XU Magazine - Issue 06 - Digital Edition - Preview by XU Magazine

The independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users

ISSUE

magazine Cover Story

Climbing higher Q & A with Kevin Mann, Tidy Page

+ Xero Feature Timeline

Innovations to help you thrive in 2016

FOR ALL

XUESERRSO

Try-It Tutorial

New reports in Xero: grouping, headers and adding notes Advice

3 clever ways to offer a profitable bookkeeping service to your clients We want to hear from you! Get in touch - email: hello@xumagazine.com

Issue 06 / 1

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XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users. Find us online at xumagazine.com

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WELCOME TO ISSUE 06 Here it is – the first free issue to be launched at Xerocon! This will also be the first year that we will be at every Xerocon.

magazine

The theme that has emerged for Issue 06 is ‘Climbing Higher’. The team from Tidy are climbing their way up our front cover, and their CEO Kevin Mann has more to say on their aims on page 80.

The independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users

Issue 06 Co-Founders: David Hassall, Wesley Cornell Managing Editor: Wesley Cornell Copy Editor: Jo Hardman Account Manager: Joel Barnett Advertising Manager: Alex Newson Subscriptions Manager: Chris Scales International Correspondent (AU/NZ): Jeri Murphy Contributing Writers: Richard Francis, Heather Townsend, Karen Reyburn, Darren Ford, Ajay Khanna, Rory Finegan, Peter McCarroll, Madhu Jain, Peter M. Vessenes, Grant Johnson, Zowie Hondow, Lucy Danon, Andrei Gromek, Kamal Varna, Kristin Harris, Jeannie Doherty, Charlie Wilson, Jeri Murphy, Bruce Campbell, David Cahill & Wes Vermaas, Dermot Hamblin, Jose Mathias, Dhan Mannakkara, Jared Armstrong, Kevin Mann Editorial/News Submissions: If you have any editorial content, (e.g news, comment, tutorials etc.) that you would like included in the next edition of XU Magazine, please contact editorial@xumagazine.com Advertising: advertising@xumagazine.com T: +44 (0)116 298 60 80 E: hello@xumagazine.com W: www.xumagazine.com ‘Xero’ is a trademark of Xero Limited (New Zealand). 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 2014-2015. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. XU Magazine is published by XU Magazine Ltd (08811842), registered in England and Wales. Registered office: 198 Welford Road, Leicester, LE2 6BD. All information contained in this magazine is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. XU Magazine cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. If you submit unsolicited material to us, you automatically grant XU Magazine a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in all/any editions of the magazine, 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 nor its employees, agents or subcontractors shall be liable for loss or damage. The views expressed in XU Magazine are not necessarily the views of XU Magazine Ltd, its editors or its contributors.

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Dhan Mannakkara, from Xero has Innovations to Help You Thrive on page 69. Karen Reyburn of The Profitable Firm tells us about Content Generation on page 11. Wes Varmaas and Dave Cahill from My Own CFO write about how Xero advisors can help clients to be profitable on page 56.

There should be something to help everyone climb higher this year! We are looking forward to embracing all that this year has to bring, and we hope you are too! At the time of writing, we are hoping to be meeting many of you at Xerocon London. We really enjoy the opportunity to be part of the Xero community.

Jo Jo Hardman - Editor (jo@xumagazine.com)

We also have two more of Jeri Murphy’s excellent tutorials on pages 51 and 64.

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users. Find us online at xumagazine.com

In this issue...

FEATURED

06 / The perfect advisory relationship 08 / 3 clever ways to offer a profitable bookkeeping service to your clients

29 / Helping your clients succeed online 31 / Review your payroll in Xero

11 / 5 reasons content generation is critical for accountants

37 / Running your property company in the cloud

14 / The era of mobility software

40 / Connections are the past and future of business

16 / Xero Search - the little button with all the answers

42 / Make the jump to become a ‘Firm of Now’

18 / From Chartered Accountant to App Developer

44 / Don’t you just divide by 12?

21 / Fixing bank reconciliation ‘Out of Balance’ problems in Xero

46 / Get leaner and grow faster with cloud technology

25 / Why outsource your accounts?

48 / What’s in your marketing K.I.T?

26 / Fat, Dumb and Happy

49 / Top 5 small business accounting mistakes

Funded on:

51 /

Try-It Tutorial New reports in Xero: grouping, headers & adding notes

54 / Real time bookkeeping

56 / In 2016, Xero Advisors are better placed than ever before to play a vital role in helping clients

61 / Add-on partners benefit from integration 64 / Try-It Tutorial Xero Inventory Comparison - top 10 tips 69 / Innovations to help you thrive in 2016

76 / Reader Photos 77 / The power of customer reviews 80 / Cover Story Q&A with Kevin Mann 90 / And Finally... Receipt Bank receives USD$10 million in investment

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29 Follow us on Twitter: @xumagazine

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The Perfect Advisory Relationship Before founding Spotlight Reporting in 2011 Richard Francis spent nearly two decades advising businesses large and small. His successful boutique firm specialised in Virtual CFO and mentoring, so growing long-term, high value advisory relationships was his bread and butter. Richard picks up the story from here... From this foundation, Spotlight Reporting was born. Our raison d’être is to empower Virtual CFO teams and individuals across the globe, so it’s been gratifying to see Spotlight Reporting become the most popular reporting toolset in the Xero Eco-system and to win the Add-On of the Year Award in 2015. We continue to grow strongly, and working alongside Xero firms to transform their service provision and adopt a ‘value add’ mindset is a passion for me and the Spotlight Reporting team. Passing on some of our industry experience and IP is something we love doing - and something we encourage other ‘Super VCFO’ practitioners to do too. In particular, sharing practical tips on pivoting a firm away from a Traditional Compliance to a Perfect Advisory model is key. To this end, we often get asked what a Perfect Advisory relationship looks and smells like - and how to form them. Here’s 10 thoughts from the front-line: 1. It’s about Humans The backbone of a perfect advisory relationship is human interaction, whether this be a physical face-to-face meeting or an online session. Don’t over-automate and lose the human touch - you won’t maximise value to either party that way. 2. Get the Chemistry Right An advisory relationship needs to have structure, balance, and a decent dose of empathy. It needs to be right for the client and for you - so make sure the ‘chemistry’ 6 / Issue 06

works before you commit. 3. Agree Outcomes Upfront Be clear on what outcomes you and the client want to achieve. Codify these for ongoing reference. Note that your personal outcomes should also include (a) achieving a greater sense of fulfilment from deploying your skills and expertise usefully - and (b) a decent value-based fee! 4. Work to a Plan Great advisory relationships have a mix of scheduled interactions. I prefer monthly (business speed today demands regular oversight and input) as well as ad hoc crisis or opportunity management. 5. Embed data and insight at the heart of the relationship Numbers are our ‘thing’, but without analysis and insight numbers don’t speak to our customers. Bring the numbers alive with an an engagement tool such as a report, forecast or dashboard - plus of course a decent dose of your sound advice and inspiration. 6. Always Add Value Ultimately you will be judged on the value you deliver at every interaction. Always provide more value than your competitors would, making it madness for your best clients to look elsewhere.

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Words: Heather Townsend Heather, the practice management expert, is the award-winning author of The FT Guide To Business Networking and The Go-To Expert. Over the last 12 months she has helped her clients add over £1 million GRF to their practices. To read more articles by Heather, visit growingyourfirm.co.uk @HeatherTowns

3 Clever ways to offer a profitable bookkeeping service to your clients How to offer a profitable bookkeeping service has been the permanent challenge for many accountancy firms. If you bring the service in-house you get all the downsides of employing someone and very little of the upsides of enjoying a healthy profit margin on the work. In this article, Heather Townsend (HT) explores with Arun Ravindranathan (AR), CEO of the UK’s leading accounts outsourcing company 3 tried and tested ways in which you can offer a profitable bookkeeping service to your clients.

In your opinion, what are some of the barriers stopping accountants from offering a profitable bookkeeping service?

As a qualified accountant I know that our profession is not normally known for innovation and risktaking. However, it is absence of these qualities, which are normally the root 8 / Issue 06

cause for firms struggling to make a profit on their bookkeeping. The firms that we see who have cracked the knotty problem of how to deliver a profitable bookkeeping service are the ones who are happy to look at things differently, and innovate to stay ahead of their competitors. If bookkeeping for your practice is still heavily rooted in the days of processing ‘bag of receipt’ jobs and billing hourly, then it is definitely time to consider how you could do things differently.

Is the traditional way many accountancy firms service their bookkeeping work by using their trainees as bookkeepers, now becoming past its

sell by date?

Using bright, young and keen trainees can still be an excellent way to service your bookkeeping work. They can be cheap, and exceptionally cheap if you bring them in on an apprenticeship scheme. The downside of this arrangement is they don’t stay a trainee for long. The good trainees will be hungry for more interesting and stretching work. This means, just as they get to the point when you can leave them alone to service the work, they either transition onto doing accounts work, or up and leave for brighter lights elsewhere. We’ve seen using trainees to do bookkeeping work

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New Feature: Divisional Analysis Insights and reports for divisions, departments and locations

Simply import your tracking categories from Xero, and access powerful analysis and reports in Fathom.

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Try this new feature today with a free 14 day trial of Fathom. XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users. Find us online at xumagazine.com Sign up at www.fathomhq.com

5 reasons content generation is critical for accountants When an accountant (or any business owner) thinks of marketing, you’re likely thinking of the end game. Prospects, new leads, enquiries, phone calls, referrals... Words: Karen Reyburn Karen Reyburn is a creative-minded individual who specialises in online marketing for accountancy firms. A former accountant (and a Certified Public Accountant in the States), Karen set up The Profitable Firm to work exclusively with modern, digitallyminded accountants who want to use online marketing to their best advantage. She and her team use remote and virtual working to help accountancy firms all over the globe. @ProfitableFirm

This is what we call “lead generation” – where all your marketing comes together and someone enquires about your services – and even better, decides to start working with you. And that’s the fun part. You feel excited, eager, keen. We all are apt to reply to a new prospect email before responding to an existing client’s request – because the new enquiry is exciting (and represents new fees).

services… - you share helpful relevant information that is focused on your audience and their issues… - and it encourages them to work with you… - ….on their own time. This helpful, relevant information is the ‘content’ part. It includes words, imagery, ideas, and concepts that are shared in order to be helpful. To educate, inspire, support, encourage, even change lives.

But before we get to the fun part of lead generation, there’s a foundational element that most accountants miss out on – and that’s content generation.

Some examples of content for accountants are:

No longer is it enough to get by on referrals and the odd advertisement here and there. That’s the old school marketing, and times have changed.

- Tips - How-to’s - Education - Advice - Ideas - (and many more)

Content marketing has become the most powerful means of marketing for professional service firms, and especially for accountants.

The definition of content marketing is so dull I won’t bother you with it.

What is ‘content’?

The definition of content marketing is so dull I won’t bother you with it. Let’s go with my definition, which is that: - Instead of promoting yourself and your We want to hear from you! Get in touch - email: hello@xumagazine.com

Once you have content prepared, there are a variety of ways you can share that content. Think of this content not as a building block, but a liquid. It is fluid, and it can flow into just about any sized content container, including: - Blog post - Website landing page - Email campaign - Ebook - Video - Webinar - Live event - Social media posts - Infographic or other graphic design - Presentation - Podcasts/audio

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The Era of Mobility Software What you need to know about implementing mobility solutions for field service businesses Words: Darren Ford Darren is the Marketing Manager at ServiceM8, a field service management app which empowers small business to thrive. Winner of the 2015 Xero Add-on of the Year (Industry Specific), ServiceM8 combines best-inclass technologies, the power of the cloud, and smart job management systems and processes to streamline the way businesses get work, complete work, and get paid. @ServiceM8

Xerocon Award L-R: Phil Doyle, Darren Ford and Rod Drury

The roles of accountants and bookkeepers are changing. Adding setup, training and ongoing support for cloudbased solutions to your current offering is a great way to diversify your services, open up new revenue streams and attract new clients while modernising your business. Small business owners can be a pretty hard sell, particularly when attempting to convert them to a cloud-based software solution. These are self-motivated, driven, and opinionated individuals, with a prevailing view that any change to their core business processes will be both expensive and time consuming. With this in mind, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re sharing some of our tips and lessons learnt in engaging with our target market - small, field-based 14 / Issue 06

trades and services businesses such as electrical and plumbing contractors, landscapers and HVAC specialists. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first set the scene. Field service businesses - people who get paid for their time and expertise - will play a huge part in the future of our economies. When it comes to trades and services (ServiceM8â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s target market), their unique needs are generally not well understood, and are therefore underserved. For field service businesses, a surprising amount of their time is devoted to completing processes that surround a job, rather than actually doing the job itself. This is where cloud software solutions like Xero, ServiceM8, and other add-ons in the Xero Add-on Marketplace, can have a tremendous impact in reducing

admin time and empowering these small businesses to thrive. If we were to define a small business as having less than 20 employees, then there are over 400,000 small businesses in New Zealand, 2 million in Australia, 5 million in the UK, and 27 million in the USA. The potential for uptake of mobility solutions is huge, as is the potential market for accountants and bookkeepers to diversify their offering through setup, training, and ongoing consultation services for these solutions. Small business is big business. But how do you best engage with small business owners to implement these solutions? Here are some of our tips and lessons learnt in engaging with small,

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of setup and training. You should promote a logical and progressive setup and training schedule which eases the implementation of your solution into the business. Train different staff (e.g. administration, finance, field technicians, and managers) in small and separate user groups, and develop a schedule for the managers to gradually introduce more sophisticated features and functionality into everyday operations.

Xero Search

Think About Specialising Targeting a specific industry group, such as electrical contractors, plumbers, or pest control, could give you an edge in attracting clients for your cloud implementation services, who could turn into long-term clients for your core accounting or bookkeeping services.

The little button with all the answers In 2012 there was a request for a search function to help manage bank account transactions on Feature Requests, and in December 2015 this request was more than fulfilled. We were introduced to Xero Search, “a smarter, faster way to search and navigate in Xero”. The Xero Search button (1) is accessible by either clicking on it or pressing the ‘/’ key. It then opens the Search bar (2) and you can begin your search. Account names, contacts and invoice numbers are just some of the things that can search to help us to navigate the product, and in true Xero fashion there are some pre-programmed keyboard shortcuts (shown opposite) to help further improve efficiency. When you see the item you are searching for, simply navigate down using the arrow keys and click Enter, or click on it using the mouse.

You might already serve a particular industry group, or have knowledge and experience in a particular industry. Or maybe you’ve identified an industry which is underserved. You might even find your business naturally specialising over time. The size of your business, the size of your catchment, and the characteristics and prospects of your local economy will be factors in deciding whether to try narrowing the target market for your cloud implementation services. Seize the Day Accountants and bookkeepers are uniquely suited to becoming setup, training and consulting partners for cloud solutions. Their knowledge of business processes, trusted relationships with their clients, and expertise and enthusiasm for technology are a perfect match for the needs of field service businesses looking to move into the cloud. The accounting businesses which can best capture this exciting market will be those that most succeed and grow in the years ahead

Words: Ajay Khanna Ajay is one of the Xero specialists employed by Moneypad Accountants in Bagshot, Surrey, UK. After graduating in the summer 2015 he joined the ACCA graduate program at Moneypad. Ajay follows Moneypad’s vision to offer realtime accounting support to ownermanaged businesses, and help them reach their full potential.

The other key thing Xero has added is the ‘Add new’ button (3). By clicking on this button, it takes you straight into a new blank invoice for you to populate. It works in the same way for purchase orders, contacts, bills and quotes. How can Xero Search help? Efficiency is the key element in productivity for a business. Streamlining a business’s efficiency makes job completion faster and the quicker the job is done, the quicker you can move on to the next one. This mentality is what drives businesses to reach their maximum potential. To some, the Search button is just another tool, but it is far more than

@MoneypadLtd

1 2 3

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Words: Rory Finegan Rory is a Chartered Accountant and founding partner of Beyond Accounting, a leading Xero partner in Ireland. Rory is an avid user of technology and in just a few years has built a practice that’s renowned for its expertise in cloud solutions. Beyond Accounting believes in offering a customercentred service, helping clients grow their business the smart way.

From Chartered Accountant to App Developer App developer is not how you’d typically describe your accountant, but we don’t see ourselves as a typical accountancy practice. So when a client of ours said they would need to connect Clover and Xero, a train of thought was started that ultimately led to us adding app development to our service offering! As one of Xero’s leading partners in Ireland, we are well used to working with cloud accounting solutions and regularly help our clients to incorporate Xero plugins and other business integrations into their processes. We’re always trying out new cloud solutions so that we can advise our clients as to the cons and pros of each, ensuring we add real value to our service. Clover – an integrated hardware-software solution We were already familiar with Clover. It was launched two years ago by global payment giant First Data, and its sleek, 18 / Issue 06

Apple-esque hardware and integrated payments processing really set it apart from other POS solutions from the start. Karl McCann, Senior Product Manager for Clover with AIB Merchant Services (who represent Clover in the UK and Ireland) explains:

We love Clover because, like Xero, it was born in the cloud – integration-ready and with a comprehensive suite of APIs and a crowd-sourced approach to plug-ins. Users get all the benefits of being able to remotely access data and save time with useful integrations and plugins.

“Clover is a smart solution that integrates everything into one place – from card payments to gift card solutions, loyalty offerings, and endless business management tools. We already have around 5,000 users in the UK and Ireland, while the US community is around 100,000 strong and growing fast.”

Spotting the opportunity A client of ours, in the hospitality industry, was going through the process of changing both their accounts software and their Point of Sale solution. They had already identified Clover as being the right ePOS, and when we showed them Xero they were

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The Xero Reporting Add-On that provides Advisors with a free mobile app for their Clients

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• Monitor Clients’ financial performance across 11 intuitive KPI’s • Easy to interpret dashboard shows how cash has been generated and spent • Drilldown screen for each KPI that explains any issues and identifies positive outcomes • Action list highlights opportunities to improve cash flow and reinforces Advisor engagement • SaaS subscription model provides low cost added value service to Clients • Improve cash flow and business performance in real time • White label branding and Free Client portal for Xero Advisors

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Fixing Bank Reconciliation ‘Out of Balance’ problems in Xero Words: Peter McCarroll Peter was awarded Xero’s “Most Valuable Professional” award for his contribution to Xero’s online Community Forum. Peter is a Chartered Accountant in both New Zealand and Canada and provides Xero-based accounting and bookkeeping services to clients in New Zealand, USA and Canada as well as providing live support to Xero users around the globe. He is also the founder of uCollect.biz – a Xero add-on that helps initiate pre-authorised account collection. You’ll find him regularly answering questions in the Xero Community. @TheX_eroGuru

The bank reconciliation process in Xero, if provided with correct data and intelligent user interaction, should result in a perfect bank reconciliation where everything balances as expected. But the reality is that this does not always happen... There are many causes for reconciliation errors which I will cover in another article. This article is specifically dealing with the scenario where your “Statement Balance” in Xero does not agree with your actual bank statement.

To check that your Xero account reconciles to your bank statement you need to start with the Reconciliation Report. You can access this from your Manage Account menu (in the account summary block on the Bank Accounts home page, or the top of the actual account page) or as a link from the top of the bank account page.

It is good practice to check your bank Once here you are looking at the very reconciliation at least once a month. This end of the report to the “Statement will identify any stale transactions and other data-entry errors that Balance” section. If you you need to fix (more on have direct feeds or your imported statement file those in another article) Checking that as well as give you the includes statement your Xero bank opportunity to check balances you will that you Xero ledger also see a line account reconciles showing you balances with your to your bank bank statement. the “Imported statement is the first Statement Checking that your Balance,” which Xero bank account step in a proper reconciles to your should be the same as reconciliation. bank statement is your actual statement the first step in a proper balance (but not always). reconciliation – it verifies that you have all the data from the bank. If Your Reconciliation Report does this is not done first it is much harder to not need to be empty for you to test solve other problems. the statement reconciliation and you do not have to be up to date with your transactional reconciliation to be able to complete this step. Get your most recent bank statement (or the balance for a known date from your internet banking system) and compare the actual bank balance to the “Statement Balance” line in Xero. If they agree you can move on to reviewing the other reconciling items. If they don’t agree you need to work out why and correct it.

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Why Outsource Your Accounts?

Words: Madhu Jain Madhu, the Co-founder and Team Leader at BookkeepingMonster.com has been associated with PwC Kolkata and PwC Sydney in the past and has been leading off-shore accounting service practices for the better part of her adult life. Having completed her CA from ICAI, Madhu channelized all her energies into specializing in offshore accountancy and bookkeeping services over cloud based accounting platforms like Xero. Madhu is also a Xero Certified Silver Adviser. @Bookkeepingmon

Have you thought about outsourcing your accounts work? Do you know it could help you to grow your business internationally? It is something many of us have thought about, but here are some of the reasons you might want to give it a try.

less obvious benefits. For example, the business is able to convert some fixed costs into variable costs and eliminate large expenditures in the early stages of the business, which in turn frees up more capital for investment in revenueproducing activities.

Faster expansion abroad

Driving efficiency

Offshore accounting of Xero blurs geographical barriers and allows for smooth expansion abroad. If say a U.S. firm outsources to an offshore Xero team in India and the U.S. firm wants to expand into new markets like Australia or the U.K., it becomes easier to do that while keeping the structure operational with the Indian team. However, if the U.S. firm had outsourced to a local player, it would become difficult for the domestic outsourcing team to maintain offices abroad with effective cost-savings.

Working with expert Xero teams could enable you to catch accounting frauds that the in-house team may overlook. Offshore outsourcing enables you to take advantage of the differences in time-zones to ensure that things are done while you sleep so that you avoid a last-minute rush, especially in areas like tax preparation. A professional Xero team will enable you to take advantage of tax deductions to keep your tax burden low and boost profitability.

The scope of outsourcing Offshore accounting has become popular with a number of SMEs for a variety of reasons. When it comes to outsourcing of accounting functions, doing it the right way can make a whole world of difference. In the past, businesses could only outsource a portion of the accounting functions like account payables. Other functions like account receivables and tax preparations would be kept inhouse. However, expanding the scope of outsourcing can lead to far greater benefits. It makes more sense to outsource both accounts payable and accounts receivable together. The team is able to make better accounting decisions when it sees both cash inflows and outflows together. This allows for better finance and accounting processes, so that tax deduction possibilities can be seen more clearly.

Many SMEs have realized that outsourcing accounting functions enables them to become more attractive to investors because of operational efficiencies. Offshore accounting enables SMEs to act big by taking advantage of the economies of scale of a large offshore Xero accounting provider to gain competitive advantage. Outsourcing accounts enables SMEs to focus human resources where they need them most. It usually disrupts core operations if you attempt to hire and train staff for backend activities that can be handled by someone outside the business.

The benefits of offshore accounting in Xero A major factor in outsourcing accounts is the reduced cost. There are also other We want to hear from you! Get in touch - email: hello@xumagazine.com

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Fat, Dumb and Happy (At least for a little while...) I first learned to program in 1969. Fortran (endless stacks of cards you protected with your life lest they fall down and get scrambled) and a brand new, (on the mainframe), software language called ‘Basic’. Since then I have seen the following major shifts in technology (and the way the world works) every eight years or so... Words: Peter M. Vessenes With over 30 years experience in the financial industry, Peter is the CEO and founder of ProfitSee, a financial software service for financial professionals, CPAs, and ProAdvisors. ProfitSee is an all-inone financial analysis and budgeting software from seasoned financial experts. ProfitSee helps business owners and financial advisors alike gain powerful insights to manage cash flow, grow profitability and increase valuation. @MyProfitSee

2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

The early 1970s: Mini-computers, redefining how SME companies operate The late 1970s: Micro computers, revolutionizing the world The mid 1980s: Local Area Networks (think Novell) and Artificial Intelligence Programming The early 1990s: Wide Area Networks (think Cisco) The late 1990s: The Internet: Dot Coms The mid-late 2000s: The Internet: Business to Consumer (Amazon, Netflix, etc.) The early-mid 2010s: The Cloud: Social Media and Business to Business Apps

So what happened to each of the minicomputer manufacturers that worked with software developers that created programs for vertical markets? Wang went bankrupt and shut down. Texas Instruments refused to listen to an employee that designed a portable (luggable) computer. This resulted in the launch of Compaq. TI closed their second largest division, The Digital Systems Group. Digital Equipment went out of business. Hewlett Packard shut down their mini computer division, and few years later acquired Compaq. What about IBM? IBM was the place for ‘lifetime’ employment. A Blue Chip investment, it was ‘the place to be’ if you were into technology. They wound up eventually shutting down ALL their hardware technologies, and became a business consulting firm with an in-depth understanding of technology.

Wow, I feel oldAt every transition I watched the same pattern: the ‘old guard’ were doing so well, there was no sense of urgency to change what they were doing. Profits were high, and technology companies felt they had ‘locked in’ business clients. For example, in the early 1980s there were several major mini-computer manufacturers. These included, IBM, Wang, Hewlett Packard, Texas Instruments, Digital Equipment Corporation, and a few others. IBM believed that the PC was specifically targeted to consumers. After all, it was a ‘personal computer’. What they failed to realize was that the combination of VisiCalc (the first PC spreadsheet) and Lotus 123, and the open operating system architecture that allowed mainframe or mini computer terminal emulation would ‘kill’ their mini sales. Most people believe that the explosion of micro computers in

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the 1980s was driven by consumers. In fact, it was Fortune 500 companies that drove the sales; how many consumers could afford $2,000 to $3,000 for a device in 1983?

Fat, dumb, and happy. I have watched this pattern in many companies, decade by decade, repeat itself in EVERY major technology shift. Here we are, part of the Xero ecosystem. For those of you that have read my earlier articles in XU Magazine, I pointed out that Xero was neither the first, nor the ‘only’ cloud based accounting software going back to the early 2000s. It is just that Xero figured out many key elements that would allow them to take advantage of their competitors ‘fat, dumb, and happy’ mentalities while avoiding the pieces that caused companies like MYOB and Sage to get financially trapped into ‘fat dumb and happy’. What did Xero do right? The key to any software application resides in how data is managed; in other words, ‘what is the database?’ The

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Issue 06 / 27

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Paper timesheets are prehistoric.

Small business owners understand the importance of time management. Time Tracker was built for teams just like yours. Track your time anywhere - the office, at home, or on the go. And it works seamlessly with Xero. Timekeeping for the Common Era.

Start your 30 day free trial at ebillity.com/xero 28 / Issue 06

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Helping Your Clients Succeed Online A simple toolkit for website effectiveness

Are your clients coming to you for advice about websites and the various Xero Add-ons that can plug into their website?

Words: Grant Johnson Grant is a co-founder of Rocketspark, a beautifully simple website builder that enables non-technical business owners to make their own website and connect with many Xero addons. Prior to founding Rocketspark Grant was in marketing but his first job was as an accountant. @Rocketspark

We had an electrician visit last week and I asked him if I could do a little market research while he rewired a few things at home. I was interested in Alex’s journey when creating a website for his business. Alex explained how admin was a big part of his week – dealing with customer enquiries, preparing quotes and sending invoices. The conversation quickly moved from creating a website to how he could run his business more efficiently using online tools.

ecosystem to improve the performance of a website. Don’t worry. You don’t have to be a web expert to at least get your client thinking about their website’s performance. While many aspects of design are subjective the reality is that many small businesses are not doing even the basics well so we’ve developed a simple checklist you can use to help a client check their website’s effectiveness. 1) Is their business name ranking well?

I explained to Alex how he could create his own website, connect up a Xero Add-on to link website enquiries directly to his job management system and then do his invoicing on the run between jobs using Xero. Alex was impressed by the potential and I guess it will be no surprise to accountants to read what he said next: “I need to talk to my accountant about this”.

Word of mouth referral is often the largest source of new business for many businesses. If someone refers a friend to a business it is important that the business name is ranking high in Google and a high ranking for your business name is a very attainable goal. 2) Is their website mobile friendly?

Can I talk to my clients about their website? As an accountant or bookkeeper you may not feel well placed to give clients guidance on their website and how to harness the various tools within the Xero We want to hear from you! Get in touch - email: hello@xumagazine.com

For many of our clients mobile website traffic is now more than 30% of their total web traffic and in the areas of hospitality and tourism the mobile traffic percentage is much higher. Since April 2015 Google now favours websites

Issue 06 / 29

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Review your Payroll in Xero Recommending Add-ons for a website There is such a wide range of Xero Addons available than can be plugged into a website and it can be a challenge to know where to start. However, to harness Addons on a website there are a few clues to look for which are key areas where Xero Add-ons can really help with business efficiency. - Do they have a product or service that could be purchased online? Connect with an e-commerce Xero Add-on. - Do they take bookings for their services? There are many Add-ons for booking appointments, accommodation and activities. - Do they provide quotes? Many Add-ons providing job management, quoting and CRM services can be embedded directly into a website.

Xero payroll is a powerful tool to minimise the time it takes to manage payments to your team as well as superannuation. But to get the most out of Xero it needs to be correctly set up... We have developed a list of items that need to be reviewed and completed in order to maximise your productivity when it comes to running payroll: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Payroll accounts Payslip Payroll items Payroll calendar(s)

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Superannuation Employees Employee tax declaration Leave balances Employee bank accounts Pay Templates & Payroll Opening Balances

Harnessing these Add-ons will not only improve efficiency but will increase sales amongst those customers who prefer a purely digital interaction. Finding the right Add-on can take a little time but the Xero Add-on marketplace is the best place to start. You can browse by Add-on category or by industry type. Check out the Add-on reviews in the marketplace and also contact the Add-on directly to see how they can help your clients. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be pleased to hear from you. Make the most of Xerocon to learn about Add-ons Xerocon is a great place to speak to many of the Add-ons directly when we step out from the digital world and into the real world. Ask us for a demonstration and quiz us on how to harness connections to other Add-ons so that you can help clients like Alex move to the next level of efficiency and profitability.

Words: Zowie Hondow, Xero Coach from Jet Convert @JetConvert

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Issue 06 / 31

Payroll accounts

1. Go to the settings tab 2. Select general settings 3. Select payroll settings In the first tab review your bank account and to which accounts your payroll items are being coded. If you are using tracking categories select the appropriate employee group and timesheet category. We sometimes find that there is an expense account set up for each employee or that each payment type is booked to a different account. This often clutters a Chart of Accounts and makes the reporting less useful. There are other reports that can show the costs by employee if payroll tracking is implemented. Make sure that the bank account selected is the one that you actually pay your employees from.

Payslip

In the payslip tab add your logo and select the details you want to show on the payslips.

Payroll Items

It is best to add as few pay items as possible while complying with any awards you might fall under. We often find multiple pay items that all have the same settings. To tidy things up they should all be combined into one. There is no need to differentiate between hourly pay items or salaried pay items. You can actually use the same pay item and select how you pay an employee when you choose the pay item in the pay template. In the pay items tab review the setup of your payroll items including allowances and deductions. Here you can add new items or edit items you already have. 32 / Issue 06

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users. Find us online at xumagazine.com

Payroll Calendar(s)

The payroll calendar defines how often your employees are paid and for which timeframes. To save time it is best if you can pay all your employees in the same frequency and on the same day. Where that is not possible you can add multiple payroll calendars. In the calendar tab you can view your payroll calendars. If you need to add a new calendar make sure that the start date is the first day in the pay cycle and the payment date is when the payment is done to your employees. Each employee has to be linked to a calendar. If you need to change calendar on an employee go to the employee and add the changes in their setup.

Superannuation

Xero forces you to enter super details accurately. The Xero Premium subscriptions includes an automated super payment option where it just takes a click of a button for Xero to report to all super funds for your employees. For this to work, the super settings are essential. Accurate Super settings in Xero will also simplify things if you manage the super reporting yourself. Xero includes a list of all regulated Australian super funds. You can often find them by name, but if you are unsure, you will need the SPIN/USI number. Self managed funds can be entered with all bank details and reporting is handled for them as well. In the superannuation tab you find all the super funds that you have set-up for your employees. You can add new funds, both self managed and regulated super funds. If you need to change any super fund details for an employee first add the super fund in this tab and then go to the employee to edit their setup.

Employee details

1. Go to the payroll tab 2. Select employees In the first tab please view all your employees by status (you can add a new employee here). It is very important to review the setup of your employees, this gives you the chance to add any missing details for any employee. Select your first active employee and go through all the tabs in the settings.

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Issue 06 / 33

>> Review the details for each employee. It is important to add a contact email address so you can automatically send payslips to them when the payrun has been created. It is also useful to update other address details.

In the employment tab review the details and make sure that your employee has: 1. A start date 2. Payroll calendar 3. A superannuation membership and 4. An ordinary earnings rate You can add other details as appropriate.

Employee tax declaration

The tax declaration tab is important for your employees setup and how PAYG etc is calculated. It is best to compare that to the original TFN declaration that you have on file for each employee. Add any missing details ASAP and make sure the relevant boxes are ticked. Be very careful when entering information as getting this wrong might result in you having to backpay taxes on behalf of your employee.

34 / Issue 06

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Leave balances

In the leave tab you can view your employeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leave balances and add leave applications. Please read more about how the leave tab works and how to give your employees access to Xero. There is a detailed description in Leave in Xero/Invite employees to Xero (help.xero.com/au/ MyPayroll).

Employee bank accounts

Review the bank account setup for each employee. Make sure the bank account details are entered and correct. Then you will be able to create an ABA file and upload to your bank, rather than having to enter the employee payments manually into your bank portal. If you still pay an employee by cheque, kindly ask them to join the 21st century (LOL).

Pay Templates & Payroll Opening Balances

The pay template is the biggest time saver of all. You want to set it up to minimise the work during payruns. All pay items that you might need to use should be in here. If there are standard hours, or standard amounts for allowances you should add them. Whatever is in here will be used to pre-fill your payrun. When you create the payrun you are then completely free to change anything, but obviously you want to minimise the need for that. When you add a pay item, you can select whether you pay via an hourly rate or an annual salary. Review your employeesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; pay templates, add or edit any items that you want to appear automatically for your employee when creating a pay run.

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>> If your client has moved from a different accounting package and you did not want to re-create each payrun in Xero, the opening balance tab can be used to reflect what has been paid from the beginning of your financial year to the last pay run created in the old accounting software. This ensures that Payment Summaries can be completed accurately at the end of the year. Please note which date the opening balances are set for and the first payrun in Xero should be set for the period immediately after that date. Enjoy payroll in Xero!

36 / Issue 06

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Words: Lucy Danon Lucy is the Practice Manager at Stern, one of West Londonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most forward-thinking cloud accountants and business advisers. Lucy heads up the running of the practice with a particular focus on client service, business development, marketing and HR. @lucydanon_

Running your property company in the cloud Customising Xero for property businesses

Running a property business effectively is all about keeping on top of your finances. Dealing effectively with your bookkeeping, cash flow and tax planning are all key elements. Lucy Danon, Practice Manager at Stern, explains how a combination of Xero and the right property-focused Xero Add-ons has helped their property clients to get in control of their financial management. >> We want to hear from you! Get in touch - email: hello@xumagazine.com

Issue 06 / 37

Property has always been a niche we’ve focused on at Stern. Being based in West London, we’re surrounded by a lot of estate agents, property developers and landlords, so it made perfect sense to bring these clients over to cloud accounting when we made the move to Xero back in 2012.

work on your project management efficiencies and maximise your profit margins. There’s a huge range of industryspecific project management software tools aimed at the bigger developer and we help integrate these with Xero to add to those efficiencies.

sales, costs and even data on customer satisfaction levels. Getting that ‘big picture’ of the whole business puts you in a great position to spot any shortfalls in income or deal with any bad debts that may be racking up.

The actual management of properties is another big area where the Add-on Spotlight Reporting is an add-on we Four years down the road, and we’ve community comes into its own. Re-leased use across the practice, and it’s been become real advocates for Xero – we even and PocketRent, are the two established invaluable in helping us delve down have our own in-house Tech Specialist, add-ons used in this space. The fact even deeper into a developer’s profit and Tom Toriello. And having that level of that you have seamless integration loss for individual reporting on specific technical expertise has really with Xero gives you far better financial developments. By pulling all helped us to tailor Xero to control, easier end-of-year reporting and your Xero data through into the specific needs of our incredibly efficient management of your Spotlight we can give “We’ve got property clients. property portfolio – that makes our job you a really visual as their accountant a lot simpler when it overview of your a pretty solid What opens Xero comes to year-end, or producing monthly core numbers for collection of tools up and makes it management accounts. each project. And now that we can refine so flexible is the that graphical Add-on market. and tweak to meet the Arthur is another property add-on element really Having that huge that’s been on our radar of late. It’s still helps you to requirements of each community of relatively new, but it’s already been very resonate with your sector in the property numbers and put different cloud tools effectively adopted by one of our housing market.” makes it very easy to them into context – it’s association clients – it’s great to see such put together a system an innovative app come out of the UK. next-level reporting. that’s tailored to your niche sectors, and we’ve tried out a few Keeping on top of staff expenses and Estate Agents: of the property focused add-ons along sundry costs can be an area that some the way. Each of them has it’s own pros estate agents find hard. The admin is a Whether you’re looking at the sales side and cons, but we’ve got a pretty solid time-consuming business when you’re in or the lettings department, having good collection of tools now that we can refine and out of the office for most cash flow is really vital to and tweak to meet the requirements of of the day, so we come making a success of an each sector in the property market. back to our trusty estate agent business. Receipt Bank Add“The fact that you So we make a point Property Developers: on when we know of setting Xero have this seamless clients want to up to give the integration with Xero With property developers, we speed up the best possible understandably tend to see a focus on gives you far better bookkeeping cash forecasts. end profit. But to get that end profit, it’s and expenses We’re quite financial control, easier really important that you have a clear side of things. excited about end-of-year reporting business plan in place right from the start Scanning in the new and incredibly efficient and think about elements like raising your receipts Statement finance and planning for tax costs. and keeping of Cash Flow management of your your expenses up report in Xero, property portfolio.” Where Xero really adds value is in to date is so much as that should providing the real-time information that’s simpler. And even now, help us provide great needed when we’re running monthly Receipt Bank still has that comparisons of current accounts for our property developer ‘wow factor’ for clients that haven’t cash flow against prior months, clients. We work very closely with you to come across it before. quarters or years. That kind of detail can understand your long-term goals for each be so helpful. project and then set up Xero so you’ve got Landlords: the numbers needed to plan ahead, cut As with our developer clients, we back on your tax spend and give yourself recommend tracking each department and Landlords don’t generally have the same financial security. focus on their record-keeping as the category within your estate agency. Then you can see separate performance metrics bigger property businesses, and tend to We also make use of Xero’s customisable wait until the tax year-end rolls around for the sales and lettings teams showing coding in the Chart of Accounts to track before they sort out tracking their income you where targets are being met or where specific categories for each project that and sourcing all the related paperwork there’s room for improvement. Breaking a client is working on. That way, you get and documentation. things down in this way really improves a really drilled-down view of your costs your understanding of the business – helping you streamline that spending, For us, as accountants, this used to make putting metrics in place around your 38 / Issue 06

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Webexpenses and Xero

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Beautifully integrated for fast and accurate payment of employee expenses

Seamless transfer of expenses claim data to Xero

Expense claims appear as bills to paid

100% accuracy and improved efficiency

One-click integration is fast and easy

www.webexpenses.com/xero Follow us on Twitter: @xumagazine Issue 06 / 39

Connections are the past and future of business Our new cloud reporting Xero Addon, Wink Reports, launched this past year. When you’re building a start-up, everything happens so quickly, you spend most of your time just trying to keep up. It wasn’t until I spoke recently with a client, Matthew Rasheed, Managing Director at CleanOrg in Sydney, that some deeper thoughts, about where cloud software can take business, finally clicked...

Words: Andrei Gromek Andrei is the Managing Director at ImpulseCloud. His background is in accounting, IT implementation and project management. He juggles the dayto-day running of the business with keeping fit and active, spending time with his young family and has an (over) appreciation for music and coffee. @impulsecloud

Cloud software is causing big shifts – not simply in terms of the way it performs tasks, or replaces older software, but in the way it enables us to focus on our core value proposition. Like many Xero users, I spent substantial time in larger corporate working environments before I started my own small business. I learned a lot during that time; but possibly the most valuable lessons are

40 / Issue 06

ones I am now learning in hindsight, when I think back and ask: “What made me go out on my own? What did I not like, that I can do better, now that it’s up to me?” The answers usually fit the same pattern: the bigger they are, the slower they move. Too much red tape in over-engineered procedures and approval bottlenecks. It’s no one’s fault – that’s just what happens when so many departments and people need to work as a single unit.

This dilemma is becoming increasingly important to me, or should I say “us” given we’re now a growing team. It’s up to us to avoid this trap as we grow. Our team at Wink Reports; your team in your own business. I could wait in worry for a time when we become too big and lose our edge; but instead I’m excited, as I realise it doesn’t have to be that way anymore. Cloud software like Xero and their

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Speaking at the roadshows: Rob Nixon

Make the jump to become a ‘Firm of Now’ Xero sponsors ‘Firm of Now’ UK Roadshows

Dates for your diary Manchester, UK – Monday 14th March – Hotel Football Newcastle, UK – Tuesday 15th March – Crowne Plaza Birmingham, UK – Friday, 18th March – Birmingham City FC Edinburgh, UK – Monday, 21st March – BT Murrayfield London, UK – Wednesday, 23rd March – Wellcome Foundation, Euston 42 / Issue 06

Xero is sponsoring five not-to-bemissed roadshows in March 2016 that will help accounting practices use the great new tools and content they have at their fingertips, so they can become more relevant ‘Firms of Now’. Organised by Xero Add-on partner, Panalitix, the full day ‘Firm of Now’ events feature world-class speakers: Rob Nixon, the world’s foremost authority on how accounting firms can achieve peak performance and Paul Dunn, a 4-time TEDx speaker and the first recipient of its ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Profession’ award. Rob Nixon says: ’Accountants need to take action now. They have everything they need and great tools, such as Xero, at their fingertips but the hard part is knowing how to use them. That’s where we come in and we will kick-start the journey and make it easy to become a ‘Firm of Now’.

Words: Dermot Hamblin Dermot is Country Manager with Panalitix. He has over 25 years experience of working with accountants and helping them to create efficiencies through their use of tailored software solutions. His aim is to build longstanding relationships within the accountancy profession that are built on a practical common sense approach. Dermot is responsible for launching Panalitix in the UK and has built a focused and experienced team to support the fast growing customer base. @panalitix

For further information and to register interest, call 0191 338 8926 or email: dermot.hamblin@panalitix.com XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users. Find us online at xumagazine.com

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Don’t you just divide by

Words: Kamal Varna Kamal is Founder of Flowrev, Inc. Flowrev is an easy to use revenue recognition platform that is seamlessly integrated with Xero. Business owners, executives, finance managers, accountants and bookkeepers can utilize the platform to easily implement their company’s or their client’s revenue recognition strategy. Tracking and handling changes is a breeze. Accountants and business managers appreciate the easy to use system that helps them deliver and get near-real time revenue on their financials. @flowrev

Someone asked me the other day, why do I need software for revenue recognition? If I sell a 12-month subscription, don’t I just take the subscription price, divide it by twelve and recognize the amount in each month? My response, as it always is for any complex (and especially one posing as simple) question: ‘Maybe.’ Sometimes all you would need to do, from a computation perspective, could be just that. For example, your client pays you $24,000 upfront for one day of consulting each month of a year. You divide by 12 and recognize, on an accrual basis, $2,000 a month once you have delivered that day of consulting in each month. In many cases, however, the amount recognized in each month or accounting period could be different. For example, a consultant billing on a daily rate may have more billable days in January than in February. For revenue recognition purposes, her billings for a multi-month contract will be broken out and computed on a daily basis for each month (or accounting period), and then each period’s amount is recognized within that period. For a multimonth construction project, work could be completed at a different pace within each accounting period. How much is recognized in each period may need to be computed on a percentage of completion basis. Let’s take a business that sells hundreds or thousands of subscriptions, each with a service period of a year. Some customers purchase today, some buy tomorrow and every day of every year. If the service is delivered on a daily basis, the business will need to break out the amount to recognize on a daily basis. So for an annual subscription sold on Jan 15, 2016, and a calendar month as the accounting period, one would recognize 17 days worth in Jan 2016, 29 days worth in Feb

44 / Issue 06

12?

2016 (28 for non-leap years), 31 days worth in March and so on until 14 days worth is recognized in Jan 2017. These computations, especially when done at scale and factoring for calendar vs. fiscal accounting periods, can be extremely time consuming and even painful if done manually in spreadsheets. As one accountant put it to me, ‘It’s an arduous task.’ As a business owner, you’re paying for all this ‘grunt’ work to be done possibly per hour. Even if the amount to recognize in each period is ‘easier’ to compute - you just divide by 12 - you’d still have to go through the mechanics of taking care of the timing differences from when you invoiced your customer to when you recognize the amounts billed as revenue. In volume, handling this manually is arduous too. Handling and keeping data in sync between your accounting system and your ‘disconnected’ spreadsheets is yet another headache. Some accounting systems build in the capability to automatically handle these computations and differences, via a revenue recognition module/capability, and some do not. Vendors who do not offer it may view revenue recognition as a specialized, orthogonal capability that only a segment of their full customer base or target market needs. They may eventually provide this capability, or leave it as a partner opportunity - a partner can deliver more specialized functionality and keep innovating faster being so focused. Business platforms in the enterprise/ large business space typically buildin this capability, but the price can be astronomically high. The requirements and complexity can also be a lot higher - e.g. due to complex product bundles. In the mid-market, some vendors’ build in the capability and some do not - so specialized ‘add-ons’

Did you know? orthogonal ~ statistically independent

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Get leaner & grow faster with cloud technology Kristin Harris, General Manager of cloud based employee management platform Deputy, discusses the growing number of SMBs using technology to level the playing field in 2016. Words: Kristin Harris Kristin is the General Manager of leading online work scheduling and people management platform Deputy. @deputyapp

The advent of enterprise level, low cost technology powered by the cloud is continuing to transform the competitive landscape for many SMBs. With the number of US SMBs fully adopting cloud technology set to double by 2020, many businesses are already gaining a crucial competitive edge.

flexibility to vendors, which in turn has reduced the costs of software for many SMBs. In 2016 progressive small businesses will grow faster by harnessing the power of cloud technology in the following areas:

Despite its rapid advance cloud technology still has many business owners confused: What is the cloud? Where is it? How do I make use of it? At its heart cloud computing removes the need to install software on your personal computer or company network. Instead software (security / payroll / HR) is provided for you as a service by another company and accessed over the Internet.

Quickly surpassing traditional keys to success such as product quality, value and customer service, Customer Experience (CX) is set to become the business metric for 2016.

In recent years many software providers have switched to cloud based business models. This has offered increased

1 Customer Experience

Best described as the process a company uses to track, manage and optimise every interaction with its users, customer experience is on the rise. A recent report by Gartner found that the number of companies expecting to compete heavily on customer experience has doubled (to over 80%) in the last 3 years. The rise of CX management technology is enabling SMBs to better understand their users and individual touch points in the sales cycle. Whether managing user feedback, personalising experiences or building customer loyalty, smaller businesses will use technology strategically in 2016 to optimise all areas of user interaction. 2 Integration In the chain of transactions a business operates, a tight integration of cloud services can provide compounding growth for many SMBs. Deloitte has found that SMBs using an above average number of cloud services tend to grow 26% faster and become 21% more profitable on average.

46 / Issue 06

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Issue 06 / 47

What’s in your marketing K.I.T? Words: Jeannie Doherty, Director of Cloud 9 Bookkeeping

The marketing power behind Keeping In Touch with clients...

In my last contribution to XU Magazine I talked about the death of newsletters and the rise of useful, targeted information. We’re seeing some great organisations like Xero and add-on partners do this really well. I know the power of keeping in touch with my clients in a way that’s personal and relative and so it got me thinking about when and why I communication with them. One way I regularly touch base with clients is when I bill them. I use the Xero repeating invoice function, weekly and monthly, to bill my clients for subscriptions, value price agreements and more. I also use the Xero email templates to deliver the right type of information with each bill. So I decided to put a new touch-point into my marketing K.I.T. using these 2 Xero tools and also survey monkey. Surveying clients is a now a standard tool used by many organisations to engage with clients and to improve products and service in line with feedback. Think Telstra. You’re constantly surveyed by being asked 2 questions which are: on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being excellent and 1 48 / Issue 06

being poor how would you rate the service you received today? And, what’s the main reason for this score. 1. It’s conversational: 2 way rather than 1 way, engaging the client and pulling them in. 2. It’s completely relevant to the client, in fact they are often looking for quick, easy ways to give feedback. 3. It’s automated: Ahhhh, don’t we love automation! Set it up, put it in your Xero templates and it will just keep on working. You can test, measure & change it as you like. 4. It’s FREE, so it suits any marketing budget. Implementing this into my business was easy thanks to how automated Xero makes the invoicing process. After creating a nice simple (Telstra style) survey in Survey Monkey I added this to each one of my email templates in Xero. The process is now fully automated and on a weekly basis my clients are given the opportunity to complete a quick survey. I encourage all business owners to try including a simple survey into their bills and see how the feedback shapes their products and services.

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Words: Charlie Wilson Charlie is President and CEO of Commerce Sync, an accounting integration making life easier for small business owners by eliminating manual data entry. Prior to Commerce Sync, Charlie held various senior management positions at Visa and Green Dot and has more than 15 years of experience in payments and commerce.

Top 5 small business accounting mistakes (and how to avoid them) Accounting is one of the biggest challenges for small business owners, so it’s no surprise that 40% cite bookkeeping and taxes as the worst part of owning a business. Yet, there are so many reasons to keep your books in order – from knowing your cash flow to satisfying a potential audit, the reasons for staying organized and maintaining thorough records are innumerable. Here are five of the most common small business accounting mistakes we see and some tips to help avoid them... Avoiding bank statement reconciliation You have a to-do list that’s running off the page and it’s easy to let things slip by, but by reconciling your bank account on a monthly basis, you will stem a slew of headaches down the road. If finding time is an issue, schedule a one-on-one with your bank statement by picking a

date that’s just after you receive your monthly statement. You’ll be able to reconcile discrepancies quickly, detect any overcharges if they happen and avoid important lapses of data collection. Bonus: Commerce Sync offers automatic reconciliation for Stripe and Xero users by pairing bank feeds with transfers in your

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ledger. Using a shoebox to file receipts If your business receipts are piling up in an old Zappos box under your desk, it’s time to find a new process. Set aside 15 minutes each week to organize your receipts and answer the

Issue 06 / 49

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Try-It Tutorial

Words: Jeri Murphy Jeri is the founder of JeriMurphy.com, creator of Become An Expert Bookkeeper, a 12-week online course for Xero users wanting to learn Xero to an expert level, and a successful cloud integrator focused on assisting product-selling businesses with inventory add-ons. Jeri is a qualified accountant and has been training to an expert level on Xero and numerous Addons for over 5 years.

New Reports in Xero: Grouping, Headers & Adding Notes

@jeri_murph

TIP You can only have one template per New Report per Xero Organisation. You cannot have multiple layouts per report in the New Reports function as you can do with the original reports found under All Reports.

Throughout 2015, there were many updates to the reporting capabilities of Xero. In this XU Try-It Tutorial, I will take you through some of the New Reports features and how to use them. There are many great things about the older-style reports in Xero that seem on first glance to have been removed from the New Reports, but they are there - it’s just a matter of knowing how to do it in the New Reports. That’s what I am going to share with you in this tutorial...

Old Reports

New Reports

Choose Cash vs Accrual

Show or hide decimals

Show or hide columns

Reorder columns

Save a report as a template or layout

Save many layouts of a report

Copy a published report to use as basis for a new report

Add text blocks to the top of a report

Add text blocks to the bottom of a report

Add footnotes

Filter by tracking categories

Create new formula with the report for detailed notes

Group accounts to create headers

Rearrange sections (not alphabetical order)

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As you may have seen in your Xero file, Xero reports are broken into two sections - the original reports are found under All and the newer reports under New Reports. Xero has been steadily upgrading its reporting functionality and workflows. Think of All Reports as Old Reports and you won’t miss out on any of the reports Xero has to offer. With the new reports Xero has been rolling out, there are a number of things that can be done in New Reports that can’t be done in Old Reports. Here is a quick summary of the functionality of the New Reports in comparison to the Old Reports.

>> Issue 06 / 51

Try-It Tutorial

The New Reports are the way of the future according to Xero and as with all things that change, there is always an element of uncomfortable. For me, some of the features of the New Reports felt like a bit of a step backwards. Nonetheless, I have learned the best way to use them so you can too. The tips and tutorials below focus on using the New Reports in Xero.

The function of grouping has been available in Xero for some time, however in the New Reports you can also re-order the groups that you create. In the original reports, all the groups would be in alphabetical order.

Groups Make Headers

Go to your Xero Demo Company and follow these steps: 1. Go to Reports > New Reports > Profit and Loss 2. On the right hand side of the report above the date column, hover your mouse until the Edit option appears. Click Edit. 3. Scroll down the report and tick the box to the left hand of the following accounts: ‘Commission’, ‘Superannuation’ and ‘Wages and Salaries’.

If you have come to be a Xero user after using an accounting system that grouped similar accounts together on reports, it might have come as a shock to you that Xero has a flat chart of accounts and by default, there are no headers to separate all your accounts on your reports into groups. Maybe you are used to seeing ‘Wages and Salaries’, ‘Superannuation’ and ‘Commission’ under the header of ‘Employment Expenses’, however in Xero you seem to only have all your expenses listed in alphabetical order under Operating Expenses like the screenshot below.

You can use what Xero calls Groups to group together the accounts that you want to see together on your reports. If you group together ‘Wages and Salaries’, ‘Superannuation’ and ‘Commission’ under the header of ‘Employment Expenses’, it shows like this.

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Try-It Tutorial: Group Accounts to Make Headers

4. Scroll back to the top of the report and select ‘Group Selected’.

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Try-It Tutorial 5. Enter the details of the group in the New Group popup panel. The Name field is the Header you want to show on the report for that group, in this case, enter ‘Employment Expenses’.

out of order and you want to renumber them, you have to start again. Using the New Reports, you have the flexibility to number your own notes and change the order easily; however adding Notes is a bit

6. Select ‘Place In’ ‘Operating Expenses’ and ‘Create’. You will now see those accounts grouped together with the header in the Edit screen. 7. Select Done to complete your update.

confusing when you don’t know how. In this XU Try-It Tutorial, let’s add a note to the Historical Adjustment account line on the Balance Sheet explaining why that amount is showing there.

TIP

automatically numbered. 6. Enter the title ‘Historical Adjustment’ in the Text Box and the text as follows: ‘The Historical Adjustment balance shows here on the Balance Sheet as your Conversion Balances entered into your Xero Settings is not balanced. Please review your Conversion Balances found under Settings to clear this Historical Adjustment’. 7. Select ‘Done’. Your Note ‘1: Historical Adjustment’ should look like this. 8. On the right hand side of the report above the date column, hover your mouse until the Edit option appears. Click ‘Edit’. 9. Scroll down the report to the account ‘Historical Adjustment’ and select the ‘+’ symbol in the Note column. Select Note ‘1 - Historical Adjustment’ to link the Text Box below the report to that account line. Select ‘Update’ and ‘Done’. If you print your Demo Company Balance Sheet to PDF, your note and referencing on the Balance Sheet should show as follows.

Try-It Tutorial: Adding Notes to the Balance Sheet

If you don’t Save your New Report with Groupings as Published or as a Template, you will LOSE all your groups and have to start again. Saving your Report as Draft does not save your grouping settings. Reordering Groups and Columns To reorder any group, account or section of a New Report, select the Edit button in the top right corner above the date column and then select the six dots to the left of the part of the report you want to move. Drag the group, account or section to the desired location and drop it by letting go of the mouse. Adding Notes to New Reports One of the great features of the original reports which has a different way of being actioned in the New Reports is adding notes to the report. In the original reports, you simply hover to the right of the amount on the report and an arrow shows. You can select the arrow, click ‘Add Footnote’ and then enter your Note text in the panel that appears at the bottom of the report. The note is automatically numbered for you when using this function in the Old Reports. This has limitations because if you get your notes

Go to your Xero Demo Company and follow these steps: 1. Go to Reports > New Reports > Balance Sheet 2. Select ‘Today’ in the Date field and ‘Update’ so the report populates with some data 3. To the right of Update, select ‘Report Settings’ 4. In Report Settings, tick ‘Notes column’ and ‘Update’ 5. Scroll to the bottom of the report and select ‘Insert Content’ > ‘Text Block’. This Text Block represents the area that Note 1 will appear. See that the Text Block is

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Suggest a Try-It Tutorial If you found this XU Try-It Tutorial useful, please let us know. We’d also love your ideas and suggestions for new XU Try-It Tutorial topics. Let us know over at hello@xumagazine.com

Issue 06 / 53

Real Time Bookkeeping

Team addMass - Back row: Vince Lee, Arron Bryant, David Watts, Justin Cann, Jake Ward. Front row: Piers Jakaman, Emma Campbell, Linda Wilkinson, Gerry Wilkinson

The new reality Real time bookkeeping is the latest buzzword being thrown around many an accountancy practice at the moment. Spurred on by the increasing popularity of cloud accounting and the potential that HMRC will be requesting real time information for all companies by 2020, is this a potential headache or a possible new frontier? Words: Bruce Campbell, Chairman, addMASS. Bruce is a passionate technology consultant with almost 20 years business management experience. With a proven track record in business development as operations director, financial manager and as a company director, Bruce is passionate about new technologies particularly those which live in the cloud. @AddMass

54 / Issue 06

The reality is that clients are starting to believe (rightly or wrongly) that cloud accounting will give them more ability to complete their accounting functions with minimal involvement, in the typical sense, from their accountants. This is probably true, since new generation cloud accounting platforms take most of the leg work out of the bookkeeping processes, or at the very least, the record keeping, allowing practices to quickly complete the remainder of the work.

What role will you be expected to fulfil? Rather than being fearful of this change, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s look at it more optimistically - which role do you WANT to fulfil? We believe that practices will increasingly be able to take an online, virtual finance director role with their clients - analysing the information they provide on a real-time basis and being able to offer advice on liquidity management, gearing, investment or raising capital. This is where the true value of the client/ accountant relationship lies and where clients will appreciate your ability to offer a forward-looking, planning focussed service, thus improving the fee earning capability of the practice, far beyond the limitations of compliance based work. So, far from being a reason for concern, real time accounting opens up a new world to your practice, bringing you closer to your client than ever before and making you, as a professional adviser, an integral part of their future.

The future of accountancy practices Is outsourcing the answer? If this is the case, then where does that leave your practice? This clearly changes the future of your fee structuring, as clients become increasingly unwilling to pay for accounting services and leaves many practices seeing their traditional income streams eroded.

So, in reality, how will your practice achieve real-time bookkeeping for your clients and still maintain profitability in order to reap the benefits of this new opportunity? In the past, practices have turned to

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Issue 06 / 55

In 2016, Xero Advisors are better placed than ever before to play a vital role in helping clients In this article, Wes Vermaas and Dave Cahill, cofounders of the My Own CFO app for Xero examine just a few of the ways in which Xero Advisors can help their Clients weather the head winds of what will be another unpredictable year ahead... particularly, to those who advise clients that run businesses. A significant issue often facing entrepreneurs and business owners in start-up or emerging (growing) businesses is that they will most definitely encounter issues and challenges where the ‘sum total of [their] experiences’ will not assist them to resolve or deal with these challenges – simply because they haven’t faced them before. Xero advisors, be they accountants, bookkeepers or add-on integrators and trainers, have the most exciting and rewarding (satisfying, at least) job in the world – they can make a real difference to peoples’ lives, businesses and prosperity by bringing their ‘sum total’ of experiences to bear in resolving the challenges that their Clients encounter. Words: Wes Vermaas and Dave Cahill, co-founders of My Own CFO @myown_cfo

B.J. Neblett, Author and screenwriter of The Twilight Zone paranormal hit TV series of the 1970’s wrote: “We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives”. Whilst Neblett was writing in the context of emotional experiences, the quote applies equally to those of us who manage and run businesses and,

56 / Issue 06

A bold statement, indeed, but one based on the fact that advisors can draw on their experience of many similar situations to those faced by their clients. Here, one isn’t specifically referring to the experience gained from academic study and qualifications or even professional training; simply, the mere fact that Advisors are more likely to have faced or witnessed first-hand someone facing those same issues and challenges before. Having stated what, to many, may be

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obvious but nevertheless relevant to what follows, let’s turn to just 3 of the ways in which advisors can play a part in this vital role. 1. Business Process Benchmarking & Design Professor Amar Bhide is a leading business process commentator (based at Tufts University, Massachusetts) and when he was Associate Professor at Harvard in 1996 he wrote in the Harvard Business Review [1]: “A model based on one or two strengths becomes obsolete as success begets imitation. For instance, competitors can easily knock off an entrepreneur’s innovative product. But they will find it much more difficult to replicate systems that incorporate many distinct and complementary capabilities. A business with an attractive product line, well-integrated manufacturing and logistics, close relationships with distributors, a culture of responsiveness to customers, and the capability to produce a continuing stream of product innovations is not easy to copy”. Even though he wrote these words 20 years ago, Bhide’s proposition that ‘it’s easy to knock off an innovative product,

but an innovative business system is much harder to replicate’ is as relevant in 2016 as it was in 1996. It is because the Xero advisor has experience across many diverse business sectors, has seen businesses grow (and sometimes fail) and become intimate with the entrepreneurial personality that they are perfectly positioned to help clients develop their business processes. Xero itself incorporates so many well thought through business processes that are intuitive and totally scalable: automatic bank feeds, integrated quotes and invoicing and, at last, really simple, payroll. We can be sure that there is much more to come. Advisors can commit to the Xero platform in the knowledge that it fits Bhide’s definition of an innovative business system perfectly. And then there are the Xero Add-ons … to those of us who spent our formative years debugging Access databases or devoted hours on end analysing Excel data to identify adverse trends, half an hour in the Xero Add-on store is like a walk through the Spice Market in Marrakech where the senses are bombarded from every angle. Having designed the My Own CFO app for

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any type and size of business using Xero, we can say from experience that designing innovative business systems that can’t be easily replicated is not easy. The fact is that it can be done and advisors that support their clients in working towards this objective will stand out from the pack. 2. Provision and Interpretation of Timely and Accurate Financial Information Gone are the days when we wait a week (or even two) for key financial information to arrive: it’s the era of direct bank feeds, invoicing when the job is done and realtime key performance indicators. A software application such as My Own CFO would really not have been possible before Xero direct bank feeds. “Cash is King” we all say but financial reporting and interpretation of the data is where it all really begins. Up to date and reconciled cash transaction data is imperative in managing a growing business. Important balance sheet key performance indicators rely on the fact that cash transactions are up to date. Xero advisors understand this and their clients will reflect this in their day to day activities: chasing overdue debts, managing inventory and payables strategically. If Xero is correctly configured all of this is possible

Issue 06 / 57

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Katharine Thompson Stubbs Parkin

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addMASS are Cloud Software enablement and integration specialists around the Xero Eco System. We provide Real Time Information Solutions and Business Automation Services. We can also offer Real Time Information Outsourced services for bookkeepers and accountants. Together with our process led transformation capability, we provide the tools to deliver significant business change. We work across sectors with CRM, PSA, ERP, MRP and POS solutions to suit a wide range of clients from charities to manufacturing.We help accountants and bookkeepers transform their firms with the use of technology, helping to cut costs and improve customer service. Call for an informal discussion or visit us at Xerocon. 029 2009 8600 sales@addmass.co.uk

60 / Issue 06

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Add-on partners benefit from integration For software vendors like Timely that integrate with Xero, partners are a vital way to bring in new customers. There’s more value in a small business signing up for Timely through a partner that will also get them set up in Xero, and other SaaS products that will improve their business lives.

Below: The Enspiral Accounting team receiving their award for “100% Xero“ at Xerocon Auckland 2015.

That’s not to say a business owner won’t sign up to Xero and other services on their own, and many do. But when an advisor shows them how these services integrate to cut down on admin time, utilisation of essential features increases enormously. We sat down with Anthony Rohan

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from Enspiral Accounting, a boutique accountancy firm situated in the same city that Xero originated in - Wellington.

Words: Jose Mathias Jose writes about Timely and how it helps small business owners save time and money. Before joining the crew, he was running a magazine and a digital media business aimed at startups in NZ. @timelyapp

Can you tell me a little about Enspiral Accounting? Enspiral Accounting provides professional accounting services

Issue 06 / 61

FREE TRIAL

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#XeroUserHour

Every Wednesday at these times: 1pm Sydney Time (AEST) & 1pm London Time

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Issue 06 / 63

Try-It Tutorial

Xero Inventory Comparison Top 10 Tips

Words: Jeri Murphy @jeri_murph

Xero

Inventory Management Add-on*

Products with Individual SKUs

Average Costing Method

FIFO Costing Method

Multi-Currency

Multiple Warehouse Management

Stock Adjustments

Major Stocktake

Batch & Serial Tracking

Expiry Date & Lot Management

Product Images

Barcode Scanning

Xero

Inventory Management Add-on*

Record Purchase Price

Multiple Purchase Prices

Track Incoming Purchases

Low Stock Alerts

Reorder Quantities

Record Default Supplier

Landed Cost Calculations

Xero

Inventory Management Add-on*

Record Sales Price

Multiple Sale Price Tiers

Customer Special Pricing

Track Outgoing Sales Order Requirements

Cost of Goods Sold Calculation on each Sale

Gross Profit Margin Calculation

Multiple Delivery Addresses

B2B Online Interface

Inventory Management Feature General

Inventory Management Feature Purchasing

Inventory Management Feature Selling

64 / Issue 06

If you buy and sell products in your business, Xero’s inventory module could help you know exactly what you have in stock, what you need and how much your stock is worth at any point in time. This XU Try-It Tutorial takes you through the fundamentals managing your inventory with Xero so you can know exactly what’s going on with your stock at any time... Xero Inventory vs the Xero Inventory Management Add-ons Firstly it’s important to understand what you can do within the Xero inventory module and what you can’t do. This will help you decide if you want to use Xero Inventory or if you need an inventory management add-on.

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Issue 06 / 65

Try-It Tutorial

Top 10 Tips when Using Xero Inventory

Xero

Inventory Management Add-on*

Production & Bill of Materials

Packing Slips & Delivery Dockets

Drop Shipping

Consignment Stock Management

Inventory Management Feature

Once you decide to use Xero to manage your inventory, you will want to know the best practices for using Xero to make managing your products as simple as possible. Here are my top 10 tips when using Xero Inventory. 1. Inventory items that show a quantity in the inventory items iist are tracked items You can quickly identify which inventory items are tracked and which are untracked when reviewing the inventory item list (go to Accounts > Inventory). The tracked items are those items that have a number - even 0.00 - in the Quantity column.

Other

* The table does not refer to any particular inventory management add-on that connects to Xero. It is a generalisation of the features available in many Xero inventory add-ons in comparison to Xero to show what Xero inventory is not able to do as at the time of publication.

is considered ‘shipped’ by Xero and the stock on hand will be reduced If you don’t want to use quotes, you can save invoices as draft or awaiting approval, however you won’t be able to see products committed to quotes at a glance.

before it should be. 6. Attach product images to inventory items (these can be downloaded and sent with online quote) You can send product images with an online quote for a professional look that confirms with your customer exactly what they are ordering. Or possibly you are sending a drawing or mock up of their custom design or request. Unfortunately, you can’t save images

2. Use Purchase Orders for Purchases Create a purchase prder for inventory items and send it to your suppliers so the supplier knows what to send you. Purchase orders also help you know at a glance who you have committed funds to for stock in any currency and at any time. You can know the quantity of incoming stock under ‘Quantity on Order’ by selecting the tracked items on the inventory list. 3. Approve the Supplier Bill on receipt of the products into the warehouse You should only approve bills in Xero once you have received your ordered products into the warehouse. When the bill is approved, the stock purchased is considered ‘on hand’ and ready to sell. Before the stock ordered arrives, it should be recorded on draft bills or purchase orders. 4. Use quotes as sales orders (even if they aren’t quotes)

5. Save standard or common sales orders as a draft quote or copy old sales invoices and save as draft to speed up sales data entry If you have orders that are commonly the same, use the copy feature in Xero to quickly create a similar sale. Remember to save your sales as draft not approved to ensure that stock is not allocated to a sale

to send automatically with the quotes and invoices, however you can upload product images as files to the inventory item and then download it and attach to send with the online quote when you are ready. Product images available anywhere anytime you have Xero - very useful and professional!

Think of quotes in Xero as sales orders. When you enter the customer’s sale as an order into Xero as a quote, the quantity ordered shows under ‘Committed Quotes’ in the review screen of a tracked inventory item. As with approved bills, once an invoice is approved, the stock 66 / Issue 06

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Try-It Tutorial

7. Add ‘Sales Representative’ as a tracking category A common request from product selling businesses that I work with is that the inventory system creates sales reports by sales representative easily for commission calculations. You can create a tracking category named ‘Sales Representative’ and track total sales per representative for a particular period, however you can not easily breakdown this sales report by product if you only pay commissions on certain products or varying commissions on different products. 8. Know what stock you have as well as recent movement at any time Run the inventory items summary (under ‘New Reports’) and update the report settings to see recent sales, profits and closing stock balances at any time.

Try-It Tutorial: Customise the Inventory Items Summary 1. Go to Reports > New Reports > Inventory Item Summary 2. Select the period you want to review or enter a custom date and update 3. Select report settings 4. Tick relevant columns to include such as profit and closing quantity and update 5. Drag columns from one place to the right or left until you are happy with the report

9. Create a customised invoice template called ‘Packing Slip’ or ‘Delivery Docket’ with no sales prices Useful documentation that tells everyone involved in the business what they need to know is very important in managing a product selling business. Inadequate information in the supply chain can lead to mistakes, unhappy customers and can cost your business money. Use customised templates in Xero to make sure that your documents have all the information that you need from Xero and internally such as signature panels, picking checklists, delivery instructions and more. When you have many templates you will need to change the branding on a sale to print the packing slip and then change to the Invoice before printing the sale as an Invoice. It’s not an ideal situation but a suitable workaround for what Xero currently provides if you are not ready to move to a Xero inventory add-on. 10. Always make sure that your Xero file mirrors real life inventory movement This is my most important tip I tell every business owner managing products in their business, no matter if they are talking to me about using Xero inventory or a massive inventory add-on. Be prepared to make sure that what happens in real life is recorded in your inventory. Don’t take shortcuts or you will have a mess and inaccurate inventory in no time.

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Issue 06 / 67

68 / Issue 06

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Xero features released in 2015

Innovations to help you thrive in 2016 The new year is the perfect time to take a fresh look at how you can use Xero to help your business thrive. With so many valuable new tools, we’re pretty sure you’ll be dancing with delight at the difference they can make for you in 2016...

Turn over to check out a timeline of all the new features Xero launched in 2015...

Words: Dhan Mannakkara

Do more, save time

Make decisions with confidence

Smooth your day by searching all of Xero to find the info you need instantly. Plus now there’s a cash coding tool that makes it faster to accurately reconcile transactions in bulk. Then, at year-end, your advisor can quickly fix any coding errors with find and recode.

Make better informed decisions about how your business operates with the business performance dashboard and the statement of cashflow report. Then, when it comes to figuring out optimum stock levels, inventory reports put you in control.

Get the cash flowing in faster

Choose the way you work

Set and forget invoice reminders so you don’t have to chase customers whose invoices are overdue. It’s simple to create invoices from your online quotes as soon as the work is done – and it’s easy to recoup billable expenses from customers and get reimbursed promptly.

With Xero’s essential everyday tools available on more mobile devices, you’ve got even more choice about where and when you work – and you can make use of any spare moment. Whether you use an iPad, Apple Watch, or our redesign for Android, we have you covered.

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>> Issue 06 / 69

Xero features released in 2015 Quotes

Quotes helps small businesses streamline their sales processes.

US Address Lookup

Quickly find address information for your contacts and your own organisation.

United States

Apple iPad Mobile App

Use the native iPad app to manage your business while you’re on the move.

Cheques For Canada Inventory Businesses in Canada can now account for cheque payments. Track the value of your inventory and improve stock control.

21 January

4th March

2nd March 9th March

9th February

24th March 23rd March

Payroll United Kingdom

Payroll New Zealand

Calculate the payroll, pay staff and complete RTI submissions Calculate the payroll, pay staff and report your payroll information to the Inland Revenue.

Notifications Practice Reports

Side By Side Files

Online Quotes

Revolutionises compliance and management reporting through a world-class reporting engine

Makes entering transactions easy: see your files on-screen alongside the record you want to update.

Helps small businesses send quotes online, driving faster, more timely decision making.

Makes it easy to stay on top of what’s new, what’s important and what you need to know.

70 / Issue 06

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users. Find us online at xumagazine.com

Xero features released in 2015 Inventory Item List Report

Workpapers Redesign

Provides a list of all your inventory items to help with managing stock.

Workpapers gets a new look and tighter integration with Xero and Practice Manager

Business Performance Dashboard

Makes it easy to see how your business is performing or to collaborate with your adviser.

Xero Tax Launched

Easily prepare and lodge activity statements and income tax returns for all of your Xero and non-Xero clients. 15th June

25th March 6th June 20th April

9th July 2nd June

4th May

Bank Feed Notifications For iOS

Workpapers gets a new look and tighter integration with Xero and Practice Manager

Find And Recode

Making it easy for advisors to find and recode transaction items for year-end clean up.

Cash Coding v2

Practice Reports

New Receivable And Payable Reports

Revolutionises compliance and management reporting through a world-class reporting engine

Makes entering transactions easy: see your files on-screen alongside the record you want to update.

Helps small businesses send quotes online, driving faster, more timely decision making.

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Xero features released in 2015 Sales Tax Lookups & Filing United States Xero For Android Redesign

Integrating with Avalara to take the pain away from calculating and filing sales tax in the US.

Taking advantage of Googleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Material Design standards to deliver beautiful mobile accounting.

Global Practice Reports Copy/Merge Invoices Revolutionises compliance and management reporting through a world-class reporting engine. Save time by copying invoices or merging invoices into one.

17th August 10th September

14th August

8th October 15th September

4th August

22nd September

Xero Me Australia View payslips and request and manage leave when on the move

Fixed Assets Update

Fixed asset management is easier to use, with more depreciation options and bulk asset management.

Billable Expenses

Makes it easy to record and invoice costs that need to be passed on to your customers.

72 / Issue 06

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users. Find us online at xumagazine.com

Xero features released in 2015

Get to the information you want in Xero with powerful search and rapid navigation.

Invoice Reminders Final Pay Australia - Payroll

Xero reminds your customers if invoices are overdue so you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to.

Automates the process of paying out unused leave balances when an employee leaves your business.

8th December 27th October

7th December

28th October

17th December

24th November 3rd December

Xero For Apple Watch App

Get updated when your bank acconts change and see transaction details - all from your wrist.

Two-Step Authentication

Xero uses two-step authentication to provide an additional level of security when logging in.

Xero U Credits

Statement Of Cash Flows Report

A new credits-based approach to maintain Certified Adviser status through actively engaging with content throughout the year.

Helping small businesses understand the cash flowing in and out of their business.

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What is #XeroUserHour? #XeroUserHour is your chance to shout-out over Twitter what youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing with Xero. Perhaps youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got a new Xero-related service, launching a new Xero Add-on, want to share a top-tip with other Xero users... this is your chance!

Use the hashtag:

#XeroUserHour 74 / Issue 06

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How does it work? It’s easy...

During the ‘hour’ (this will be a regular event taking place at the same time each week - the first will be announced shortly), compose a new tweet in the normal way but include the hashtag #XeroUserHour

Here at XU Magazine we’ll be watching closely for any tweets that include the hashtag #XeroUserHour.

We’ll then retweet your tweet on @xerousers

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YOUR PICS

The Fathom team

with Rod Drury at Xerocon Melbo urne

Aaron Knight (Carpenter

eeley and Nathan K 15 Box), at BITE 20

n Glanville at a UK Cara Brooks with Darre Xero Roadshow

Wendy Elms, Alex

Hondow of Jet Co

ander Kohl and Zo

nvert at Xerocon

“So who’s now Man ’s Best Friend?”

(The Rowdens Te

am L-R: Panzi (La brador/Receptionis t) Mikayla Pope, Penny Rowd en, Jonathan Rowd en, Sarah Mitchel )

76 / Issue 05 06

wie Melbourne

Moylan of Gary Turner with Tracy 15 TransferMate at BITE 20

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The Power of Customer Reviews Get new customers with the help of your existing ones...

Words: Jared Armstrong Jared is the CEO and founder of MinuteDock - the top rated time tracking software for Xero. Like Xero, MinuteDock is a Kiwi company, but Jared is currently living in London enjoying the amazing weather. You can pick up a free trial of MinuteDock for your business at minutedock.com/xero or learn more about our partner program at minutedock.com/ partner @minutedock

Have you ever seen a website, service or app with countless positive reviews and testimonials and thought ‘wow these guys must be good’? You’re not alone. Reviews and testimonials are a great way to get potential clients to start a conversation. MinuteDock is one of the highest rated products in the Xero Addon Directory, and our hundreds of five star reviews are constantly mentioned as a reason new leads considered us. The good news is that this isn’t just for apps - you can use short reviews and testimonials to drive new business regardless of your industry. Showing the right reviews presented in the right way on your website can have a huge influence. Couple that with the fact that customers are now savvy enough to look for reviews on Google and around the internet as they research your company. So what is it about our brains that makes reviews so powerful, how do you get more, and what do you do with them once you’ve got them? How reviews work their magic

Below: The user adoption curve. The group in green rely on others’ experiences to justify a purchase.

On the surface, it may seem obvious customer see, customer do, right? True, but it is interesting to look further into what exactly it is that people reading your reviews experience which makes them take that next step. First, we need to step back and consider why people read your

reviews or testimonials in the first place. The most obvious reason is simply - trust. Customers don’t want to be the first to use your business (Unless they are one of those amazing ‘early adopters’!) They’ll want to see that there are other people using your offering, and seeing that is a key part of the decision making process for a majority of buyers. There’s an old saying in the IT Industry - “No-one ever got fired for buying IBM”! It’s the next reason that’s more interesting, and can change how and where you present your reviews. When people read reviews, they are looking for themselves with a happy outcome. That is, they are looking for people who are similar to them and have positive things to say about your business. They want to imagine their future successful selves, and you’re helping them do it! Some of this is conscious, and some unconscious. Take advantage of this! Make sure you clearly present the aspects of your reviews that would a customer would relate to. What makes them see themselves in the review? For example, the industry & business size of the customer, their location, and even age can all be powerful aspects of your review depending on what you’re selling, and more importantly, who you’re selling to. Humans react to faces - In fact, research published by the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review in 2012 showed that statements accompanied by a photograph of someone were more likely to be believed, regardless of whether or not the photograph was relevant. Photos of people gives your customers the confidence to treat the review as ‘real’. This

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off the volume of happy customers you have. This works great for us with our Xero Add-on Directory reviews. There is no such thing as too many! You can also use these reviews is on Social Media. Tweet, or post to Facebook or LinkedIn, or even include them in online ads. Reinforcing your advertising message with a relevant, real success story is extremely powerful.

As a next step, you can use reviews to discover which customers would be great candidates for a full case study. You can tell from short reviews which customers are going to have interesting stories and lots to say - so your process of finding reviews can act as a funnel for more indepth customer stories.

success is a great way to get more of them - and all you need to do is ask your existing happy customers to help! Once youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got some testimonials they can be an invaluable resource for your website, your advertising, your Twitter pageâ&#x20AC;Ś just be sure to present them properly. Go forth and use your powerful new customer reviews wisely!

Putting it together Letting your customers see their future

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Issue 06 / 79

Q&A

Cover Story

with Kevin Mann CEO, Tidy

CEO Kevin Mann and the Tidy team are aiming to climb higher this year along with their customers and partners. We talked to Kevin about how this company is moving upwards...

80 / Issue 06

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Cover Story

Q A

Could you explain a bit about the philosopy behind Tidy?

Q A

Is this applicable just for small businesses?

The name Tidy reflects the simplicity No. Our software is proving to be we are bringing out in our software. able to fit in to both the very small We have a vast range of customers and business and the much larger ones. This find that a large number of the smaller is no accident as we think about how Tidy businesses have, necessarily, quite software will suit this wide range in each complex business processes. Conversely design-to-release cycle. For instance Tidy a lot of the larger businesses can be Stock has many single users and so too relatively quite simple. You would expect does Tidy Work, although it is unusual to small businesses to always be simple get as much value from Tidy Work as a and large ones more complex, however single user. The software can also easily we have learnt during the last six years accommodate hundreds of users, and that is not an assumption you can we do have many businesses with a few make. Tidy’s philosophy is to continually hundred users all using Tidy, normally assist every business by simplifying and our Tidy Work Enterprise product, to run streamlining their operational those businesses. These users processes. We believe this are interacting intensively contributes greatly with our software towards productivity, and enabling Xero “The name Tidy less errors, to operate for clearer business a much larger reflects the simplicity monitoring and organisation we are bringing out in our management than even Xero software... Tidy’s philosophy themselves and, consequently, is to continually assist every would know greater about. Large business by simplifying profitability. businesses and streamlining their often deal with operational processes.” less financial A huge effort transactions than a goes into making busy coffee shop. Only the functionality and the transaction values are, the Tidy user experience on average, much much greater. simple. Apple devices are We believe this is ideal for accounting probably the most widely visible example firms who have invested in Xero and may of the sheer effort that goes into creating need to recommend proven solutions for simplicity. The new Microsoft Surface their larger clients. Tidy can easily span tablets and Xero software are other small to large SMEs creating a one stop examples. The time and cost of creating a solution. Cloud implementation partners very simple and easy to use interface and can also work with Tidy and Xero on much what’s behind that interface is massive. larger projects if they have the knowledge We totally embrace that simplicity within and experience. our products and we get a lot of good feedback from customers about how easy Tidy software is to use yet how it can deal with their really complex business What would you say is the thinking problems and situations. behind this? Another principle behind Tidy software is to enable each user to see only what they need to in order to fully do their job. This is not to hide information, but too much information that is not relevant to them becomes clutter and complicates things. We are always looking for ways to remove that information clutter. We like to understand how each person needs to operate to do their job and at the same time how they can efficiently work with the Tidy software. Understanding their perspective is always how we like to work with them.

Q A

Although businesses do not always get more complicated as they grow, generally they do. There will be more users, perhaps multiple offices, sometimes multiple countries, multiple teams, more stock, more complicated products that they are manufacturing, assembling or selling. The software needs to cater for that complexity. Businesses are not static. We have many professional services, creative agencies, manufacturing and engineering sector customers for example who have grown significantly over the course of a

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Issue 06 / 81

Cover Story

few years since becoming users of Tidy software.

It is important that we can provide the software they need from the start and then cater for their growth. Small businesses may start with just Tidy Stock, but as they grow and have teams going out to do installations, they may need to add Tidy Work. Some businesses, for instance some of our civil construction customers, scale up and down seasonally. We designed the Tidy products to all work together and be flexible to the changes businesses face. Our pay-per-user subscription pricing is the best method of pricing to cater for changing numbers and changing needs in terms of “People do functionality.

engineering consultancy (AEC) sector. We are growing this further with Joe Emanuele, an in-house specialist who brings to Tidy 25 years of experience within that sector. Between Tidy Work (AEC) and Tidy Build we are making it possible for professional architects through to engineers and construction firms all to communicate and collaborate with each other during projects and increase productivity even further. Tidy embraces the Building Information Modelling (BIM) objectives and we continue to further Tidy’s capabilities in this area.

stage productions through to large scale outdoor/indoor events in London, Tidy is being used in those environments, which is quite interesting. It is quite a range, but they all have a project, stock or inventory management need. Tidy provides the process to manage these events. Control is essential to prevent costs going out of the window and avoid the event losing money.

Q A

Does this mean you need different types of integration partners?

Yes, we have a lot of partners wanting to integrate Tidy software with Xero tid yw We have customers in the into end-user sites. It is a challenge to ork .co manufacturing industry, integrate to the specific requirements of m because a project for organisations and for that reason we only a manufacturer can work with integration partners with a lot Job not decide madiscreet of experience, knowledge and capability. be a very nag one off large em Crucially, they have to understand the to become tidextraordinary. entwhole business, not just the operational y project or a What tocaccomplish They decide sto k.c large number of side of it. sort of om extraordinary things.” very small jobs customers are through to quite We are defined in what we do and work Sto going for this? ck complicated with integration partners who also focus ma Sir Edmund Hillary n a projects. For on the quality on-boarding of customers. With Tidy gem tid ybman to reach the summit e (First example, Tidy Our key focus is on continually improving Stock we have nt ul ofiMount d.c Everest) Work is being used Tidy software for the operations of a businesses that are om on one of the major business. This means the organisation distributers, people Co refurbishments of a large of manpower, teams and projects and who are assembling nst ruZealand New oil refinery, with those teams and projects working with products, and simply recti n m fabrication literally hundreds ofosteel materials and managing them, or the selling products needing to use the stock ana projects and hundreds of users. stock of businesses and how the staff of management component. gem ent that business interacts to add value in We are finding in the UK that there is some way from their suppliers through to Tidy Work is about project management, quite a community of large organisations their end customers. When Add-ons are job management, job costing, quoting doing design on large scale events, which focused in what their product delivers it through to taking on that job, managing need a lot of planning and involve a lot is less confusing for the customer and it through the process when the project of costing stages. There are budgets makes the integration partner’s job much or job is won and passing the costs and associated with these events and these easier. invoices through to Xero. need to be managed closely through Tidy. These events last for a time, and then they We currently have a strong group have to be dismantled. From theatre and of customers in the architectural,

Q A

sta

rt a

82 / Issue 06

free

tria

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users. Find us online at xumagazine.com

Cover Story

Q A

What about the move to open a UK office. Has that paid off? Why?

It is going very well. We are only a few months in and it is running better than I had expected. Whenever you set up an office in a new location there are many challenges and risks. We had to decide when we would move into the UK, bearing in mind that we had been supporting the UK market for quite some time, albeit not from a formal office. We had a strong customer base here before we had a physical office. Having people on the ground shows how serious we are about our long term focus on the UK market. The UK is also a good place to reach other close proximity time zones, such as the eastern USA, South Africa, and parts of Europe where Tidy customers are also located. Our familiarity with the UK made it simpler to make it our base for those areas as well. Then the question was where in the UK we would be located. The reason for Newcastle-Upon-Tyne being chosen was covered in our article in Issue 05 of XU Magazine and Real Business magazine. Newcastle has a strong connection with cloud in terms of leading UK university research, facilities, support and education, and also with the construction industry and the architectural sector. It wasn’t a random decision - we really thought about the benefits of our first UK office being located in place that suited many objectives.

Where did the idea behind the front cover shoot come from?

It came in a moment of inspiration when out running. Your managing editor, Wesley, said I should run more often as he loved the idea! I was thinking about what would be interesting to connect our planned growth in 2016 and that of our customers with a non-business fun activity. Climbing it is certainly popular. With lots of climbing walls, people can now access climbing for anything from a childrens’ party through to training for actual mountaineering. The whole concept of climbing is a great metaphor for growth, trust, skill and agility. Climbing is also simple in concept which fits with the Tidy philosophy I explained before. There is also the team effect - another of our core values whether internally within our company, with our customers, or with our partners. Even from us doing the photo shoot we worked as a team and learnt more about each other. The shoot was almost a team building activity in disguise! It was quite an exciting thing to do, to have the photographs taken on the high climbing wall in Newcastle. It’s one of the top in the UK I believe. It’s in a fantastic old church with a very high interior. I have promised the team we will return as they too liked the challenge. Now our NZ team want to arrange this so it is becoming viral at Tidy! Climbing has a special connection for us, being from Down Under, as New Zealand is renowned for its climbing, with Sir Edmund Hillary and the like. It isn’t a

sport that I do day to day, but I think it is one that I will be getting into, so that’s a challenge for the year ahead as well. I think climbing will carry on as our theme for quite some time. Tidy Climb!

Q A

So what plans do you have for Tidy this year?

2016 is expected to be another exciting year for us. We have become a profitable cloud company, which is not the norm. We achieved that last year. All businesses must at some point, rather than rely on capital. It also proves the business viability of your product. Now we are building on Tidy’s strengths, to make further releases of advanced features within the software. Two areas of release, just out, are advanced reporting and advanced resource scheduling. The former is very important to businesses in order to get a lot of information out of Tidy presented just as they want it to be. We can now tailor make reports for any customer, in any way they want, securely, and without affecting the generality of our software in a cloud environment. We have also released advanced resource scheduling. Moving people around, understanding where they are and being able to make quick changes. This is increasingly essential for users of Tidy because projects get delayed; many at short notice and people need to be redeployed from one job to another. Businesses need to be flexible to change and dynamic resource scheduling is essential to managing this.

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Add-on Directory Bills & Expenses

Receipt Bank | @ReceiptBank receipt-bank.com

OVER

To advertise, please email the team at: advertising@xumagazine.com

MMC Convert | @mmcconvert mmcconvert.com

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Intelligently Capture Invoices and Receipts straight into Xero .

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5 0 0 ADD-O

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Conversions CONVERSIONS

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breadwinnerhq.com callprocrm.com/eur CapsuleCRM | @CapsuleCRM capsulecrm.com Carry The One For Salesforce carrytheone.co.uk ClickDesk Live Chat | @ClickDesk clickdesk.com Collabspot | @collabspot collabspot.com Client Heartbeat | @ClientHeartbeat clientheartbeat.com ClubHub | @ClubHubSSL clubhub.co.nz commonsku | @commonsku commonsku.com Communigator communigator.co.nz ConstantContact | @ConstantContact constantcontact.com CRM Online

insightly.com JunariCRM+ | @JunariCRMplus junaricrmplus.com Legrand CRM | @Legrand legrandcloudcrm.com Magnetism magnetismsolutions.com Mailchimp by OneSaas | @onesaas onesaas.com/integrate MailSync | @MailSync mailsyncapp.com Ninjodo | @Ninjodo ninjodo.com OnePage CRM | @OnePageCRM welcome.onepagecrm.com OneSaas for Salesforce | @onesaas onesaas.com OneSaas for Zoho CRM | @onesaas onesaas.com/integrate Pepperi pepperi.com PropertySuite | @PropertySuite propertysuite.co.nz QikBizCRM | @QikBizNZ qikbizcrm.com Quick Win Development | @quickwindev quickwindevelopment.com Really Simple Systems | @ReallySimpleSys reallysimplesystems.com Solve CRM | @solve360 solve360.com SugarCRM Klix Connector | @klix_media webdatadesign.com.au SyncApps by Cazoomi | @Cazoomi cazoomi.com Vision6 | @vision6 vision6.com.au WORK[etc] CRM | @WORKetc_support worketc.com Xploite | @xploiteapp xploite.com

crmonline.com.au

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Add-on Directory Zendesk by Cloud Elements | @CloudElements cloud-elements.com Zendesk by Zapier

Debtor Tracking DEBTOR TRACKING

Satago | @SatagoHQ

Chaser | @chaser_io

Sky Collect | @SkyCollect

chaser.io

zapier.com/zapbook/xero/zendesk

customd.com

Your invoices paid on time, automatically

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Databuzz | @databuzz databuzz.com.au Digital Fusion teamdf.com Dynamic Solutions Ltd dynamic-solutions.co.nz EndGame | @GoEndGame end-game.com/xero ExcluServ | @ExcluServ

Check Business check-business.co.uk CreditorWatch | @creditorwatch creditorwatch.com.au Debtograph | @Debtograph debtograph.com Debtor Daddy | @debtordaddy debtordaddy.com

excluserv.co.uk

xocashflow.com

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Documents DOCUMENTS

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businessbackbone.co.uk zapier.com

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Infopower

webrecs.com.au

eCommerce eCommerce

Interlockit.com interlockit.com

Open Sauce Systems | @OpenSauceSystem

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stitchlabs.com

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onesaas.com Opencart by Carry The One

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Farmflo | @farmflo farmflo.com Fishbowl Manufacturing and Warehouse |

ActionStep | @Actionstep actionstep.com Active Collab By Trio | @Trio_Tech triotech.co.nz Acuity Scheduling | @AcuitySchedulin acuityscheduling.com AffinityLive | @affinitylive affinitylive.com Autotask by My Accounting Toolbox myaccountingtoolbox.com aXcelerate | @aXcelerate axcelerate.com BookingBug | @bookingbug bookingbug.com getbriefcase.net BuilderTREND | @BuilderTREND buildertrend.com buildXACT buildxact.com.au CheckVault | @CheckVault checkvault.com.au Clarizen by Sixtree | @sixtreeau sixtree.com.au Cliniko | @Cliniko cliniko.com Clio | @goclio

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goclio.com

86 / Issue 06

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Fresh on England's shore

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zapier.com

Your payments partner

Sharesight Pro | @Sharesight pro.sharesight.com.au Stryke Tax | @stryketax stryke.com.au Synergy 8 | @SynergyEight synergy8.com

Accept payments by card or bank account...Beautiful! www.integrapay.com.au

Tax1099 | @efile1099 tax1099.com Track1099 | @Track_1099 track1099.com TransferMate | @TransferMate

InvoiceSherpa | @invoicesherpa

transfermateonline.com Trustworks | @trustworksnz

invoicesherpa.com iZettle | @iZettle

trustworks.co.nz Vinosmith | @thevinosmith

izettle.com Kwanji | @KwanjiX

vinosmith.com VINx2 | @vinx2

kwanji.com Midpoint | @MidpointLtd

vinx2.com Wise.NET | @WisenetLRM

midpoint.com OzForex | @ozforex

wisenet.co Workshop Software | @workshoponline

ozforex.com.au Pay RIGHT AWAY | @PayRIGHTAWAY

workshopsoftware.com.au Wufoo by Zapier | @zapier

payrightaway.com.au Payment Express | @PaymentExpress

zapier.com Zapier | @zapier

paymentexpress.com PayPal | @PayPal

zapier.com Zendesk by Zapier | @zapier

paypal.com PayPal by Zapier | @zapier

zapier.com Zenoti | @ZenotiSoftware

zapier.com PennyPipe | @PennyPipe

zenoti.com

pennypipe.com Pin Payments | @PinPayments

progressclaim.com PropertyTree | @PropertyTree

pin.net.au Plooto | @PlootoInc

propertytree.com

We want to hear from you! Get in touch - email: hello@xumagazine.com

app.plooto.co

Issue 06 / 87

Add-on Directory POLi Payments | @POLiPayments polipayments.com

enableHR | @enableHR enablehr.com.au

Promptly | @Paid_Promptly

CIN7 | @Cin7online

paidpromptly.com

cin7.com

Rerun | @Rerunapp rerunapp.com SAT FXOnline | @satworldwide satfxonline.co.uk

ClickPOS | @ClickPOS_Online

Xeroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Featured HR & WHS Add-On

Stripe | @stripe stripe.com

Xero Add-On Community Rating enableHR.com.au/xero-user enableHR.co.nz/xero-user

@commercesync commercesync.com stripe.com Stripe (IE) | @stripe stripe.com Square | @Square

Ento | @entohq ento.com ePayroll | @ePayrollAus epayroll.com.au Flexitime | @FlexiTimeTeam flexitime.co.nz

Sush.io | @sushio

Gusto | @GustoHQ

sush.io swipehq.co.nz Transfer Mate | @TransferMate transfermateonline.com TransferWise | @TransferWise transferwise.com uCollect | @ucollect_biz ucollect.biz

zenpayroll.com IMS Payroll imspayroll.co.nz Intertec TimePro timesheets.com.au ipayroll.co.nz KeyPay | @KeyPayApp keypay.com.au mypaye.co.uk Payescape payescape.com

www.ucollect.biz Payroll & HR Automated Data Processing Inc. | @ADP adp.com Boomr - Employee Time Clock | @BoomrApps boomr.com CloudPayroll cloudpayroll.com.au Crystal Payroll crystalpayroll.com Deputy | @deputyapp deputy.com Employment Hero | @EmploymentHero employmenthero.com

Epos Now | @EposNow eposnow.com Evopos | @evoposdms Infinity RMS | @InfinityRMS

Payment Evolution | @payevo paymentevolution.com PaysOnline | @paysonline paysonline.com.au Simplepay.ca | @simplepaycanada simplepay.ca SimplePay.co.za simplepay.co.za SimplePay.com.sg simplepay.com.sg Smart Payroll | @smartpayroll smartpayroll.com.au SurePayroll | @SurePayroll surepayroll.com Talenox | @Talenox talenox.com Tanda | @TandaHQ tanda.co Thankyou Payroll | @ThankyouPayroll thankyoupayroll.co.nz The Payroll Site | @ThePayrollSite thepayrollsite.co.uk Web Payroll | @WEB_Payroll webpayroll.com.au Workforce Guardian | @workforceguard workforceguardian.com.au ZUUS Workforce | @zuusworkforce zuusworkforce.com

infinityrms.com iZettle | @iZettle izettle.com Kounta | @kounta kounta.com

Bring Clarity to Your Cash Flow & Compare Financial Scenarios

MINDBODY | @mindbodyonline partner.mindbodyonline.com Possboss | @posbosshq posbosshq.com

dryrun.com

Retail Express | @RetailExpress01 retailexpress.com.au rPOS by RPG | @RobotPubGroup

iPayroll

MyPAYE | @MyPAYE

Direct Debit, ACH & Credit Card collection for Xero invoices - automatically NZ, AU, US, CA, UK, EU

@commercesync

evopos.com

squareup.com

Swipe HQ | @SwipeNZ

clickpos.com Clover by Commerce Sync | commercesync.com

Stripe by Commerce Sync |

Stripe (Canada) | @stripe

Point of POINT OFSale SALE

Reporting Ag Profit | @AgProfitAus agprofit.com.au Asset Guru | @Asset_Guru asset.guru Benchmarking.com.au benchmarking.com.au Bizeo | @bizeo bizeo.com.au Blink Reports blinkreports.com

Bode Tree | @BodeTree bodetree.com BPM bpmglobal.com Bstar | @BstarAustralia bstar.com.au Calxa | @calxa calxa.com Carbon Analytics | @co2analytics co2analytics.com

88 / Issue 06

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users. Find us online at xumagazine.com

Add-on Directory ProfitSee | @MyProfitSee

Deputy | @deputyapp

myprofitsee.com

synergist.co.uk

Ento | @entohq

Tanda | @TandaHQ

ento.com Everhour | @everhour everhour.com etz Technologies | @etzTechnologies etztec.com Flexitime | @FlexiTimeTeam flexitime.co.nz Freshdesk | @freshdesk

getharvest.com

ranqx.com RESULTS.com | @RESULTSdotcom

Management | @iCOSLIVE

results.com

icoslive.com

Saasabi | @Saasabi

IMS Service Track

saasabi.com

i-man.com.au

SeederBoard | @seederboard

Intertec TimePro

seederboard.com Simply Cashflow | @simplycashflow

keypay.com.au MinuteDock | @minutedock

unleash.us

minutedock.com

Vistr | @VistrTeam

Nexonia | @nexonia

vistr.co

nexonia.com

Time Tracking TIME TRACKING

NextMinute | @NextMinuteApp nextminute.com

ActionStep | @Actionstep

Outlook Int.Tools - QWD | @quickwindev

actionstep.com

quickwindevelopment.com

briefcase

ProWorkflow | @ProWorkflow

getbriefcase.net

proworkflow.com

CaseFox | @CaseFoxOnline

Roll | @rollhq

casefox.com

rollhq.com

Chrometa | @Chrometa

SmartBiller | @smartbiller

chrometa.com Clarizen by Sixtree | @sixtreeau

copperproject.com

jobprocentral.com KeyPay | @KeyPayApp

spotlightreporting.com Unleash

sixtree.com.au

timesheets.com.au JobPro Central | @JobProCentral

simplycashflow.com Spotlight Reporting | @spotlightrep

Copper | @copperproject

iCOS LIVE - Online Transport

smartbiller.co.nz Sohnar Limited / TrafficLive | @TrafficLIVE trafficlive.com Streamtime | @streamtime

spotlightreporting.com Stryke Tax | @stryketax

tidywork.com Time Tracker by eBillity | @eBillity

stryke.com.au Time Tracker by EndGame | @GoEndGame

ebillity.com

end-game.com

TimeCamp | @timecamp timecamp.com

Harvest | @harvest

Ranqx

Spotlight Reporting | @spotlightrep

temponia.com TidyWork | @TidyWork

Timely | @Timely

zapier.com

qvinci.com

practiceignition.com Receipt Bank | @ReceiptBank receipt-bank.com

freshdesk.com geoop.com

Practice Ignition | @ignitionapp

tanda.co Temponia | @temponia

GeoOp | @GeoOp Google Calender by Zapier | @zapier

QVinci | @Qvinci

Synergist | @Synerg1st

deputy.com

Trustworks | @trustworksnz trustworks.co.nz Xero Workpapers | @Xero

gettimely.com

xero.com

Timestamp | @timestamphq timestamphq.com Total Synergy | @totalsynergy

Cloud Integration/Outsourcing

Cloud Integrator/Outsourcing Advance Track | @AdvanceTrack

totalsynergy.com.au

advancetrack.co.uk

BlueHub | @Blue_Hub

ZUUS Workforce | @zuusworkforce

bluehub.co.uk

zuusworkforce.com

Xero Practice Manager PRACTICE MANAGER Class Super | @ClassSuper class.com.au DataDear | @DataDearApp datadear.com Excel Int. Tools - QWD | @quickwindev quickwindevelopment.com Exsalerate | @exsalerate exsalerate.com FORMbasic | @formbasic formbasic.com.au Mogul mogul.nz

streamtime.net

Your complete payroll solution, wherever you are Premier cloud payroll service since 2001 • Specially designed for small to medium businesses, franchises and groups • NZ’s largest IRD listed PAYE Intermediary • Manages superannuation contributions

New Zealand www.ipayroll.co.nz sales@ipayroll.co.nz

We want to hear from you! Get in touch - email: hello@xumagazine.com

Australia www.cloudpayroll.com.au sales@cloudpayroll.com.au

Pay Your Staff Leave Manage Paye Payslip Kiosk Trusted Proven and Secure

Seamless Xero Integration First Add-On Partner to integrate with Xero

Issue 06 / 89

Stop Press - Breaking News

Receipt Bank receives USD$10million investment Just before we went to print we heard the news that popular Xero Add-on Receipt Bank has received USD$10million in funding. The investment has been raised from Kennet Partners, a growth equity firm that â&#x20AC;&#x153;invests in successful highgrowth companies in Europe and North Americaâ&#x20AC;?.

https://www.xero.com/add-ons) but any time spent in the Marketplace quickly shows that not all Add-ons are equal: some companies are big, some are small, some solutions have been around for years, some are brand new.

Add-ons

Add-on funding matters because it is key that any application you insert into your business will be there to help you for as long as you need it.

Over the years Xero has made huge investments in their API; investments that have allowed Xero users to connect other applications (such as Point-of-Sale solutions, inventory systems and lending products) to their Xero. This ability to connect has been one of the key benefits of using Xero. There are now hundreds of great Add-ons that can be connected to Xero (these can be browsed in the Add-on Marketplace -

Why does Add-on funding matter?

to know that they are well funded, that respected investors have completed due diligence on them and given them a huge thumbs up, but we look forward to seeing similar endorsements coming to many of the other Add-ons that we know the community uses and loves.

You need to know that the company behind it will still be in business, you need to know there will be quality customer support and you need to know that the product will continue to develop and improve. Receipt Bank is the most popular Xero Add-on so it is great for the community

Michael Wood, Director, Receipt Bank @ReceiptBank

With Practice Ignition, your office can be anywhere! Be even more efficient and productive with cloud software made for accountants, by accountants

3 MONTHS FREE 90 / Issue 06

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Issue 06 / 91

Powerful software Delightfully simple 92 / Issue 06

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Job management

tidystock.com

Stock management

tidybuild.com

Construction management

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