Value Added Cloud: Who needs a cloud integrator?
With the dizzying array of Apps available now in the Xero Marketplace, how do business owners make sense of which ones to use, let alone their accountant & bookkeeper advisors? How using a cloud integrator can not only save businesses time, but money too, is explained by Paula Byers...
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any business owners, and even accountants & bookkeepers, wonder why they need a cloud integrator . . . and even what do they do? Definition When people ask what I do, if I start with ‘cloud integrator’, they’ve glazed over before I’ve finished the second word. Therefore, I lead with how I help businesses use cloud tools to manage their business more efficiently, this usually generates discussion and continues
with me describing Xero with its integrated Ecosystem. An agile cloud integrator brings experience and objectivity to the change process required for the implementation of cloud business management system. Cloud integration is not new, it has been talked about within Xero circles for many years. On the Australian and New Zealand Xero websites, there is even its own directory, separate to the accounting & bookkeeping advisor directory.
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@LimeCloudLtd / @LimePaula
Paula Byers, Founder & Director, LimeCloud Having started and run several businesses for more than 26 years, increasingly in tech & business systems for the last 15 years. Moving into the cloud 5 years ago precipitated the re-brand to LimeCloud in 2016. A SFEDI accredited Business Mentor, local Chamber of Commerce Director & Enterprise Nation Advisor Member; she is passionate about supporting business and not-for-profits to develop using creative and innovative cloud tech.
Indeed, much has been written by those in the know about cloud integration, what it is and how it can help. Xero for Dummies, first published in 2013 by Heather Smith, had a section of Chapter 16 explaining the benefits. Blake Oliver has written & spoken frequently over the years about the role of cloud integration. As a Xero Ambassador, he gave a presentation to Accountex Las Vegas in November 2016 where he discussed the Six Degrees of Xero: The network effect. Figure 1 shows one of his presentation slides clearly illustrating the inclusion of the cloud integrator in the advisor part of the network. Xero themselves have published blogs on the subject and it was a pretty hot topic for discussion in many of the presentations at Xerocon last Autumn.
But an accountant advisor is all that’s needed . . . right?
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Not always. With the plethora of Apps (now in excess of 600) in the Marketplace, it would be difficult for even the most dedicated of accountants or bookkeepers
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