Tuesday 14 February 2017

Updates from the Xero Roadshow





I had been counting down the days to Xero’s Roadshow, and it turns out it was for good reason. There were some exciting (subjective though the use of that term may be) new announcements and updates, which we’re happy to share with you in the hopes you find them useful!
Statistics show that while only 51% of small businesses survive more than five years, 88% of those on Xero will still be around to celebrate their fifth birthday.


Soon, Xero will have access to daily direct feeds for some 100 financial institutions in Australia - 98% of the banks that Aussie small businesses prefer to bank with.


In 2011, there were around 10,000 Xero subscriptions. Today, there are 380,000 in Australia, and 862,000 subscribers worldwide, in 180 countries.


Knowing your business position makes all the difference - and Xero is there with real-time data. The updated report centre in Xero is here to help you compare anything with anything, so you can really drill down, or get a broad overview - whatever you want!


Cash flow has a huge impact on business success. Using any one, or a combination of, Xero’s great payment services will help you get paid faster. If you use, or wish to use, any of these add-ons or services I’m sure you’ll be as thrilled as I was!


Updates to Stripe and Paypal now allow easier reconciliation with an automatic “Spend money” transaction being created in Xero to match payments. Stripe will automatically pass on a service fee to your clients, to assist in recovering banking costs (just remember new rules come into effect in September this year regarding surcharging).


Very soon BPay will be available on Xero sales invoices, and then, within 90 days, you will be able to make batch payments using Bpay.




There are some current and upcoming additions to the Xero mobile platform too, to make invoicing and payments on-the-job that much easier. You can now (as of five hours ago, at the time of writing this sentence!) view quotes on the go with your Android phone, and iPhone capability is on the way, and accept payments on your iPhone (this functionality is already available on Android).



And for the grand finale (I say this due to the round of applause this announcement received at the Roadshow… what a sight, seeing so much enthusiasm from a room full of accountants!), if you have have goods or services that require a shipping address different to the billing address, these can both be applied on your invoices now!





As always, if you have any questions about getting set up on Xero, or would like assistance in using your subscription, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Bonus news! If you haven’t already, we recommend setting up Two-Step Authentication on your Xero account to help keep your data secure. Once set up online, this can also be applied to your Android or iOS app - this has just recently been released on iOS.