vote of confidence from our investors. And most importantly, we’re excited about how this funding will
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Over the last year, we’ve focused on responding to the immediate needs of our customers, continuing to introduce new products and services and executing our growth strategy, demonstrated by a significant cap-
• Total subscriber lifetime value (LTV) grew by 38% (37% in CC) to $7.65 billion • Free cash flow was $56.9 million, with total available liquid resources rising to $1.3 billion • EBITDA of $191.2 million, an increase of 39% compared to $137.7 million • Net profit of $19.8 million, an increase of $16.4 million
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Monday 17 May 2021 ISSN 2054-7234
9 772054 723006
05
MEET REVOLUT SHOPPER
We’re building banking to help small businesses succeed 82% of small businesses fail due to cash-flow issues, and traditional banking is a big part of this problem. Any small business owner knows the pain of simply trying to open a bank account for their business —
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AUSTRALIA’S FEDERAL BUDGET FOCUSES ON SECURING THE RECOVERY
By Steve Vamos
ital raise, and a number of important acquisitions. Full year highlights include (figures in NZD): • Operating revenue increased by 18% to $848.8 million (18% in constant currency (CC)) • Annualised monthly recurring revenue (AMRR) grew 17% to $963.6 million (18% in CC) • Total subscribers increased by 20% to 2.74 million
the paperwork, the lineups at the branch, the time spent on hold waiting to speak to a human. And even once your account is set up, your bank doesn’t do anything to actually enable your business to succeed. Traditional business accounts are expensive — often charging steep, unnecessary fees — and are disconnected from the other systems your business relies on. This, coupled with the lack of support, can make it really difficult for business owners to understand their own financial status.
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XERO ANNOUNCES FULL YEAR FINANCIAL AND OPERATING RESULTS (FY21)
ODAY (12TH MAY 2021) WE ANNOUNCED XERO’S FULL YEAR FINANCIAL AND OPERATING RESULTS TO 31 MARCH 2021 (FY21).
allow us to more deeply serve our customers. We’re on a mission to build a banking platform that not only saves business owners time and money, but actually makes their businesses more successful.
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By Louise Southall
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HE CENTRAL THEME OF THIS BUDGET IS TO SECURE AUSTRALIA’S ECONOMIC REBUILD. THERE ARE A NUMBER OF INITIATIVES THAT SHOULD SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESSES THROUGH RECOVERY. BUT FOR THOSE SMALL BUSINESSES STILL CONSTRAINED BY CLOSED BORDERS, INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN LOW UNTIL MID-2022. The top three announcements for small
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businesses in this year’s Budget are: • Funding of $1.2 billion for the Digital Economy Strategy • Extension of Low and Middle Income Tax Offset (for 2021/22), Instant Asset Writeoff provisions (until 30 June 2023) and Loss Carry-back provisions (to 2022/23) • Deregulation agenda, using includes investing in...
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New Features For May
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