XU Magazine - Issue 27 by XU Magazine

The independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users

ISSUE

magazine SERVICE DIVERSIFICATION

P LU S L O MORE ADS FROM

ISSN 2054-7226

9 772054 722009

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Xero Connec te Apps d

Issue 27 / 1

TUTORIALS CASE STUDIES INTERVIEWS NEW APPS NEW RELEASES

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Track time, costs and profitability from quote through to job and invoice

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Xero owned and integrated with robust customer support standards, and ongoing product development

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“There are many add-ons from the Xero app marketplace that we could recommend but we choose WorkflowMax every time. We truly believe in what it offers our clients. From its value for money to its ease of use and functionality, we couldn't be happier.” Michelle Janse Van Rensburg, Managing Director of Nimacc Business Lounge

25% off for 4 months. Valid until 30 June 2021. Terms and conditions apply. PROMO CODE: 25OFF4MONTHS Visit the XU Hub: Go to www.xumagazine.com Follow us on Twitter: @xumagazine

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Welcome to issue 27... magazine The independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users

Issue 27 Main Contacts CEO: David Hassall (Co-Founder) Managing Editor: Wesley Cornell (Co-Founder) Director of Strategic Partnerships: Alex Newson Editorial/News Submissions: If you have any editorial content (news, comment, tutorials etc.) that you would like us to consider for inclusion in the next edition of XU Magazine, please email us at editorial@xumagazine.com Advertising: advertising@xumagazine.com 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 2014-2021. 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: 12 Jordan Street, Liverpool, L1 0BP, United Kingdom. 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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COVER STORY ApprovalMax SERVICE DIVERSIFICATION: embracing technology to enable growth

Dext 3 Reasons to Try Fetch by Dext Prepare

Formitize One simple platform. Hundreds of business solutions. Real-time Xero access.

ATOmate Cut your ATO document processing time by over 90%!

19 24

Updates from Xero

Q&A Flagship Reporting Searle Goott, CEO & Founder

GoCardless Xero & GoCardless: Putting an end to late payments

QicWorks 4 ways modern software can grow your business

XBert Using the right technology to scale up your bookkeeping business AccountancyManager Can technology actually make us more human? Projectworks The Best of Both Worlds: Projectworks + Xero

ezyCollect 5 Elements of a Strong Credit Policy HR Partner 3 Simple Ways to Boost Employee Morale Spotlight Reporting 5 Steps to Maximising Your Accounting Tech-Stack

infoodle Why would your charity client need a CRM?

38 42

Emersion Managing Uncertainty

Q&A Fathom Say hello to the future of forecasting: How the industry helped reimagine three-way forecasting

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Interviews with...

DID YOU KNOW?

XU are now a CPD Corporate Member We have been working closely with the CPD Certification Service to have our articles CPD Certified. As you are reading through the magazine any article that shows the CPD Certified logo has been approved to count

towards your CPD points. We are really excited to have been able to secure this for our readers as it means all approved articles can now be used towards your CPD points and building up your CPD register.

64 68

90 94

126

Matt Vickers

102

24 Searle Goott

Flagship Reporting

Chaser Why is chasing for payments so awkward and what you can do about it? AutoEntry Scaling with Xero and AutoEntry Wolters Kluwer (APAC) Propel your practice forward with smarter cloud practice management

Xero

MinuteDock MinuteDock’s Guide to Surviving an 80+ Hour Work Week PinPayments Future Proofing Your Small Business

Senta It is what you do (and the way that you do it) - Process mapping for success

Q&A ExpenseOnDemand Sunil Nigam, CEO & Co-Founder

Sunil Nigam

Float Introducing a new cash flow service to your clients - a conversation guide Clarity Fast track to advisory

MarketFinance What’s the future of Making Tax Digital and digital accounting? Wolters Kluwer (UK) Closing the rule book on old methods – how to make advisory as natural as compliance CASE STUDY WorkflowMax Boost your advisory power with technology and help clients change their businesses for the better

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BOOK REVIEW Everything you need to know about Xero Practice Manager

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Lightyear Extend the power of Xero with Ordering & Payables automation AdvanceTrack The Accountant’s Client Satisfaction Lifecycle

ExpenseOnDemand

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Look out for any article that shows the CPD Certified logo. It has been approved to count towards your CPD points!

Compleat The working from home revolution means spend management is more important than ever! CASE STUDY Tidy Reducing emissions and odours for a cleaner future

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Spenmo How Cloud Software Can Reduce Your AP Workload by 80%

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simPRO Top ways job management software helps customers pay on time - Tips to help your clients improve cash flow

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WorldFirst UK What if your costs increased by over 10%? Managing foreign exchange exposure

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ICB Bookkeeping, Community and Scrubs

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Q&A Xero Matt Vickers, GM Product

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APPS COMPARED Compared: Credit

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Cloud Payroll Does one size fit all?

control

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Women in Accounting Top 50 2020

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NextMinute Constructing a process to eliminate revenue leakage

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NEW XERO CONNECTED APPS New to the Xero App Marketplace

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NEW RELEASES Updates and new releases from Xero connected apps

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FOCUS: MENTAL HEALTH Tim Hoopmann New Access for Small Business Owners

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APP DIRECTORY Over 700 Xero connected Apps

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EVENTS Terrapinn Virtual events in 2021: How to get the most from attending

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...and finally Announcing 1000+ apps that connect to Xero

Sapaad Create the Restaurant of the Future with Digital SelfOrdering Solutions

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Business where it needs to be POWERFUL SOFTWARE DELIGHTFULLY SIMPLE

Best suited for Manufacturers:

“

As a manufacturing organisation we needed a solution that was able to take account of equipment, labour and materials in managing a project and you’d be surprised about how hard that was to find that type of solution that fitted our dynamic business. Bryan Holyoake, Managing Director, Armatec Environmental Ltd

”

Users of

JOB & PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Try free

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

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CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

PROJECT & INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

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Cover Story

SERVICE DIVERSIFICATION

embracing technology to enable growth

8 / Issue 27 25

@ApprovalMax

Helmut Heptner, Director of Operations, ApprovalMax Helmut masters not only theoretical knowledge about effective organisations, but has helped many businesses to transform their daily operations and make them more efficient. As one of ApprovalMax founders, Helmut has led the company from the earliest days on.

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Cover Story

Diversification of services, in essence, leads to evolving towards higher value advisory and building a closer and more meaningful relationship with the client – a journey that every accounting firm embarks on at some point in time.

t’s not a solo effort though; it’s about an accounting firm and their client progressing together, handin-hand. Success very much depends on the firm’s readiness to deliver a certain set of services – but just as much on the client’s willingness to embrace this kind of services, meaning they first need to place a demand and then incorporate such input into their business decision-making. Growth stages of advisory Quite commonly, a comparison between Compliance and Advisory will conclude that compliance is focused mainly on statutory and governmental reporting, typically quarterly or annually, which requires no knowledge of the business – as opposed to business advisory that takes a deep dive into the operations to figure out the impact certain financial transactions would have by including spending per spend category, the profitability of each product or service the client offers, etc. In between, however, there are two more growth stages, something we call the Actuals and Forecasting. The actuals show a snapshot of the current financial status in the form of quarterly or monthly reports derived from both the income statement and balance sheet, yet with no attempt to look into the financial future. Forecasting, in turn, estimates the amount of revenue or income that is expected to be achieved in a future period. Regardless of the technique used but resting on various criteria such as available historical data,

accepted accuracy as well as the possibility to establish a correlation between these factors, forecasting will provide essential development scenarios – only, just as with compliance and the actuals, there will be no particular consideration for business needs. Advisory readiness matrix Getting ready for diversifying accounting services and moving towards higher value advisory demands a certain level of key modules like systems, data, workflows and people/ collaboration. Depending on the scope of services provided, the requirements in terms of readiness components vary significantly. Basic COMPLIANCE doesn’t necessarily need cloud technology. In terms of data, no such thing as real-time or actionable is expected. Workflows can be simplistic and don’t require automation, collaboration with the client is very limited and rather transactional. For robust ACTUALS, technology has to be stepped up. Only a centralised architecture will work, with a unified system of records as the accounting platform and enhanced by pre-integrated addons. All data must be up to date, with a high priority on accuracy and precision. Yet in terms of data granularity there is no need to track spending per category, aggregated values are sufficient. Workflows, in particular approval workflows, have to prevent erroneous or fraudulent spending and ensure correct business coding. The collaboration with the client is basically about

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authspending as a whole rather than specifying spending allocation. Sound FORECASTING, just as the actuals, relies on a centralised and fully cloud-based system complemented by a set of pre-integrated apps for a best-of-breed solution. Data requirements skyrocket as only high-quality historic data can form a proper basis for future estimates. Speaking about the final stage, i.e. complete ADVISORY readiness, the first thing to mention is a total focus on the entire system for capturing and maintaining the business as well as its financial activities. Apart from being in real time, all data need to include the full business context. So, any spend coding should be designed to reflect this. Fully automated workflows are essential for this goal as they help optimise processing and minimise errors. Especially approval workflows, when fully automated, contribute to data quality by ensuring that the business coding is done on time and correctly. The collaboration with clients has to reach a whole new level. In stark contrast to the discrete and transactional communications when providing compliance services, advisory needs a socalled service continuum: close, uninterrupted interactions aimed at understanding every aspect of the client’s business. To illustrate this concept in action, here’s a selection of stories about the successful delivery of advisory services and how to build a solid foundation utilising technology, data and workflow automation.

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Cover Story The power is in the platform Lara Brennan, Partner and Head of Cloud Solutions, Mazars LLP “To support businesses as they grow you need to understand where they are now, and where they aim to be. What is it they want to achieve? For this you need to have real-time management information plus a detailed analysis to provide hindsight. A simple P&L & BS is not enough. In fact, the communication and collaboration with clients is key to obtaining the insight and foresight required to model the future. At Mazars, we’ve been building effective digital solutions for clients that enable us to deliver proactive advisory services. I can honestly say: the power is in the platform. Automating data collection and capture with Dext and combining this with multi-level workflows in ApprovalMax provides clean data with layers of analysis that has been authorised before getting processed. This enables real-time reporting that drives our analytics and advisory services.” Think in terms of value for the client Alastair Barlow, Founder and Chief Dreamer, flinder “Advisory means different things to different people and is quite an emotional subject for accountants. However, if you speak to a business, it’s very unlikely they would use the words compliance or advisory; it’s the accountants really who are obsessing about compliance vs advisory – instead of asking themselves what does my client care about? But this is actually the most important bit: when we talk to clients, we need to think in terms of value to them because value is different from one

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business to another. Many accountants assume that advisory is having a conversation with their clients on the back of a set of figures when in fact, advisory can start before you get all processes and numbers right. It can even begin if the data is completely wrong. For us, sometimes, the first piece of advisory is a finance function assessment. We baseline our clients against several dimensions, such as people, processes, technology and data. This allows us to issue a report indicating areas they need to focus on and then we give them a choice: you can do it yourselves, or we can do it for you. Normally, clients come back asking ‘can you build a cash flow model, can you install a purchase order system, can you put in ApprovalMax, can you help us get better information?’ So, we end up with a process improvement project, which is a perfect first advisory piece of work.” Establish confidence in numbers Brendan Lucas, Director, Hopscotch Accounting “I feel that the move to advisory services should begin with the basis. For us, step one is structuring the basics so that we can rely on the numbers. This is the part where we must be involved from start to finish because confidence in the client’s numbers is essential and once you have it, you can indeed understand what’s happening with your client. That’s when you can report on the numbers with confidence and, coming from there, you can actually do something about it. You should certainly spend more time on understanding your client, talking to them and getting the numbers right than on the following steps. Yes, it takes time

to get people up and running. And it involves introducing them to new a technology that helps us get the right data, for example data entry tools and ApprovalMax for ensuring data authorisation. But then, after about two to six months, we’re usually ready to offer them more services because we have sorted out and made sense of their numbers.” Take the noise out Trent Todd, Technical Director, Tinka Consulting “The key to providing high-value services such as forecasting and analytics is to take away the noise and focus on what really matters, and what matters is giving good advice. So, you need clean data, you need automation, and you need it pronto! In terms of automation, the final goal is to build an automated set of reports that refresh every month and the board members can review. To achieve this we need to start with automation. As a first step on the way to getting such reports, we put ApprovalMax and AutoEntry in place because they establish consistency in coding. ApprovalMax is our “start small” as we can save our clients hours and hours every month just by implementing it. And then we can begin with building other recommendations for them.” It’s not a destination, it’s a journey James Fry, Director of IntelliG+Ence, Garbutt & Elliott “The starting point has to be good quality management information; without that it’s not possible to provide good advisory of any kind. So before moving into the advisory phase, we need to ensure that we have solid data we can trust – that’s the foundation. The big thing for us is moving

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Cover Story away from manual processing – there’s no value in it for the client and it’s not particularly interesting for us either. That’s why we use Dext Prepare and ApprovalMax, along with a data analytics technology like Dext Precision to ensure that all data is accurate. Automating the processing allows us to refocus our time on what really makes a difference: talking to our client.

management information before, so we have to explain what it is and how it will benefit them. For us it’s key to understand where the client currently is on his journey. If you present a complex cash forecasting model when the client doesn’t understand why cash flow is so important in the first place, it’s just no use.”

Once we have good quality compliance data, there are lots of ways we can help our clients: visual management information, KPI benchmarking, budget preparation, forecasting and cash flow monitoring services. We see the move to advisory as a gradual process for every client, but the approach and pace differs depending on the individual experience and sophistication. Some clients never had any

In the end, it’s not just about the client’s needs – the actual scope of advisory as well as your ability to provide it depend on two things. Firstly, how well are you equipped: do you have capable technology to ensure high-quality data and process automation? Are you prepared to have deep conversations with your client to analyse their requirements and guide them through the process? And secondly: is your

In conclusion

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client ready for this kind of service? In that respect, both the business maturity and people’s commitment come into play. There will be clients who need to be educated, and clients who come to you with all the right questions before you even think of them. Apart from having to develop a close relationship with the client, you do need powerful technology to help get the data right and free up valuable time by eliminating routine work.

FIND OUT MORE... Looking into diversifying your practice’s services? Find out more on: approvalmax.com/xu27

Issue 27 / 11

Reasons to Try Fetch by Dext Prepare

@dextofficial

Jake Souch, Product Manager, Dext Jake is a Product Manager at Dext and Fetch expert.

Fetch automatically retrieves invoices from over 1600 businesses, from Amazon to Uber A

ccountants and bookkeepers can spend hours chasing clients for purchase invoices - time that Invoice Fetch by Dext Prepare can save.

up to date or accurate, worse yet, reconciliations cannot be completed on time. This results in a delay with completing tasks and additional time being incurred but not recoverable.

With a Dext account, Fetch is easy to set up and use. You’ll just need your login credentials for a supplier - like Amazon, eBay, and your energy providers. You can choose the range of dates Dext will Fetch items for - it could be a week, or even the entire available history.

Fetch will save bookkeepers and accountants hours due to not having to chase clients for missing paperwork.

But saving time is just the beginning - here are three more reasons to try Fetch: 1) Adds value to your practice Missing paperwork for accountants and bookkeepers means that the purchase ledger in the accounting system is not

You can send a request to clients to connect to a supplier -- once the connection is set up, you will have these documents automatically pulled in from the supplier for your client. The purchases cycle can be streamlined further by using other Dext features like purchase order matching, auto categorisation, supplier rules and auto publishing ensuring maximum efficiency and a “nohands” approach to accountancy

with Dext doing all the hard work for you. The time saved can be used supporting more of your clients and providing additional services, or a day off. 2) Tried and loved The popularity of Fetch is growing at an exponential rate. In 2020, we Fetched over two million items for our users, saving valuable time for accountants and bookkeepers who could then provide more valuable advice and services to clients. There are currently 35 thousand businesses using Fetch, and 125 thousand unique connections to suppliers. 3) Always evolving We regularly review customer requests for new Fetch suppliers. Since the start of 2020, we’ve added an additional 200 supplier portals that our customers have asked for. We actively review the usage and performance of the Fetch engine and make refinements to ensure it’s working as best it can for our customers.

FIND OUT MORE... To learn more about Fetch, click here.

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Auto-sync your daily sales data from Sapaad's self-ordering channels to Xero and streamline your accounting workflow. Spend less time on accounting and more on growing your business.

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TRY SAPAAD FOR FREE : WWW.SAPAAD.COM

Issue 27 / 13

One simple platform. Hundreds of business solutions. Real-time Xero access. Sick of jumping from one app to another to run your business? Imagine having everything in one place and unleashing the information in Xero to run your business smarter.

s we all know, a whole range of great niche software solutions have been developed over the years that solve specific business tasks such as online proposals, sales pipeline management, document management and job scheduling. Initially this was really exciting for small businesses owners; the whole app world exploded and the capabilities of these apps were impressive, especially compared to the previous manual processes or oldschool awkward software packages they had been using. Naturally, the next step in the process was to try to get all of these different apps to talk to each other. Lots of API (Application Programming Interfaces) were developed to try and help the different software packages communicate with each other, and bridging solutions such as Zapier provided a nocode ability to also help with the sharing of information between different solutions.

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Some API connections work really well while others remain very limited in their sharing capabilities, leaving users with a number of real-life challenges such as:

@formitize

Matt Burge, CEO, Formitize With a successful career spanning the telecommunications and technology sectors, Matt has a passion for mobility and smart business innovation. As the Founder and CEO of Formitize, Matt leads the strategy and future direction of the company across the global regions and industries served. His focus is on harnessing the power of global cloud architecture and the capability of mobile applications to provide transformational solutions for clients of all sizes.

in the business (when you may need to restrict sensitive data to specific users) Formitize believes the next phase is what it calls “Software Consolidation”. Matt Burge, Formitize CEO explains further, “We witnessed first-hand the evolution of the software process and based on our users’ feedback, we believe clients are now ready for software consolidation - combining as many of these different apps as possible into one simple-to-use platform.

• Still being required to log in and out of lots of different applications in order to run their business • Limitations on which program information is shared, and which isn’t • Data being visible to everyone

“In our research, we found that there were very good job management solutions out there and very good CRM solutions available but very few that did both really well at a reasonable price point, or that weren’t overly complicated for a typical small business to set up and manage themselves. The challenge then remained: What about the other modules required to run a business such as Document Management, Asset Management,

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Health & Safety, Smart Forms, Online Agreements?” he says. So Formitize created its smart business platform, bringing everything together in one place. The organisation believes that Xero is a great accounting software for most small- to medium-businesses, so it remains the central “Source of Truth” for the financial recording and Balance Sheet management. The Formitize platform steps in and uses the Xero information where relevant across all of the different modules. An example of this is the Job Management Module. When a user creates a new job in Formitize, the person scheduling the job is able to see the Client Contact details and importantly, the current outstanding invoice balance using Xero data. When the field technician is then completing the job, they are able to add to the invoice using line items directly from Xero. All client contacts, line items, tax rates, accounts and more are pulled from Xero with one click and then the two systems share and update every ten seconds, creating incredible communication and data sharing. Imagine having everything in one place and being able to utilise the customer information from Xero without giving everyone in the business access to Xero! The Formitize Business Platform includes a full suite of business modules all in one place and all communicating beautifully with each other including: CRM Customer Database, Job

Scheduling and Management, Task Management, Smart Forms, Sales Pipeline, Asset Management, Safety, Document Management, Accounts (including Quotes, Invoices and Purchases), Online Proposals and a Compliance Register to manage multi-stage processes such as Incident Reporting and Complaint Management. Xero remains the source of truth for the financial information, however, wherever possible, Formitize presents relevant information to the user that is relevant to the module they are using. With crossover modules such as Invoicing, again the two solutions work beautifully together. Formitize accesses all of the relevant Xero invoicing elements but then adds options to the invoices such as signatures, attachments, photos and more to take the smart invoice to another level. Users are able to create and send invoices from the app or web management portal without getting access to Xero itself with

both platforms automatically updated. With so many modules working together the question remains; what’s next? Burge replies, “We’re on a mission now to continue innovating the platform to make it more and more valuable to our clients. The more business processes we can bring into the platform and solve, the better. It’s an exciting journey ahead.”

FIND OUT MORE... For more information about how Formitize can help you, go to: formitize.com/features/ integrations/xero To book in a free, no-obligation walkthrough demonstration tour go to: formitize.com/demolanding

Are you looking into diversifying your practice’s services? You’ll ﬁnd out more on: approvalmax.com/xu27 Visit the XU Hub: Go to www.xumagazine.com

Issue 27 / 15

Cut your ATO document processing time by over 90%! Meet your TFN privacy obligations AND communicate proactively with clients? It’s possible! Technology can automate the processing and distribution of ATO correspondence for you (even handling the taxing elements like TFN redaction), enabling you to get important notifications to your clients sooner.

utomating repetitive processes is one of the easiest ways you can create capacity in your practice, streamline and systemise your existing processes, and reduce the errors and delays that inevitably come with manually completing these cumbersome tasks. And is there anything more clunky than managing the constant stream of client correspondence from the ATO? As ATO systems and communication channels become increasingly digital and direct, it has never been more important for practices to be able to process, review, and distribute ATO notices to clients efficiently and effectively. Yet the administrative burden in doing so comes at a cost – countless hours spent manually filing, cross checking, and communicating what matters (like payment amounts and due dates) are taking you and your team away from value added tasks and services. You are likely already using a suite of cloudbased apps and streamlined processes to run your practice and leverage your use of Xero, but do you really know what is involved when it comes to managing your ATO documents?

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What does your ATO document management process look like? For a typical accounting practice, processing ATO documents generally involves: 1. Receive ATO notices in the mail, manually sort into batches based on correspondence type; 2. Compare each notice or statement against the estimation in Xero Tax and Xero Practice Manager; 3. Manually redact / erase Tax File Numbers for all notices; 4. Prepare correspondence to email or post to clients, manually pulling contact details from Xero; 5. File everything against your client in your document management system as a complete record of the communication; 6. Repeat for notices received via the Tax Agent Portal, manually downloading each statement; 7. Field queries about notices clients have received direct to their myGov inbox (including why it bypassed you altogether!). ATO document management is costing you more than time A task that really should be

@ATOmate_BAW_AU

Stan Corner, CEO and founder of Business Automation Works (BAW), the team behind ATOmate Stan Corner is passionate about assisting businesses to reach their full potential through the delivery of automated processes, supporting them to achieve smarter and innovative outcomes for stakeholders and greater productivity and job satisfaction across their teams. With over 25 years of experience in the technology industry, Stan’s professional focus has been on building high-performance teams and leading organisational change through operational efficiency.

completed each day to ensure swift communication with clients can quickly consume an entire morning (or day during peak lodgement times!) taking your client service team and even accountants themselves away from more valuable practice and client-focused activities. Not to mention the potential for human error that can occur at multiple points throughout the process and the impact that can have on your clients: a missed TFN redaction, or a notice sent to an incorrect email address could lead to a privacy breach, client-wide notification, and some difficult conversations. The automated solution to ATO document processing The good news is that this is no longer an administrative burden you must bear. ATOmate is an innovative automation platform that combines cutting edge robotic process automation technology with AI to cut your ATO document management, processing, and communication time by 90%. ATOmate’s smart AI technology reviews all ATO documents including Notices of Assessment,

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Statements or Account, Tax Debts, ATOmate even takes care of the and other ATO notices that have tedious task of filing and archiving been scanned or downloaded your correspondence - integrating electronically, comparing key with leading cloud-based details such as due dates, document management platforms and amounts payable/ including FYI Docs, refundable against SuiteFiles, HowNow, “Automating your those stored in Xero Windows network ATO document Tax. folders, Google processing is a Drive, Sharepoint, win for you and Discrepancies and many others, to your clients” and variances are automatically archive a automatically flagged complete record of what for review, meanwhile has been communicated. matching notices are attached to With all TFN details already emails, letters, or pushed to your redacted from filed notices, portal of choice, ready for you to ATOmate has been purpose send on directly to your clients. built to save you time and help you meet your TFN compliance Meet your TFN privacy obligations. obligations, simply Clients hear it from you first Regardless of how you choose to communicate with clients, With more and more ATO notices ATOmate’s automatic TFN being sent to clients directly redaction feature makes meeting through myGov, ATOmate’s your TFN privacy obligations unique bulk downloading function simple. also makes light work of retrieving client correspondence from the Like many accountants, if your Tax Agent Portal you may have primary communication method otherwise missed. This allows with your clients is email, TFN you to stay on the front foot redaction coupled with email and touch base with your clients data matching and automated sooner. correspondence generation tick off on TFN privacy requirements As your client’s most trusted and enable you to continue to adviser, you want them to hear it send ATO notices by email safely. from you first, and with ATOmate,

they do. The speed and ease with which you can process and distribute ATO correspondence from multiple channels means you can proactively keep on top of key notifications, and keep your clients coming back for what they value most – the strong and stable relationship you now have the time to maintain. There is no reason to still be manually processing ATO documents in 2021 If you are still manually processing and distributing your ATO correspondence, visit our website to book a no obligation online discovery call and learn how ATOmate’s powerful automation technology can benefit your practice.

FIND OUT MORE... Learn more about ATOmate and how it can help your Xero practice: www.atomate.com.au

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Issue 27 / 17

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Updates from Xero

Steve Vamos, CEO, Xero

What we’ve been working on... B

uilding on our commitment to Singapore small businesses and partners We recently announced the introduction of localised billing for our subscribers in Singapore, as part of our commitment to helping small businesses and their advisors in the region. From July, customers and partners in Singapore will enjoy a seamless, transparent billing experience when paying for their subscriptions. This will remove the need for customers to consider fluctuations in the USD/SGD currency exchange every month. It’s one of many enhancements to be announced this year, and part of our continued growth in the region.

Since opening our Singapore office in 2016, Xero has invested in enhancing our product suite for local customers. Some of the work we’ve done to bolster our offering in Singapore includes: • building bank feeds for Singapore SME banks, and adding new financial partners in payments, lending and digital banking • offering Singapore GST capability, by automating the process of GST calculation for IRAS’ Form 5 requirements • including Hubdoc in Xero business plans, to provide customers with data capture, extraction and processing technology that saves time and reduces manual work • making e-invoicing seamless for customers through compliance with IMDA’s InvoiceNow initiative and the acquisitions of Tickstar and Invoici • adding a number of Singapore-

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based apps in the areas of compliance, payroll, payments, point-of-sale and practice management To support Xero partners, we have added: • Singapore Report Templates, making it easy for partners to generate financial statements that are compliant with Singapore financial reporting standards • Singapore Chart of Accounts templates, saving partners time when onboarding new clients into Xero Small businesses are the backbone of Singapore and the future of the economy. We’re continuing to work closely with the small business community, advisors and the Singapore Government to remove friction, create new opportunities and enable our subscribers to grow and thrive.

Issue 27 / 19

Updates from Xero

Other Xero updates... We’ve made a number of other updates on the Xero platform over the past few months, including:

Global Upload COA templates in CSV format to Xero HQ We’ve made it even easier for accountants and bookkeepers to customise their Chart of Accounts (COA) templates in Xero HQ. They can now upload an existing COA template in a CSV format to their template library. The template will be automatically mapped to Xero account codes, helping onboard new clients faster, without creating a new COA template from scratch. Making reports more beautiful in Xero HQ We’ve given the Report Styles page in Xero HQ a facelift. This makes it easier for accountants or bookkeepers to upload their practice logo and choose the title colour that will appear on new published reports.

Display and sort reports by account code Reporting in Xero now displays and sorts Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet reports by account codes. Businesses can select ‘show account codes’ in the options menu in reporting to get a better understanding of the chart of accounts within reports. Share receipts with Xero Expenses Submitting expense claims on the go is now easier than ever. Businesses can simply open a receipt on their mobile from an email, photo or folder, tap share and select the Xero Expenses app. This automatically creates an expense claim with the information on the receipt and gives businesses a notification when the claim is ready to be submitted. Enjoy a new GoCardless experience in Xero

View all bank rules in one place Setting up bank rules helps businesses reconcile some of their more frequent transactions, such as ‘Parking’. Now, they can view the details of each rule (such as ‘Payee contains Parking’) in one bank rules list, rather than having to click edit. Securing accounts with MultiFactor Authentication

We’ve released a new GoCardless integration that makes it easy to set up direct debits (automatic bankto-bank payments). Businesses can set up one-off and recurring payments via the payment services screen, or from an invoice.

Aus/NZ Register to receive e-invoices

To make sure we continue to keep Xero accounts secure, we’re making Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) mandatory for all Xero customers globally in the year ahead. Businesses can set up MFA on their account by downloading our new authenticator app called Xero Verify, which only takes a few minutes to set up and sends a push notification when they log in.

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Last year, we offered the ability for Xero customers in Australia and New Zealand to send e-invoices directly from the Xero platform. This allowed them to benefit from both governments’ commitment to faster payment times. We’ve now launched the ability to receive e-invoices. Once customers register, incoming e-invoices will be delivered directly into Xero, prepopulated as a draft bill.

Australia Manage activity statements in Xero Tax Automatic activity statements in Xero Tax and Xero Practice Manager are a huge time saver for accountants, but we know that some businesses prefer to lodge activity statements themselves. That’s why we’re now giving accountants the option to select which clients manage their own logements, in the client record. They can also select which period activity statements should be created for other clients. Save time and energy with document packs Document packs in Xero HQ are now available to all Xero partners in Australia. Document packs combines tax returns from Xero Tax, reports from a client’s Xero organisation, and PDFs from a local device in one single pack. Advisors can add signature lines, upload to a secure online portal, and invite their clients to sign using Xero Sign powered by Adobe Sign.

New Zealand Stay updated on payroll changes for EOFY New Zealand employers have a number of changes to payroll to keep on top of this year, from increased minimum wages to new tax rates. We’ve made it as easy as possible for them to manage EOFY tasks in Xero Payroll, with many of the changes automatically applied, so they can pay employees correctly and stay compliant.

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Issue 27 / 21

Updates from Xero

Manage off-payroll workers in Xero Payroll We’ve made it fast and easy to onboard, manage and process off-payroll workers in Xero Payroll. The required reporting is sent via RTI filings, so businesses can feel confident that they’ll remain compliant with HMRC legislation. These changes are in line with the IR35 legislation that will come into effect on 6 April 2021.

Xero and Bookkeeper360 collaborate to help US small businesses We are pleased to announce a new collaboration with Bookkeeper360, a Xero platinum partner and accounting platform for startups and growth-stage businesses. Through the Bookkeeper360 app, which integrates with Xero, small businesses can view their finances, track business goals and access accounting expertise all in one place.

Stay compliant with updated 1099 reports Setting up separate 1099 rules for each account code can be a hassle. That’s why we’ve introduced a new feature that allows businesses to select multiple accounts when setting up rules. We’ve also given them more visibility, so they can see which bank account a transaction was paid from and which credit card transactions were automatically excluded. Our latest 1099 reports also reflect the new regulatory changes from the IRS, to help businesses stay compliant in 2021.

Xero business update... An update on Xerocon 2021

As the pandemic continues to disrupt travel and large gatherings, with countries moved in and out of lockdowns, we’ve come to the tough decision that there is just too much uncertainty to go ahead with a Xerocon event in 2021. We’re working behind the scenes to explore how we can continue to connect in meaningful ways, stay inspired, and share the latest product and technology innovations with our customers, partners and communities. Xero invited to UK small business taskforce The UK’s Small Business Minister has invited Xero to become the only software member of a government-led small business taskforce. Gary Turner, managing director of Xero UK & EMEA, will now join regular engagements and advise the government on policies to support small businesses in the UK.

STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX! 22 / Issue 27

The taskforce is made up of a range of business leaders and industry experts who represent small businesses across the UK. Its aim is to provide the UK Government with external advice on the priorities and issues impacting small business owners. Xero recognised as one of ANZ’s Best Places to Work

We’re thrilled that Xero has been recognised as one of Australia and New Zealand’s Best Places to Work. The prestigious annual list, published by The Australian Financial Review and BOSS Magazine, is based on a rigorous assessment process that’s backed by behavioural science research. Xero ranked #4 on the technology industry list, from around 1000 nominated organisations across all categories. Our inclusion is a result of our achievements and innovative practices in three core areas: flexible working, diversity and inclusion, and employee wellbeing.

Xero is now certified carbon neutral Xero has been certified carbon neutral for our owned and operated businesses in Australia and internationally, including New Zealand, the United States, Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Asia. Our certification, issued by the Australian Government’s Climate Active program, makes Xero one of the first SaaS companies to achieve Climate Active certification. Our certification recognises our commitment to offsetting 100% of our carbon emissions as part of our Net Zero @ Xero program, which we began in 2019. The program has since grown to encompass a number of carbon abatement and offset projects across New Zealand, Indonesia and India.

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Issue 27 / 23

Interview

Q& A Searle Goott

CEO & Founder

Flagship Reporting 24 / Issue 27

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Interview

XU:

We were very excited to see Flagship’s recent launch & integration with Xero! Where did the idea for Flagship come from & what led you to creating it?

SG:

It was born from the idea and frustration of having to spend lots of time using Excel spreadsheets to produce management accounts, which is time consuming and prone to error.

XU: SG:

What were you doing pre-Flagship?

I was acting as a portfolio FD for various

clients.

XU:

What problems or challenges does Flagship solve?

SG:

Flagship totally automates the reporting process for our clients. As it is integrated with Xero, figures are always in sync with no room for manual errors.

XU:

Who are your target users and who will it help benefit?

SG:

Our target users are both Accountancy firms and FD’s / FC’s working for a business.

XU:

What are the advantages of integrated reporting solutions over spreadsheets such as Excel Reporting?

Our “blank canvas” approach enables the user to create management reports in the required format as opposed to using a template that may not suit our users’ needs.

SG:

XU:

How has the product been received so far since the launch in April?

We have had an unbelievable response so far. Clients genuinely love the product and have said that Flagship has saved them days with their reporting.

XU:

Which of Flagship’s features do you personally think is the most useful?

SG:

Customising rows and columns to suit the users requirements and the ability to run a single company or a consolidated group from the same dashboard.

SG: XU:

What sets Flagship apart from the other Reporting apps out there?

Launching a new business & app during Covid-19 must have been an interesting process. Did you encounter any unexpected issues or surprises during the creation & setup?

SG:

Ease of use. A simple and intuitive user interface and flexibility - this means that our users can create fully customisable reports, in any format, for any period.

Flagship’s interface appears very userfriendly and intuitive. What functions did you implement to increase its accessibility and ease of use?

XU:

Automation, accuracy and eliminating errors.

XU:

Thankfully we have been so lucky to have continued to connect with our customers on Zoom, as well as working with the most incredible team of developers.

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A simple and intuitive drag and drop interface together with the functionality of switching running a report for any period or any company. Why did you choose to integrate with

Xero?

SG:

Xero is the market leader in this space and is the software of choice for most Accountants.

XU:

Tell us a bit more about yourself & what you get up to outside of Flagship!

SG:

I love the outdoors and sport - mainly tennis, swimming and cycling. Recently, I have been spending a lot of time with my new puppy, Kobe.

XU:

How was the Flagship team formed, and what are their backgrounds? Had you worked with them before?

SG:

Our development team was built from scratch. We now have 8 developers. The rest of the team were hired by referrals from trusted friends and colleagues.

Issue 27 / 25

Interview

XU:

Do you have any new features or updates in the works that you can share with us?

SG:

We are working on a lot of things at the moment which include intelligent commentary, accounting intelligence and cash flow forecasting.

XU:

What is your vision for the future of Flagship? Are there any goals you’re hoping to achieve?

SG:

We hope to expand internationally and integrate with other key software vendors and we will also be integrating with other key non accounting packages.

XU:

How easy is it to sign up for & implement Flagship into your business?

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SG:

Very easy. You can sign up directly from the website. There is a 14 day free trial. You can cancel at any time. It takes about 60 seconds to sign up and connect your companies within Xero.

XU:

Could people encounter any challenges implementing an integrated reporting solution such as Flagship, and if so, how can they overcome them?

SG:

Our product is so simple to use so not much help or training is required. In addition we have FAQ’s and chat support within the product. We also offer Zoom training free of charge for anyone who needs it.

FIND OUT MORE... To book a free trial, visit: flagshipreporting.com

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Issue 27 / 27

Using the right technology to scale up your bookkeeping business There’s no denying any business looking to successfully scale and grow in 2021 and beyond must implement technology solutions. But why, what and how? Aaron shares his expertise with us. M

uch like the rest of the world, the bookkeeping industry is almost unrecognisable from 5 years ago. It’s not just about how you work; it’s about what you do and how your services evolve. It’s about ensuring you’re using best practice. And it’s about continually adding meaningful value to your clients – all while (hopefully) maintaining that coveted work/life balance many start their own business for. Like it or not – in today’s world, embracing technology is the key to mastering all those things. That is the reason technology exists: to provide the users with a fundamental change of how they approach their world, before they used the technology. And as Artificial Intelligence shapes the future-path of the industry, it’s clear to see the most efficient way to scale up your business successfully and sustainably in 2021 and beyond, is understanding and implementing it.

28 / Issue 27

@XBertapp

Aaron Wittman, co-founder, XBert A self-described ‘geek who moved into management’, Aaron Wittman is passionate about making life easier using technology. With a Bachelor of Information Science and extensive experience working in Australia, the UK, US, and India, this passion has enabled him to build and patent software running in the top 10% of the largest financial institutions in the world. He now brings his expertise to the accounting and bookkeeping market as the co-founder of XBert.io, an AI-based technology solution revolutionising the way financial advisors work.

Tech is the best business partner

Looking to practice processes – traditionally, they have been complex, arduous and manualThe sheer volume of technology work heavy. Technology, like we solutions available on the market have built with XBert, changes should be an indicator of it’s the paradigm on the ‘do once, importance for futurecheck, and focused business lock’ approach, leaders. When it comes enabling you Using a product to the accounting to smooth out that has been and bookkeeping your workflows. developed industries, the Consider, as specifically for repetitive manual your business is industry your tasks of the work scales and you’re a no-brainer. are ideal for Artificial onboarding new Intelligence solutions to staff – what does that be implemented. look like? Relying on staff to do the right thing, with no We know that excellent mistakes, all the time, just isn’t bookkeepers have a deep realistic. You can, however, trust understanding of their clients. the process when you’ve got the Every client can be different, not right technology in your corner only on their line of business, and supporting your team. but how they approach the management of their books. And The right people, armed with the so, any technology that will assist right technology, can amplify your also needs to understand how ability to quickly perform the work to approach these differences. required and know if mistakes Using Artificial intelligence that is have been made. This can create trained to act like a bookkeeper a new way of working, focusing and knows each individual on the review process rather than business, provides a new way hand-holding; providing a way for for professional bookkeepers you to scale your business to any to support and streamline their level. services.

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

The right tools for the job If a builder turned up to work at your place with only handpowered tools – what would you think? Any professional knows, having the right tools for your business is the key. Your clients expect the same. There will always be an investment in tools – the important part is understanding whether the investment period (and time) will be worth it. Understanding the benefits a tool will have to your business, negates how much of an investment you make and technology is no different. Sure, you might be able to get by switching in and out of different technology tools – but the question is: What time are you spending on using tools that have not been built particularly for the users? Like all tools, technology has a learning curve, but it is just part of the course if you want to be the best at your job. Using a product that has been developed specifically for your industry is a no-brainer. In business it’s true time is money. In a world of fixed time versus hourly rates, it is important to have the right technology in place to remove time spent on charges that your competitors don’t have to pass on. This can be the difference when scaling up the ability to sell your services compared to your competitors. Key information is just one click away Bookkeeping is no longer professional data entry. Many bookkeepers are enhancing their services with advisory – and you can too, without adding too many hours to your work day. The days of the endless clicking or manually trawling data to find the right answers, or insights into your client’s business health, are coming to an end. Technology provides the information that

allows professional bookkeepers to cut through to answers they’re looking for. Not only does this strengthen your relationship with your clients, it allows you to add more billable hours to the clock, increasing your revenue. The same applies to workflow. Forget sifting through spreadsheets and checklists to find where your team is at or whether something has been missed and begin to ‘manage by exception’. Using a dedicated tech solution that helps cut through the data to know where you and your team are, is a key part of staying on top of the information flow. Tracking processes with one or two clicks and being able to understand where your business is at, while the technology constantly checks on all changes made by you, your team or the business, allows you to move forward but easily understand if someone has affected the end of month process. Not only does this revolutionise your day-to-day workflow, it also helps remove the End of Month, End of Quarter and End of Financial Year bump. This can literally be the difference between just surviving in your business, and alleviating time pressure and creating capacity to onboard and serve new clients.

This is exactly what we’re creating at XBert. Using smart, efficient technology solutions will empower the bookkeepers who embrace it with a question: What should we now do with the free time we have created – scale or relax? If you have a wish-list of what things you’d like to see in a product that will help you scale your business more efficiently – make sure you get involved in the product’s roadmap. Not only will this help you plan for new developments, it will help you shape the ideal solution for your practice.

FIND OUT MORE...

The future of bookkeeping There is no doubt, Artificial Intelligence will help shape the

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next generation of bookkeeping businesses. It will disrupt the traditional manual-only practices, as modern professional bookkeepers embrace technology and evolve the profession. Mundane work will be removed, and opportunities for new services will emerge. Technology will continue to allow bookkeepers to understand their clients even better and will help unlock a new methodology of approaching their workflows. Using it in the right way is imperative for those looking to achieve this in their business.

Start a free trial at: www.xbert.io

Issue 27 / 29

30 / Issue 27

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Issue 27 / 31

Can technology actually make us more human? James Byrne, AccountancyManager’s CEO, is a big fan of both tech and humans. He is a former accountant and now heads up a software company, so has insight from both worlds.

ou might be surprised to hear that accountancy and bookkeeping are well ahead of many other industries in terms of technology adoption. So, as a pioneer of the digital age (yes, you), you’re among the first to experience the benefits - and the barriers - of things like automation. One of the biggest concerns, of course, is technology replacing the personal touch. In his late teens, James, AccountancyManager CEO, joined his father’s accounting firm. Once he’d taken on a number of his own clients, James became increasingly frustrated with inefficiencies across the business. James recruited the help of developer, Alex Hawke. “Alex

actually sat inside the practice with me. As problems arose, he’d build a solution. It’s probably why we’ve had the success that we’ve had, because AccountancyManager very much works in the way that an accountant would expect it to.” Out with jargon. In with informality Far from creating AccountancyManager to replace conversations, James is all for having a chat with clients especially if jargon is left at the door. “The accountant/client relationship is very different now in comparison with say, the 60s. Gone are the days when clients would put a suit on to go and see their accountant and we no longer impress clients with our broad understanding of the English language.” “Rather, we adopt a less formal, more conversational type of communication that clients feel comfortable with. I still get calls from old clients asking me to explain something, so that built some really solid relationships.” Automation: Enhancing, not replacing, your personal service

@accountancymgr

James Byrne, CEO, AccountancyManager During his time as a practising accountant, James identified a range of operational inefficiencies - which he knew the right software would solve. Thing was, it didn’t exist yet. Jump forward three years and AccountancyManager helps thousands of practices automate their onboarding, record requests and task lists every day.

recommends minimising your more functional, repetitive interactions - such as asking your clients for their records. He and Alex designed AM to automatically send these record requests and reminders, controlled by your clients Companies House accounting dates. “Being able to do some of the repetitive jobs automatically also means your clients are going to get a better service.” Give your team efficient internal organisation The quality time vs functional time concept applies to your team’s filing systems and communication methods too. Minimise the time they spend on functional actions, like finding documents and keeping track of conversations in different places, so they can spend quality time with clients - or collaborating with colleagues in more productive ways. “It’s all about having a consistent process of saving documents in one place. I cannot tell you the nightmares we had over this at the firm. The way we did it with AccountancyManager is to have a document storage file on every client name.

To maximise this ‘quality’ time with your clients, James

32 / Issue 27

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Digital transformation is all about people and their mindsets We’ve all formed new digital habits, whether it’s using GoogleMaps, Netflix or Zoom calls. Using systems like AccountancyManager is the same - but crucially, everyone across the firm needs to adopt the technology to see the optimal benefits. “You do get used to doing things a certain way, but it’s about breaking old habits to stay relevant - especially with how fast technology has moved the last 20 years. It’s insane the way things have changed. With the younger generations of clients - and talent - coming through, it’s about adopting technology they would expect.” “There’s no doubt in anybody’s mind that technology today

is essential. You simply can’t compete with your competitors if they’re doing everything three times as fast as you’re able to and providing the advisory services that increasing numbers of clients are looking for.”

FIND OUT MORE... Visit our website at: accountancymanager.co.uk

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Issue 27 / 33

The Best of Both Worlds:

Projectworks + Xero

Projectworks brings deep integration with Xero to Professional Services firms In this article the author dives into how Projectworks have gone all in with their Xero integration.

here’s a reason that Xero is one of the most popular accounting software systems on the market for professional services companies. Few accounting systems can match Xero’s ease of use, which allows companies to invoice, purchase orders, reconcile statements, and more from one intuitive, cloud-based system. Where SMBs can really leverage Xero’s full power, though, is when the software is used thoughtfully alongside other common SMB business management tools. Integrated with the right project management tool, for example, and Xero can help professional services firms boost efficiency, scale operations faster and free up time for high-value activities. This brings us to our very own project management tool, Projectworks. We developed Projectworks from the ground

34 / Issue 27

up as an all-in-one business management solution for services companies. We knew that if we were going to succeed as a project management solution for professional service firms, we would have to integrate with the accounting tool those firms use almost more than any other. Since Xero is where professional service firms keep track of their numbers, we set out to build an integration that could harness the power of both softwares to give users complete visibility of their business. There’s a lot that goes on under the hood to get two powerful, cloud-based softwares to talk to each other, but for users on the front end, it’s surprisingly simple: the integration focuses on exporting Invoices (and associated data) from Projectworks through to Xero. Invoice payment data is pushed from Xero to Projectworks to allow the issued invoices in Projectworks to be reconciled with Xero. So in real terms, what does that mean for users? It means that Projectworks and Xero combine to give a holistic view of your business - starting from preproject resourcing right through to invoicing and payments essentially task management, planning, scheduling, time tracking, invoicing, and collaboration all rolled into one.

@projectworksio

Madeline Bakewell, Head of Sales, Projectworks Madeline heads up the sales team at Projectworks, and brings over a decade of experience in selling technical solutions and working to understand what customers are really looking for. Madeline spends her days talking to customers across the globe about how Projectworks can bring insights to their software companies, architecture firms, and management consultancies.

It means that you can sync your items, accounts, and tax codes for fast invoice creation, and that all of the invoices you create in Projectworks are pushed to Xero and that any payments made in Xero are reflected in Projectworks automatically. And finally, it means you get twice the power: Projectworks’ tools for managing projects, people, and finance combined with Xero’s features to manage your numbers. We put a lot of work into our project management system’s seamless integration with Xero, and we’re proud to say that our friends at Xero have recognized our effort. At the 2020 APAC Xero Awards, we won Emerging App Partner of the Year - a wonderful honor for us and validation for professional services firms looking to match their best-inclass Xero accounting systems with best-in-class business management tools.

FIND OUT MORE... Talk to a consultant or sign up for a free trial today: projectworks.io

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Issue 27 / 35

Why would your charity client need a CRM?

Any successful not-for-profit organisation requires reliable tools that help execute their strategy, meet goals and create an impact. While there’s an array of various systems that could be of help, the most valuable one is undeniably a CRM - customer relationship management software that helps charities streamline and simplify their processes, save time spent on admin and take care of their community better.

he most important component of running a nonprofit organisation is to be able to build strong relationships with people, which is why it might be wise to invest in a software solution for managing your customers’ data and consistently keeping in touch with them. A secure cloud-based CRM system can help with achieving that and more, bringing all your admin operations into one place! In today’s article we are discussing three essential components to look for in a CRM:

Contact Management A software solution for collecting and storing your members’ contact information is vital for the success of your organisation. Having a CRM tool allows you to centralise your data, access it from anywhere and manage it more efficiently. Creating groups and segments is one excellent way of managing different tiers or types of members. In addition, the system allows you to run custom reports to see your members involvement with your organisation, add private notes to individual or household profiles, and see the history of communication, making it easier to understand your members and how to best serve them. Finally, a CRM also works as a project management system that allows you to create task lists, set up reminders and build workflows to keep your processes well organised and make sure no important deadlines get forgotten and no one falls through the cracks. Communication Tools Communication in the context

36 / Issue 27

@infoodle

Aukje Smith, Sales Manager, infoodle Aukje, along with her husband Richard, founded infoodle in response to the need for a reliable, user-friendly and cost-effective database and donor management system for charities, churches and community groups. Having experience working with charities and churches around the world, Aukje draws from her knowledge to serve the nonprofit sector through infoodle. The vision of infoodle is to provide administrative support enabling nonprofits to focus on their mission.

of not-for-profit organisations can serve multiple purposes, such as growing a community of supporters, advocacy, or fundraising. To save time, it is a great idea to utilise the communication tool in your CRM that gives you an opportunity to send out bulk emails. You no longer need to email every person individually - the email service inserts the right salutation and sends it to your entire membership with just one click. Alternatively, you can email a segment of your audience keeping your communication more relevant. Some CRM tools now provide you with beautiful and customisable templates for emails and campaigns to keep your communication on brand. However, the most important feature is access to analytics where you can check how many people read your emails and what links they click on, which helps create better content for your communication emails. Consistently keeping in touch with your stakeholders is paramount, and a good CRM can help you not only design, but also automate your communications, making the whole process more efficient.

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Finance Tracking Depending on the type of your organisation, you might need tools to help manage the collection of donations or pledges, produce statements and invoices, and generate reports. The easiest way to do it is to keep using your CRM since all information on your donors’ profiles is already there. The reporting tool comes in handy here as well, helping you discover lapsed members or donors and get them back into the system. One important aspect to consider here is integration with leading payment gateways and accounting software that will help with both processing payments and keeping records of all transactions (which will be needed at the end of the financial year). In conclusion Using outdated means of managing data (such as spreadsheets or Word documents) can be timeconsuming and prone to

human error. It could be equally challenging, costly and inefficient to maintain several different systems that require integrations. The answer lies in finding one software - a complete community management system that does not require juggling multiple tools. This is exactly what infoodle is - the perfect solution designed to fit the needs of nonprofits of all sectors and sizes. It provides undeniable benefits, such as building stronger connections with stakeholders or maintaining

revenue streams. Watch a demo on our website or contact our product experts to find out how you can effectively manage your membership with only one system that is safe, reliable, intuitive and available anywhere from any device.

Find out more... For more information go to: infoodle.com/charities

I’ll get my teams hours to you tonight...

Are your tradie clients too slow getting paperwork to you?

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Issue 27 / 37 www.nextminute.com

Managing Uncertainty Three steps that every business owner can take to prepare for uncertainty 2020 was a wild ride, and you’d be forgiven for feeling uncertain about what the future has in store for us. Emersion CEO Paul Dundas shares three steps that every business owner can take to prepare for uncertainty, and enter the new financial year in a position to grow.

he last year has been a wild ride for all of us.

In Australia, while we sheltered from many of the problems of the wider world, we still found ourselves navigating all manner of lockdowns, restrictions, new rules and procedures, brought in with little notice and few precedents. Many businesses (and financial markets) are well on the way to recovering to a pre-COVID state, with some even improving upon their early-2020 positions. But as the new financial year rolls around, you’d be forgiven for feeling a little anxious about the future. While we are living in uncertain times, there are steps that every business can take to minimise their risk, maximise

flexibility and enter the 2022 financial year in a stronger position than ever. As the old saying goes, “no plan is a plan to fail”. Focusing on the actions that are in your control will put your business in a position to overcome any hurdles that are thrown at you. Here are three steps that every business owner should be taking to prepare for uncertain times. 1) Invest in Automation According to research from McKinsey, “45% of the activities that individuals are paid to perform can be automated by adapting currently demonstrated technologies”. That was back in 2015 when automation platforms

@emersionbilling

Paul Dundas, CEO and Founder, Emersion Paul Dundas is the CEO and Founder of Emersion, a business and billing automation platform for Telcos, MSPs, utility providers and wholesalers. He has more than 20 years of experience working in the Telco billing space and has helped hundreds of businesses in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore to streamline their billing operations.

were far inferior to their current counterparts. The truth is that the time you will save from business automation is increasing every day - especially in areas relating to finance and accounts receivable. Emersion can automate endto-end processes including subscription billing, payment processing, service management and order management. This saves time, streamlines processes and ultimately leads to a better and more consistent experience for your customers. If your company isn’t already investing heavily in automation, then you are going to get left behind. 2) Eliminate Waste Most businesses waste money and time. In some cases, this is in the form of direct costs such as fees or software licences, or indirect costs, such as staff time. Minimising these costs will mean that you’ll have more money available to endure tough times, and time to capitalise on opportunities as they present themselves. Emersion can help you to find ways to minimise your direct and indirect waste, without compromising your customer’s experience. We often find areas

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where companies can improve, for example: • Switching to lower-fee payment merchants and payment gateways. In many cases, the difference in fees between providers is significant, and this can lead to thousands of dollars in savings every year. • On-charging transaction fees. Likewise, by on-charging transaction fees, your customers are paying a small amount extra on every invoice which in most cases isn’t noticed. For companies with large customer bases, these small fees will often add up to thousands of dollars in savings every year. • Integrating your systems. This minimises the need to re-key data between systems, saving staff time, and it also means that information stays up to date, no matter what system your staff are working from. • For companies selling usagebased services (e.g. VoIP, internet, energy, software), automatically calculating usage will save time while also making sure that you are charging the maximum amount for every service sold. 3) Prioritise Customer Experience Customers are at the heart of every business. When we talk about uncertainty, the big question that is always being asked is “will I have enough money in the bank?”. Without your customers, the answer will almost certainly be a big, fat “No!”. That’s why a world-class customer

experience should be a priority for every business. It sounds counter-intuitive, but a business and billing automation platform like Emersion is one of the best first steps your company can take towards providing a leading customer experience. Here’s why: • Online customer portals empower your customers to view and manage their account details without having to contact your staff directly. • SMS & email notifications ensure that customers are kept in the loop about the state of their subscriptions and services • Multiple payment options (e.g. credit card, direct debit) mean that customers can pay with their preferred payment method • Integrated systems minimise the need for data entry, resulting in fewer errors • Automated processes are standardised and consistent, leading to faster orders • We’re able to handle any product or service that you throw at us, which means you can easily sell the products and services your customers want

both now and long into the future. All of these functions will save your business time, so you can invest more resources into growth and customer experience. In fact, Emersion will save most small and medium-sized businesses a minimum of 40 hours of manual work every month! For large businesses, this time saving will be much more. How does Emersion work with Xero? Emersion synchronises to Xero in real time. We manage the entire accounts receivable process and make it possible to continue to work from Xero while working with large customer bases, or complex usage and/or subscription-based services.

GET STARTED TODAY... We’re offering up to $2000 off Emersion’s setup fees as part of our EOFY sale. Find out more by visiting our website.

Service diversiﬁcation: embracing technology to enable growth

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Advisors share figures. Extraordinary ones turn them into insights. Increased automation and tech is rapidly changing the industry. With finsit you can ensure your insights not only stay relevant, but become invaluable. Discover the tool that turns financial data, into powerful infographics, improving presentation, understanding and financial decision making. With finsit you can transform the way your clients see their business and your advice.

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See finsit in action

Join our Director of Product Management, Gareth Cram who will host a panel discussion with early adopters of finsit, showcasing how it has enabled growth in efficiencies and offerings to clients.

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Issue 27 / 41

Say hello to the future of forecasting: How the industry helped reimagine three-way forecasting

@fathomhq

Geoff Cook, Co-Founder, Fathom Geoff is a Director and CoFounder at Fathom and is involved in several aspects of the business, including leadership, product delivery and partnerships. He particularly enjoys working with crossfunctional teams to deliver product features, enhancements and updates and is motivated by exceptional product delivery and customer delight.

With the launch of its cash flow forecasting feature, Fathom hit a significant milestone. XU magazine caught up with Co-Founder Geoff Cook, to hear about the company’s journey and its fresh approach to forecasting.

XU:

Fathom was founded a decade ago, can you tell us a bit about the journey?

GC:

Fathom began in a basement den in Brisbane, Australia. What drives us

today is what drove us back then: to build powerful tools that give you a deeper understanding of your business performance. We want to help businesses - and the accountants that advise them - to make better decisions so they can survive and thrive. I still remember

Below: The three co-founders (L-R): David Watson, Daniel Walls, Geoffrey Cook

our first customer in 2012, a rental car company in Atlanta, Georgia, who’d found us through the Xero Marketplace. Since then we’ve grown to a global team of over 70 people, spread across four continents and helping more than 50,000 companies in 80 countries.

XU:

How did the pandemic impact

Fathom?

GC:

As the COVID crisis developed, we saw a huge upswing in advisors and businesses using Fathom to forensically analyse their numbers to gain better insights and guide decision making. It’s incredible to see our customers use Fathom to help them get through difficult times. One of our customers who had just recently implemented Fathom, said that if he didn’t take action quickly, he would have been out of business in under six months. He had no idea, and Fathom helped him not only bring his company back from the brink, but also keep staff in jobs.

XU:

Forecasting was a major development for the product, wasn’t it?

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GC:

It sure was! It took over 40 people, hundreds of customer interviews, thousands of lines of code, and nearly two years to research and build. In fact, the code for Forecasting was actually bigger and more complex than the code for our very first version of Fathom. It was worth it though! Forecasting is a pivotal feature for Fathom, joining our best-inclass reporting and analysis tools to help drive better outcomes for businesses. We now have a completely integrated solution for businesses and accountants looking for comprehensive financial intelligence. One of our Fathom customers summed it up this way: Accountants are very good at telling you what’s happened; they’re getting better at describing why it’s happened; and now with Fathom, they can figure out what to do about it.

XU:

You did a lot of customer research during the development of forecasting in Fathom. What did that reveal?

GC:

We were guided by the insights of over

1100 accountants and businesses from around the world and we discovered some fascinating details. A forecast built in Excel takes on average nine hours to complete and is quickly made irrelevant when new financial data comes in. Additionally, there’s no clear audit trail showing where the numbers have come from, which makes it easy to make errors but hard to detect them. In contrast, with Fathom forecasting, your data is never out of date and it’s completely auditable. Our tool pulls the numbers directly from the source accounting system

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each day, so your financial model remains relevant. This empowers you to make more informed decisions about the future. Those we interviewed told us that typical forecasting calculations are too slow. So our engineering team went to work and created faster forecasting. In Fathom, you can instantly see how changes to your forecast impact your cash flow and bottom-line. We’re incredibly grateful to the industry for helping guide the development of these innovative features.

Below: The Fathom Australian team

Issue 27 / 43

XU:

What makes Forecasting in Fathom different?

GC:

Our vision for Forecasting was ambitious and unwavering. We were determined to offer a product that would give users the power to quickly and easily build dynamic financial models that can grow and change with a business and its plans. We thought about how forecasts are actually used, and where the real value is. And it’s all about driving decision making, and being able to confidently plan for any possibility. So we added what we call, ‘Microforecasts’ which help you model key business events in easy to use ‘building blocks’. These Microforecasts can then be used in scenarios and on the ‘Business Roadmap’, which combines business planning with the full accounting integrity of a three-way cash flow forecast. To add power to the modeling capability, we’ve included drivers for unit based forecasting, and have predictive ‘Smart forecast’ options which bring statistical calculations to the forefront. We also added a ‘Quick

Metrics’ feature that helps you keep a close eye on your key numbers, such as cash position, gross profit, operating profit, EBIT or retained income.

XU:

And how are advisors using Forecasting?

GC:

Our mission has always been to empower accountants to be valuable business advisors. The accountants we spoke to wanted to spend more time engaging with clients, and less time processing data. These accountants understand the value of interpreting forecasted financial data into action for their clients. We challenged ourselves to consider how accountants could use a forecast with their clients, so they could branch out and workshop ideas together, such as considering the best time to hire staff, or determining the best way to purchase a new asset. And you know what? They love it! We’ve had one VCFO company in New Zealand recently describe this ‘always on’ nature of forecasting as ‘jamming sessions’ with clients.

XU: GC:

What’s next for Fathom?

If Forecasting was a revolution, the next few stops on our roadmap are an evolution. We’re always working on improvements to help provide better insights and time savings to users. We have more exciting announcements coming this year. Fathom is also growing in exciting markets like South Africa, by partnering with SAIBA professional body. This year we launched the Fathom Certification program, which has attracted over 1000 registrations in just a few months. Our team remains passionately committed to supporting businesses and advisors by providing the insights they need to make better decisions and to look to the future with confidence.

FIND OUT MORE... Learn more about Fathom’s new forecasting tool: fathomhq.com/forecasting

Are you tired of chasing unpaid invoices? Reduce your overdues and automate accounts receivables with ezyCollect - smart AR automation app.

Our Xero clients typically see a 43% reduction in outstanding overdues within the first six months.

What Xero users love about ezyCollect: � Automatically record payments against customer invoices in Xero with Payment Write Back � Get an integrated ‘Pay Now’ button and payment portal and allow customers to pay multiple invoices with SimplyPaid � Get a bird’s eye view of your AR with the AR Dashboard � Send Consolidated Reminders with Xero invoices attached and build stronger relationships � See an overall record of your customer communication in one place with Centralised Customer communication history

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Issue 27 / 45

Xero & GoCardless: Putting an end to late payments

Ben Johnson, Director of Financial Partnerships, Xero Ben leads Xero’s engagement with global financial partners who enable the Xero team to build amazing products that help businesses understand their financial position, manage payments and access working capital.

hy does the issue of late payment exist at all?

Some view it as a question of psychology. Your customers might be busy, forgetful or at worst, selfish. The smarter way is to view it as a question of technology. Then can you solve the problem of late payments at its source - payments themselves. I sat down with Xero’s Director of Global Financial Partnerships, Ben Johnson, to talk about how small businesses should make their payments solutions work better for them, and how Xero’s new integration with GoCardless benefits Xero users. The number one reason small businesses fail Ben doesn’t mince words when it comes to the biggest threat facing small businesses. “The number one reason small businesses fail is poor cash flow. To effectively manage cash flow, it’s critically important that small businesses have an efficient process in place to get paid.” “The number one reason small businesses fail is poor cash flow.” When you don’t have an efficient

46 / Issue 27

process in place to get paid, the resulting late payment has a knock-on impact on your cash flow. Xero’s Small Business Insights in the UK show small businesses were paid on average 6.6 days late, as at March 2021. When you have staff and suppliers to pay, consistently getting paid this late creates problems. So what’s the solution? You could view it as a problem of psychology and go down the communications route. This can be effective, but it doesn’t address the source of the problem - your customers can only pay late because you’re giving them the option to. At the core of the late payments problem are the methods you use to collect payment. Manual bank transfer - the de facto default way many businesses collect payments - leaves you with zero control of getting paid on time, putting it entirely in the hands of your customers. “Customers who use online invoice payment platforms like GoCardless get paid up to twice as fast as those who don’t.” Addressing the source of late payments requires choosing the right payments platform. Ben explains that Xero’s data

@GoCardless

Rachel Astall, Head of Global SMB Platform Partnerships, GoCardless Rachel works with global platforms that enable SMBs to better manage their business. This includes accountancy software such as Xero, alongside a host of invoicing and membership platforms. By improving the ecosystem of GoCardless’ bank debit solution, Rachel is working to ensure that small businesses can take the pain out of getting paid. Ultimately, so they can spend less time chasing payments and more time doing what they love.

shows customers who use online invoice payment platforms like GoCardless get paid up to twice as fast as those who don’t. “Using the right invoice payment solution can save time, and importantly get money into the business faster. It’s a really foundational part of improving cash flow. It’s also a very practical step that a business owner can take to improve the health of their business.” The payment method that gives you back control Direct Debit is a household name in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, but it’s often pigeonholed as a payment method for things like utility bills, magazine subscriptions, or gym memberships. This is an unfortunately dated view that seems to hang around. Direct Debit and its equivalents around the world, such as ACH debit in the US, are the solution to the source of late payments for businesses of many more kinds. Unlike manual bank transfers, Direct Debit payments don’t rely on your customer choosing to pay you - they are processed automatically.

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

This is why GoCardless is built on Direct Debit, enabling small businesses to automatically collect bank-to-bank payments from their customers on the due date. No more chasing unpaid bills or wondering when you’ll get paid. And you and your customers don’t need to lift a finger. GoCardless enables you to collect payment directly from your customer’s bank account when it’s due. No more chasing unpaid bills. Ben tells us, “We find that most businesses who use invoicing in Xero have customers that they invoice at least a few times a year. I think small businesses naturally focus on building long lasting relationships with their customers, as it’s much harder to acquire new customers than retain existing ones.” Having a payment method that automatically collects on the due date means that you can focus on delivering a great service and not let late payments sabotage a longlasting client relationship.

Xero’s new integration with GoCardless GoCardless and Xero have been working together for many years. The new product integration reflects this partnership growing to a new level. “We felt recurring bank payments were such a key way Xero customers could improve their cash flow, that building GoCardless directly into the Xero workflow would help our customers get more value from using the product,” says Ben. “We decided to create a new GoCardless integration and make it an embedded experience within Xero. We launched an early version of this in March, which allows new customers to create GoCardless accounts, send authorisation forms, and collect payments all within Xero.” “We decided to create a new GoCardless integration and make it an embedded experience within Xero.”

What about the original GoCardless for Xero integration? If you started using GoCardless and Xero together prior to March 2021, you’re using the original GoCardless for Xero integration (previously called Direcli). This is an integration that GoCardless owns, and which will eventually be replaced with Xero’s new integration.

GoCardless for Xero currently has some features that will be making their way into the new integration in the coming months. All GoCardless for Xero users will be contacted by GoCardless with more information nearer the time. Until then we hope you continue to enjoy using GoCardless for Xero.

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The new integration is the latest in a list of milestones Xero and GoCardless have achieved together. Including growing the GoCardless offering beyond the UK to Australia, New Zealand, the US, and Canada, and being honoured with several awards from Xero, including App Partner of the Year in both the UK and New Zealand. Over the next 12 months you can expect to see more developments on GoCardless from Xero. As Ben reflects, “Our goal is to help small businesses get paid fast. We remain focussed on delivering deeply embedded payment experiences that make it easier for businesses to receive and manage payments in a way that suits their needs.” How accountants and advisors can better serve small businesses Accountants and bookkeepers are increasingly finding their roles transitioning into that of a business advisor, particularly within the app-centric Xero ecosystem. Given the impact the right payment solutions can have on small businesses, and Xero’s large network of partners, we asked Ben his thoughts on this. “I’d like to see both small businesses and advisors be more aware of the payment processes they have in place, and how well these serve them. We’ve seen that customers who take the time to digitise their invoicing

Issue 27 / 47

and payments see significant improvements in their payment times. We also know there are a lot of small businesses who have the opportunity to improve their processes.”

There are a number of solutions to address the problem of bad cash flow; from forecasting apps to debt chasing and invoice factoring software. Having visibility of your cash flow trajectory is useful, but payment apps are unique in giving you the control to change that trajectory. With a switch from manual bank transfers to Direct Debit, for instance, you can fix the issue of late payments at its source, rather than treating the symptoms with

credit control. As Ben goes on to say, “At Xero, we want to make this change as easy as possible for small businesses and their advisors, by building simple products that work well for their business. It’s another reason we decided to build a new GoCardless experience in Xero. It’s about reducing some of the complexity of using different apps to manage recurring bank payments.” What’s next for Xero and GoCardless Here at GoCardless, we’re beginning to roll out a new feature called Instant Bank Pay - a better way for you to collect one-off payments, powered by open banking. With manual bank transfer being slow and adminheavy, and card payments being expensive and failure-prone, open banking technology enables Instant Bank Pay to step in as a competitive replacement.

GoCardless: Made for recurring payments Founded: 2011 Customers: 60,000 Located: London, Paris, Munich, Melbourne, San Francisco, and New York City Who uses GoCardless?: Professional services businesses (accountants, agencies, IT services, care services, consultants), membership services (clubs, gyms), and trades Benefits for Xero users:

Source: IDC, The Business Value of The GoCardless Platform for Recurring Payments, 2020

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• End late payments When your invoice is due, payment is automatically debited from your customer’s bank account. Xero users get paid twice as fast using GoCardless. • Lower-cost alternative to card payments Bank-to-bank payments

cut out the costs of card networks, making for a more cost efficient way to get paid. Plus, automation reduces the costs of chasing payment. GoCardless lowers the total cost to accept recurring payments by 56%1. • Popular with payers When it comes to paying invoices, Direct Debit is the preferred alternative to manual bank transfers for businesses in the UK and Australia. In the US, after credit cards, Direct Debit is the preferred way to pay invoices. • Less bookkeeping Payments are automatically reconciled against your Xero invoices, saving you hours on admin.

Adoption of open banking technology is certainly on the rise. In the UK, a recent survey from Ipsos MORI found that 50% of small businesses are already using open banking-enabled services, which includes payment services. Most of these businesses said they had adopted open banking since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. We can only see this trend increasing further. Ben shares our enthusiasm, “With Open Banking, software providers are creating great experiences for customers using their bank account, and I think we’re starting to see that come to life in the world of payments. It’s exciting to see what the future holds here.” All we can say is watch this space!

FIND OUT MORE... Find out more and get started at gocardless.com or head to the Xero Apps Marketplace

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#TheFutureIsNow www.compleatsoftware.com

AUTOMATE YOUR ACCOUNTS PAYABLE OPTIMISE YOUR ONLINE BUYING PERFECT YOUR PROCESSES WORK FROM ANYWHERE SAVE TIME & MONEY FOCUS ON WHAT REALLY MATTERS TO YOU

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Issue 27 / 49

4 ways modern software can grow your business

See how QicWorks fills the market void by providing a simple, flexible ERP solution for engineering, construction and site installation businesses.

very financial administrator knows that managing company finances is imperative to business sustainability. Having a digital solution that offers the right flexibility to fit your business model is vital in providing operational insights, efficiencies and engagement. This has never been more apparent than now as businesses move from survive to strive mode – post pandemic. Being able to offer engineering, building, construction or site installation businesses a simple, robust solution that has been built and tested with industry experience, ensures QicWorks innovation and usability can deliver sustained growth. 1) Finding the right solution QicWorks transforms businesses by removing the need for multiple applications, spreadsheets or work arounds required to calculate profitability. We take the frustration out of complex rate structures caused by transient workers, or individual billing rates based on customer, site or project, not to mention allow our users to share their resources across their trading entities, all from the one account. From the start QicWorks has been created to do what other job management applications cannot.

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QicWorks has been designed from the bottom up to ensure that more real time meaningful data is captured from the field. We use the latest in digital technologies to deliver large-scale ERP functionality, at a fraction of the cost. 2) Everyone Connected Integrating QicWorks with Xero not only saves you time but removes data duplication and errors. With the click of a button your existing accounting data can be synced between both applications. QicWorks will not only push business documents and their attachments, but also sync payroll and leave data for reconciliation. 3) Utilise more components as you grow As global economies start to bounce back, many businesses are looking to scale their operations. As part of this growth, they are looking for digital solutions that can also grow in line with their needs. QicWorks is flexible in its delivery. Simply enter only the data you need or take advantage of all our features for complete business intelligence. Our core product provides users with everything they need to calculate accurate job costings, work in progress, forecasting, track

@qicworks

Karen Parker, Co-founder, QicWorks Prior to founding QicWorks, Karen worked in heavy industry for 15years & has extensive experience in project management, controls & business admin. She is passionate about delivering digital solutions that make life easier for businesses, reading thrillers & quoting 80’s movies back to her kids.

invoices, schedule resources, collect and approve timekeeping. QicWorks modular architecture also means businesses can activate additional modules such as Safety, Training, Customer Relations Management, Inventory or Digital Forms. Users then take advantage of single source data and watch as if flows across all aspects of their business. 4) Discover new opportunities! With the support of the QicWorks team, you will certainly stand out from the crowd to become a leader in construction software. Together we can streamline your clients job management from estimate to accountant. Join the QicWorks partner program and see how you can help your clients regain control and have more transparency to make the right decisions, so they and you can grow.

FIND OUT MORE... Become a market leader by joining our partner program. Find out more at: qicworks.com/partner.html

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Issue 27 / 51

Elements of a Strong Credit Policy

Every business seeks to fulfil its growth objective by maintaining a healthy cash flow and building a strong relationship with its customers. While extending credit to customers can help businesses achieve these goals, it can prove detrimental to business longevity in the absence of a strong credit management policy.

usinesses need an integrated understanding of customer risk profiles and their risk tolerance levels to ensure their credit management is effective. Without developing a thorough credit policy, businesses can face the risk of a cash flow crisis, not to mention reputational risk. The key to mitigating credit risk is to draw up a carefully crafted credit policy that includes the five key elements: 1) Evaluate your risk tolerance Evaluating whether your customers are trustworthy is a crucial part of the process. However, a credit check is just one aspect of the equation. When considering offering credit, you will also have to consider your risk appetite or tolerance – that is, how much risk you can take on overall and how much the credit offering contributes to the overall risk. In all cases, it is important to ensure your business balance sheet withstands losses of offering credit without the risk of insolvency. An effective way to monitor your risk levels is by calculating the DSO or daily sales outstanding regularly to assess the health

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@ezycollect

AJ Singh,CEO and Co-founder, ezyCollect AJ is the CEO and Co-founder of ezyCollect. He has a proven track record in start-ups, having successfully founded and sold two businesses in the last 10 years. His business acumen, combined with his passion for technology & innovation, led to the development of the ezyCollect AR automation solution that empowers small and medium enterprises to get paid faster, and enhance their cashflow.

status of your accounts receivables. DSO is calculated by dividing accounts receivable by total credit sales and multiplying this by the number of days.

details such as credit check process, need for banking and trade references, interest charges on late payment, and disclaimers among others.

A low DSO indicates that you collect outstanding payments quickly after issuing your invoices. On the other hand, a high DSO can be a red flag and indicates there is a delay in the collection of outstanding dues. For businesses offering credit timeframes of 30 days, a DSO level of less than 45 needs to be the goal.

Include the details of the time frame such as ‘40 days’, and the disincentives/penalties for delayed payment (interest charges) and/or any incentives you might offer for early payments. Ensure a standard format of a declaration form that the customer signs to indicate their understanding and acceptance of these terms.

Another metric you can use to evaluate your risk tolerance relates to receivables turnover ratio. This measures how effectively your business collects outstanding receivables. To calculate this ratio, divide net credit sales by accounts receivable average. A high receivables turnover signals your business is effectively collecting receivables. It can also indicate a stringent lending policy that may be deterring quality customers. This ratio can also help you finetune your lending policy. 2) Clear terms and conditions Before offering credit terms to customers, ensure that the terms and conditions of the credit are clearly worded. This can include

List the actions that you will take for late payment or non-payment, including warning process, consequences (withholding or lowering credit), as well as the collections process such as litigation or debt collection agency. Depending on the nature of the business and transaction, specific conditions may have to be added in addition to basic terms. These terms of trade have to be dated and signed by the customer to indicate their agreement and acknowledgement of the terms. The following details will also need to be included in the credit policy: • Price • Conditions and warranties of

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

• • • • • •

purchase Costs recoverable Definition of ‘default’ Limitation of liability Administration fees Security for payments Under what terms the agreement terminates

3) Assess the creditworthiness of customers Obtaining a credit report from credit agencies can give you the details you need to make an informed decision on extending credit. The report can provide data on: • How risky a customer is • The customer’s history concerning prompt or late payment • Recorded legal action if any of the customer • ASIC information on businesses and their directors Credit testimonials or references can give you an idea of the debtor’s relationship with other creditors. Ensure you ask the right questions to creditors from your industry who best align with your business profile to derive the most value from credit testimonials. Collect relevant information from customers such as their identification, address, contact details and their signature that confirms their acceptance of credit terms. Use the relevant business number such as ABN or ACN to check if the business is legitimate and is currently trading. Obtain credit references for the business and ensure you have comprehensive information on its partners and directors. Conducting an accurate and comprehensive overall assessment of your customers is crucial before determining whether you can offer them credit. Once you obtain the list of references, you also need to call them to confirm whether the customer has a history of late payments or is not a credit risk. After establishing this, you can move on to the state of providing

with them the credit application document. 4) Use a streamlined credit application The credit application form captures information, such as: • The customer’s or the business’s full legal name • Type of entity or business structure such as partnership, sole trader, trust, company or government authority • Details of all the owners, directors and partners of the business • Business Registration Number ACN or ABN • Postal address and place of business • Email address • Telephone numbers during and after business hours The credit application form is a vital document that helps you gather crucial information about your customers. The more information that the application form captures, the higher your chances of ensuring the payments happen on time. Apart from giving you a clear picture of your debtor’s identity and place of business/address, the credit application form also helps you to: • assess the debtor’s ability to fulfil their financial obligations • obtain credit reports in accordance with the Privacy Act of 1988 • ensure the terms of trade are read and understood by the applicant A recent trade survey shows that 80% of credit managers used the information that debtors provided in the credit application form to decide on credit policies. The other major sources of information for credit managers, as per this survey, were business credit reports, credit scores and ASIC information. Upgrading your credit application process to state-of-the-art online systems is a great way of ensuring it is seamless, quick and

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accurate. This will help optimise your customer experience while minimising the risks of errors and delays associated with manual application processes. 5) Strengthen payment management and monitoring After extending credit, adopt best practices of payment management and risk monitoring to ensure your risks of nonpayment or delayed payment are minimal. Create a system to monitor invoicing, payment collection and overdue payments risk. Conduct a periodic risk assessment of your debtors in alignment with your credit policy and ensure an established process of collecting overdue payments. If your re-assessment and monitoring show the debtor’s risk rating has declined or there have been adverse events such as court ruling, follow the process of terminating the agreement with your debtor.

FIND OUT MORE... Enhance your XERO by adding ezyCollect - our XERO clients reduce their overdue out standings by ~43% within 6 months after adding the ezyCollect app. Start Your Free Trial: offers.ezycollect.com.au/ xero-free-trial

Issue 27 / 53

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Issue 27 / 55

Simple Ways to Boost Employee Morale

You can’t do everything, but even these 3 things will make a difference

@HRPartner

Fiona Adler, Director, HR Partner Fiona is passionate about helping small and medium businesses get the tools and know-how to grow and streamline their operations. She has worked with SMB’s for over 20 years - creating and building online solutions that help them operate in the best ways possible. With a background in business consulting and an MBA, Fiona knows there is nothing more important than the Human Resources function.

There’s a lot that small businesses can do to improve employee morale and even a little bit goes a long way – provided it’s done thoughtfully and with genuine intent.

ow’s the morale in your company at the moment? The last year has thrown many challenges at us so chances are that your employee morale might be taking a hit. But what can you do about it? Particularly if your company is small, it can be easy to think there’s nothing you can feasibly do. It turns out that there’s actually a lot that even small businesses can do to improve employee morale – and it doesn’t

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need to be difficult.

1) Celebrate Birthdays

When it comes down to it, employees are not necessarily looking for ping-pong tables, elaborate gifts or overly-generous leave policies. Usually what matters is knowing that they’re valued, helping them get to know each other better, and feeling that their work is important.

Everyone likes to feel special now and again, and for most companies, a great way to do this systematically is simply by celebrating birthdays. This doesn’t need to be a big cake in the office, stopping work for an hour kind of situation (although it could be!) – the idea is just to make the employees feel seen and appreciated.

Here are 3 simple things almost all companies can easily put in place which will have a significant impact on employee morale…

You could simply send around an email or message to the employee – perhaps including a funny gif that represents their role or something about them. Or you could get more creative by having the person’s closest colleagues put together a video recording to recognise their special qualities. Or perhaps you have a stash of special balloons and decorate their desk before they arrive. In any case, something that prompts others in the company to reach out to the employee having a

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birthday can have a big impact on how valued they feel. Bonus points if you also decide to celebrate work anniversaries too! You could do something different on these days – like feature them on your social media or get them to share their favourite meme with the rest of the team. 2) Run Regular Team Events Hosting events these days might not seem possible, but even for fully remote companies, there are still ways to get everyone together (virtually) and reap almost the same benefits as being physically together. A lavish company-wide retreat would be great, but if you can’t do that, then get creative about what you can do. It might be as simple as a team-wide coffee-catchup, an online trivia quiz, or an agreement to do some activity together (eg a fitness challenge or a cooking class). When you facilitate your team getting together, people get to know each other in much deeper ways which strengthens their ties to work, and also helps them collaborate better. Most

importantly though, if employees know and like the people they work with, they are much more likely to feel happy about their work. 3) Share Customer Feedback One of the most overlooked aspects of employee morale is feeling that the work they’re doing is important. Depending on an employee’s role, it can be easy to lose sight of the bigger picture and how their work matters and contributes to real people in some way. One way to offset this is to regularly share positive feedback with your employees. When you get direct praise from a customer, receive a positive review, or have some good news, make sure this is shared with all employees. Highlight the employees that were directly and indirectly involved and help them make the link between the work they’ve done and the impact it’s had on someone. You can also share things like the numbers of customers that have been impacted, the improvements you’ve made since last year and

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other things to celebrate. In summary Of course, there are many other factors that drive employee morale and the importance of having the basic hygiene factors in place should not be understated (like fair compensation, appropriate benefits, adequate conditions, and regular performance reviews). But these three morale boosting ideas are easy approaches that companies can use to build into day-today work life which can have a surprisingly big impact on morale. Choose one that you’re not yet doing and give it a try. I almost guarantee you that after a few months, your efforts will be significantly contributing towards improved employee morale.

FIND OUT MORE... Start a free trial today or request a no-obligation demo. Plus, right now, HR Partner is offering you 50% off for the first 6 months! www.hrpartner.io

Issue 27 / 57

5 Steps to Maximising Your Accounting Tech-Stack O

ver the years, I’ve seen many firms fail to maximise the ROI on their accounting tech-stack due to one key reason: lack of utilisation. It’s an issue I’ve seen crop up time and time again, and there are four main factors behind it: 1. Wanting an Immediate Fix: Firms expect accounting tech to solve problems immediately, without them investing any time or effort into learning to use the software efficiently. 2. Single use: Tech is purchased to solve a single problem, rather than for all the processes it can optimise. 3. Lack of awareness: Firms don’t see or understand the full capabilities of their tech-stack, leading to technology being underutilised. 4. Unrealistic expectations: accountants expect their software to be plug-and-play, which it often isn’t. If lack of utilisation is a challenge for your accounting firm, here are five steps to help you make the most of your accounting techstack. 1) Start with ‘Why’ Why are you investing in software? What problems

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are you trying to solve? What opportunities can you take advantage of? Before you implement any tech solutions, knowing your Why is essential to ensure you also get maximum ROI.

@spotlightrep

Thomas White, Territory Manager UK, Spotlight Reporting Thomas has a decade of sales experience and joined Spotlight Reporting in 2019. He’s supported over 500+ accounting firms from all around the world, with the UK, the US, Canada and South Africa as main markets he supports. As Spotlight Reporting’s UK Territory Manager, Thomas is dedicated to helping accounting firms achieve their advisory goals.

each option, and evaluate what opportunities it’ll afford you. Having a full understanding of what software tools can do before you start your journey will save you time and money in the long run.

But it’s only one half of the 3) Train your team equation – the other half is being prepared to put in the time and Implementing a new piece of resources into incorporating software isn’t just a case of your new tech product into making a purchase, and then your internal systems. Software presenting it to your teams. You’ll is an enabler—people need to empower and processes your teams with provide solutions the time and Knowing your to problems. resources to learn Why is essential Technology the technology, to ensure you also train their peers, enables this to get maximum happen, but won’t and share their ROI from tech do it all for you. successes. 2) Find solutions that will solve multiple problems

solutions.

Many accounting firms begin their search by looking for technology that only solves one specific problem. This isn’t the best approach—by focusing on a single issue, firms fail to invest in software that solves multiple problems at once. Write a list of all your problems, group them into themes, and get really clear on what you need to solve. Take a holistic approach to

What’s the end goal? Who is in charge of getting you there? Are there training programs you can participate in? Many software suppliers offer things like kickstart calls and certifications, to help you on your journey. Reach out to your accounting software provider and take advantage of any training options available. Finally, don’t focus on the people you feel should be driving the change based on title or seniority. Instead, allow anyone who is excited about

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ways—like tracking hours saved creating a Spotlight Report, as opposed to generating the same report in Excel. Don’t let lack of software utilisation stop you from achieving your goals

the new opportunity to lead the charge. They’re more likely to be successful than someone who’s an unwilling participant.

can explore in half-hour sessions. It’s an easier way to learn the ins and outs of the product, without the pressure of a deadline.

4) Educate consistently

5) Measure and Monitor

SaaS companies are constantly improving their products—so you should be continually updating how you use them. Subscribe to product marketing updates, ask for product training sessions, and set aside time each week to incorporate new features into your processes.

You can only monitor what you measure. Go back to the list of problems you noted in step 2 and decide what success looks like. Is it a reduction in the time you spend on manual tasks? An increase of revenue? Set a tangible goal to meet, and consistently monitor your progress.

You can also break down bigger tasks, like building a full report or forecast, into small chunks you

To incentivise your team, you could measure success in tangible

Make the process as manageable as possible for yourself and your team, and celebrate any success you achieve. Remember: maximising your tech-stack is a process that requires time, resources, and effort on the part of yourself and your team. But like all success stories, the effort will eventually pay off in time saved, reduced manual labour, deeper client relationships, fees generated, and higher value-add services, to name a few!

FIND OUT MORE... Spotlight Reporting’s Customer Success team helps every client maximise their usage by providing regular training and workshops.

Read all 27 issues online www.xumagazine.com

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Issue 27 / 59

generating great results for both you and your clients.

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ATOmate allows our admin staff to spend less time processing ATO documents and more time contacting and communicating directly with clients There is no reason to be manually processing ATO documents in 2021. Join hundreds of accounting practices across Australia who are saving time, meeting their TFN privacy obligations, and communicating proactively with their clients thanks to ATOmate. Visit the XU Hub: Go to www.xumagazine.com

Why is chasing for payments so awkward and what you can do about it? Asking to get paid for your work shouldn’t have to feel awkward...

@chaser_hq

Sonia Dorais, Chief Executive Officer, Chaser With nearly 20 years of experience working in fastgrowing businesses, Sonia is the CEO & CMO of Chaser. Prior to this role, Sonia led the growth of numerous fintechs in both Canada and the UK that specialised in the digitisation and automation of finance and accounting tasks and functions.

No one wants to chase their customers for payment. Most people don’t relish conflict and, if you’re a business owner, you’ve probably got better things to be doing.

nfortunately, chasing late invoices is just part of running a business that sells on payment terms. Cumulatively, UK small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are owed a combined £50 billion in late payments. The average business is wasting time and money chasing eight invoices, each worth around £8,500 each. Thankfully, there are ways you can overcome the inherent awkwardness of asking for the money you’re owed and get paid faster and more punctually. Set clear payment terms The first step in implementing effective credit control is to be proactive. Since most business transactions start with a contract, you need to have firm payment terms in place. Having a clear payment date and setting out what happens if the customer pays late is the best way to avoid miscommunication. If your payment terms are watertight, then it leaves your customers very little wiggle room when it comes to paying you. Remember, if you’re in the UK, you have the statutory right to levy both late payment interest

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and claim compensation on late invoices. If you do have doubts about your client’s ability to pay on time, you could always ask for a deposit. If both of you are dealing in a fair and open manner, then a deposit shouldn’t be an issue. A customer immediately refusing the idea of a deposit is usually a red flag. Take advantage of the benefits of automation Chasing for payment is both time-consuming and awkward. Thankfully, by taking advantage of the benefits offered by automated credit control platforms like Chaser, you can significantly reduce the time spent administering to your accounts receivables. Chaser allows you to automate the credit-control process, sending proactive upcoming invoice reminders and a range of scheduled late payment reminders. Instead of filling your calendar with set dates for invoice chasing and handcrafting emails you can simply adapt one of Chaser’s email templates and schedule it to send in advance. We fully understand how easy it

is to ignore obviously automated emails, which is why Chaser’s platform combines the benefits of automation with the human touch. All your chasing emails appear to come from your personal email account and easily adaptable templates reflect your brand voice. You can schedule different invoice reminder templates to send at different times before the invoice is due, once the invoice is overdue and even on the date it is paid. If one customer has multiple overdue invoices, Chaser automatically groups and chases these together for you,, to avoid the batch sending that is such a red flag for automation. Through the use of Chaser’s automated credit control, Xero and Chaser users are able, on average, to save 15-hours per week on chasing late invoices, get paid 16 or more days sooner, and have a 25 per cent reduction in days sales outstanding. Make it as easy for your clients to pay you as possible The best way to get paid is to make it as easy for your clients to pay you for your work as possible. Each Chaser invoice reminder includes a link to your customers’

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unique Payment Portal, where they can pay you through your chosen payment platform, so rather than having to resend your invoice, your customers can pay directly from a reminder email. Each Payment Portal also includes all the required payment information your customers need through a dedicated summary page. The summary page allows your customer to see an overview of all outstanding and paid invoices, so unpaid bills don’t stack up into surprisingly large amounts. This also allows your customers to pay for all their outstanding invoices at the same time and keeps you both on the same page about what’s due, when. In order to give your customer every opportunity to pay you promptly, Chaser’s Payment Portal supports a range of payment options. In addition to the usual credit and debit card payments. Get the experts to chase for you If you’re struggling to get control over your accounts receivables and outstanding invoices are starting to strangle your cash flow, then it might be time to outsource your credit control to the professionals. Alongside our award-winning credit control platform, Chaser’s Outsourced Credit Control offers you the chance to have a professional credit control specialist working for your business for as little as £270 per month. Rather than paying an average of £22,000-£30,000 a year for an in-house Credit Controller, you can have all the benefits for a flat monthly fee. Our monthly fee model makes it easier to control your cash flow through a predictable spend, rather than a viable commission model. Our services are completely transparent. When you sign up

for Chaser’s Outsourced Credit Control service, you also get full access to the Chaser software and the ability to view all our credit control activities and communications with customers on your behalf. Don’t be afraid to escalate your debt recovery efforts If chasing late payments is awkward, then moving beyond just sending reminders is positively excruciating. Most small business owners would rather write off bad debt than go through the lengthy hand over process associated with debt collection agencies. Additionally, great customer relationships, and the repeat custom that comes with them, is vital to most SMEs. The aggressive and harassing tactics favoured by traditional debt collectors can destroy your carefully built up business relationships, ruining any chance for further work.

Even better, instead of wasting your time collecting the documents needed for a lengthy handover, you can escalate invoices to our debt collections team straight through the Chaser software. The relevant data is already held in Chaser, so handover time is reduced to just a few clicks. Effective collections without the awkwardness Chaser’s combination of automation and innovative credit control solutions lets you recover the money you are owed, without any of the awkwardness. We’ve helped our customers successfully and smoothly recover over $4billion in late payments in total to date, and we can do the same for you. So, if you’re struggling with your accounts receivables, reach out to us today to find out how we can help.

However, there is another option. Chaser’s debt collections service uses polite persistence and friendly collections to get you the money you’re owed without any negative impact on your customer relationships.

Find out more...

Our highly trained teams mediate between you and your customers to find a payment solution that works for everyone, without the aggression.

See how to take the awkwardness out of payment chasing: chaserhq.com/chaserwebinar

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Issue 27 / 63

Scaling with Xero and AutoEntry How Armstrong Watson, a Platinum Xero Partner, used AutoEntry and Xero to help them scale...

ooner or later, businesses will always learn the benefits of keeping up with technology and the perils of falling behind. And that was especially the case over the past 12 months. Companies with a trained, up to date workforce, a strong remote working infrastructure and up to date technology weathered the covid storm much more assuredly than their competitors. In fact, some organizations, like Armstrong Watson, have flourished in recent months, enjoying healthy scaling without compromising on their offerings to their clients. Armstrong Watson’s clients vary in just about every way, from size to industry and beyond. So the accounting and financial services company has to cater to different needs and levels of comfort with accounting technology.

overhauling their systems. “In the first instance efficiency is working with as few systems as possible,” says Richard Woolgar, Head of Management Systems for Armstrong Watson. “We decided some years back that we wanted to improve our internal systems. Our existing software providers were proving intransient in some issues we wanted to address.” “So we thought let’s look at the whole system. At that point, for about 10 years we’d been using Xero for a bank of clients and it was scalable. In fact, it was

@AutoEntry

Tom Port, VP Sales, AutoEntry Tom leads activity across key territories for AutoEntry, including North America, the UK and Australia, and oversees global sales performance. Tom is responsible for aligning sales objectives with overall business strategy and for developing outreach initiatives that promote operational growth and customer satisfaction. Tom was one of the first employees at the company and has worked within the organisation since 2010, previously holding positions as business development officer and the UK head of sales.

scalable for any type of client from one-man-bands to audit level companies, so we took the decision to move onto that platform for all of our accounts – either client or internal use are on there to some degree.” “Once you’ve moved it all to Xero, the next question is how to get the data into Xero better. And the first point of that, years back, was when we started using AutoEntry.” “It was a game changer in its time. It was great for us, especially for end of year accounts. That’s how our relationship started.”

To scale, and to cater to this broad base, Armstrong Watson has to be agile. Building Out - Choosing the Software This story begins about 5 years ago, with Armstrong Watson

64 / Issue 27

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and passing on information. Prior to lockdown, many clients still gave paper, hard copies of information to their clients.

Above: Richard Woolgar, Head of Management Systems, Armstrong Watson

AutoEntry, Xero and the Appeal of Multiple Softwares “It’s key to have that data [provided by clients],” says Richard. “We put all of our clients onto Xero. The information is only useful if you then have bank feed and invoices fed into it. AutoEntry gives that first step of having data to act on. It gets people used to the idea of the accounts software being the starting point. So AutoEntry was the first cab off the rank.” “New clients are given Xero and then AutoEntry. When they see how useful it is in other products and the ecosystem way of working, that opens more opportunities for advisory and system reviews and other processes and services. Clients look at everything from the ground up. It leads to a lot of fruitful conversations. People were used to using one software, but now word is out and people are getting more educated. There are multiple softwares now.” The value of a good OCR OCR, or Optical Character Recognition, is quite commonplace now. But Armstrong Watson were early adopters. And they believe that not every OCR is created equal. “You need a good OCR to get up to date invoices,” says Richard. “From that point it was

a no-brainer to continue our relationship [with AutoEntry]. We use it internally and externally. It has made it easier to scale.” “We’re all working in the same software and system. You get stickier clients, word of mouth. Bank feeds and AutoEntry are the game changers.” “Once you have a good system and you invest the time in it, it’s easier to grow.” “We’ve grown through acquisition too. When you bring additional businesses in, if you still have multiple systems and software, you’ll have different people using it in different ways…having a unified way of working in place is key to growth. You can reap the rewards then – you’ve trained staff internally and given them the necessary skills.” “A lot of it is around agility – being technologically agile. Some of our competitors struggled to keep efficiency levels consistent during lockdown. When it comes to winning new work, it’s a lot more problematic if you’re struggling with the work you’ve already got. “That was really key for us.” The Remote Elephant in the Room Speaking of lockdown, businesses are now opening their offices (tentatively), but for a year, everything was off-site. This had ramifications for both meetings

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“We couldn’t go out onsite,” says Richard. “Going onsite has been hit and miss. So we need information to get to us still. We’ve been able to say to people, download this software and you can get stuff to us. What this year has been good for is making people reassess how they work. Previously we sold the idea to clients, but this year they came to us wanting solutions. AutoEntry has been invaluable at that point. You can drop stuff off, or start using this daily. “And while you get that [convenience], we get better data, and that leads to cash flow conversations. Clients like looking at p&l but neglect cash flow reporting. We’re pushing an open door and they realise cash flow is important. AutoEntry is the start of that - you know where you stand.” Technology and Consistency: The benefits of a tech team Harnessing technology and implementing a company-wide system is a steep learning curve for any company - not just for their clients. “Everything’s a learning curve,” agrees Richard. “We did the work of getting our intel systems onto Xero and then it was just a matter of getting the clients using it. Once you’ve got that in place, you can say now it’s standardised. We have a dedicated central team for that. That’s the approach – because we’re not just talking Xero and AutoEntry, you have to stay on top of all the other apps clients might use. To try and spread that too thinly is a fool’s errand. It’s a dynamic space. Having dedicated individuals upskilled is a lot easier. We have a dedicated team. That was key. A dedicated support team for follow up.” “So it’s a good knowledge base to

Issue 27 / 65

go on, for the higher end we have a dedicated team. For a new client we sit down, demo the software, get everyone on board at that point. And that’s the key. If you’re working with a business owner who loves everything in the cloud, but a finance team who’s set in the old way of doing things, it’s never going to take off. If you sit with the finance team and the bookkeeper and make sure everyone is seeing what the changes are going to be and head off problems, because not everybody is on the same page.” “Often, business owners can get carried away, seeing the end results, things like live reporting and other things you can do, but without necessarily the steps people further down the chain have to take to get to that place.”

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Faith in Agnosticism While Xero and AutoEntry are Armstrong Watson’s software of choice, they also have to work with clients who use different systems. This is why AutoEntry’s agnosticism is important. “Our clients are broadly split between Xero and other software, so whenever we’re picking another software (like AutoEntry, or Spotlight for reporting) it’s agnostic across those client banks. The agnostic angle is very important to us. We’ll never be a one software practice.”

understand clients’ hesitancy is an important step in moving them across the digital divide. Richard acknowledges the unexpected benefit of updating your company’s system: “Having gone through the pain of changing our own processes, you can see it from the client’s perspective. It gives you a certain empathy!” Armstrong Watson is one of the longest-running and cutting edge accountancy companies in the UK. You can find out more about Armstrong Watson on the company’s website.

Empathy - the final ingredient Having an effective, working, company-wide software system is key to being competitive and capable of scaling, and bringing clients to digital is part of that process. So taking the time to

FIND OUT MORE... You can get started on AutoEntry with a free trial.

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Propel your practice forward with smarter cloud practice management Firms with an integrated cloud practice management solution are proven to be more efficient, increase billable hours and be more likely to attract and retain talent, while also being able to collaborate closely with their clients.

he services that Accounting Firms offer are mostly process-heavy, people intensive, and dataladen with exacting standards, and often changing tax changes. And for every job, the accounting professional must be 100% accurate. When internal procedures are not streamlined, firms are burdened with additional non-billable work. Add in the challenges of remote working, legacy systems, and unforeseen change – this can result in a significant decrease in each fee-earning employee’s potential billable hours. Client and staff turnover are also put at risk. Every forward-looking Practice Owner or Partner benefits from a single source of truth for resource allocation, jobs, time, billing, and communications. For firms, the right practice management solution helps everyone work smarter, communicate better, and boosts the firm’s bottom line. “Choosing the right practice management solution is critical to increasing productivity and gaining a competitive edge,” says Rakesh Naidu, Head of Product

68 / Issue 27

@cchaustralia

Rakesh Naidu, Head of Product for Professional Software, Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting AsiaPacific A product professional passionate about designing solutions that solve customer problems and make it easier for customers to achieve their desired outcomes. Experience in new product development and delivery, online and payment platform development, business case development and driving business efficiencies & continuous process improvement.

for Professional Software at information. It acts as a hub Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting around which a firm can organise Asia Pacific. “With firms dealing and integrate essential workflows with hundreds, even efficiently while thousands of tasks maintaining across the business, transparency and “Choosing the right a practice accountability. practice management management solution is critical system keeps Automation to increasing productivity and everything gaining a competitive organised and Through practice edge.” everyone on the management same page.” automation you save time, be more accurate Connect and collaborate and reduce stress. Some of the benefits to partners and firms are: In recent years practice • Increasing billable hours by management software has managing capacity, jobs, and adapted rapidly in response to workflows the growing focus on the digital • Capturing the time spent on transformation of businesses every job worldwide. The pandemic • Streamlined client billing and lockdowns, and remote working, managing debtors are accelerating its benefit • Storing up-to-date details of globally. “Firms need to be nimble clients and have the ability to connect • Intelligent and customisable and collaborate seamlessly with reporting of firm metrics clients online,” says Rakesh Naidu. Practice owners can also create With a cloud-based practice reports on cash flow, revenue, management solution, everyone profitability, individual employee with permission to access the productivity, billing, receivables, platform can do so at any time, and more. For Partners and from anywhere, providing a single Practice Managers, an integrated source of truth and a central solution delivers on core repository of mission-critical objectives:

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• Cost control — removing • Automatic back-ups- physical costs to increase margins and barriers profitability • Complex identity verification • Productivity — Increases steps. billable hours by streamlining processes Modern accounting firms need • Automation — Automate vendors that have their backs transactional and repetitive when it comes to cybersecurity tasks, a must to stay and risk and incident reporting. competitive As a global • Client satisfaction company “With firms dealing — If clients are working across with hundreds, even happy, they’ll more than 50 thousands of tasks stay loyal. countries in across the business, a critical areas of practice management Flexibility and the economy, system keeps everything convenience security is a organised and everyone core concern for on the same page.” More advanced Wolters Kluwer. and dedicated platforms, such We pride ourselves on as CCH iFirm Practice seamless implementation and Manager, enable better use of configuration. When you buy CCH intelligent automation. Users iFirm Practice Manager, we’ll help can automatically allocate jobs configure the platform to your evenly across team members, needs highlighting potential problems before they become an issue, and Another advantage is that a cloudmaking life easier for everyone. based platform automatically updates with new features and Managers can assign jobs and versions, saving time and money. tasks and view the progress, optimising team utilisation is Working with experienced critical to reducing non-billable solution providers whose core hours. The system anticipates business is partnered with globalall the administrative tasks level capabilities to address associated with regular jobs and security, as well as deliver training allocates resources to ensure and up-to-date content, ensures work is not forgotten. Integration your firm is set up for success. of all l core jobs and tasks allows a practice manager to seamlessly New markets send an invoice. One of the key considerations CCH iFirm also offers you a menu for a high-growth professional of tools to travel from whatever services firm these days is screen you’re working on to other breaking out of conventional, workspaces within the platform. geographically defined markets. It allows you to use existing workpapers and procedures or For accountants to reach new add your own to any job. markets, they need technology, automated workflows, secure Security and service data, and a way to share information with staff and clients. Any software dealing with That means a cloud-based sensitive financial data has to platform that allows seamless be secure. To enable your firm collaboration virtually from to work confidently with clients, anywhere at any time. online CCH iFirm safely shares documents, data, and reports, The firms of the future are also including: tapping into a global workforce • Multi-factor authentication because work can be completed • Digital signatures remotely and delivered entirely • Collaboration portals online.

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Integrating all, or as much as possible, of the software in your business around one platform and a standardised series of processes, puts your firm on the best footing for growth Your team has more time to focus on higher-value work, such as business advisory or other specialist opportunities. The instant access to accurate data and reporting that CCH iFirm Practice Manager enables makes for faster, better decision-making. Deep impact when it matters Our vision is to provide tax and accounting professionals with the best information and software they need to get their work done and make a deep impact. Getting things right is critical. In an ever-changing world, it’s vital to have access to the best expert solutions to organise and automate complex processes. Customers depend on software to seamlessly integrate data and deliver important and rapid insights into their business and the wider world. Every day, we seek to better understand our customers’ challenges using the deep domain knowledge we’ve acquired over 40 years of experience. The true value of practice management software is its ability to help you grow, control costs, save time, increase billable hours — and know exactly where everything is at all times.

Find out more... Learn more about Wolters Kluwer in Asia-Pacific

Issue 27 / 69

Financial controls for accounts payable and accounts receivable Best-in-class approval automation for Xero

Bill creation, review, and approval

Xero App Partner of the Year 2021

Xero App Partner of the Year 2020

Xero Community Rating

Featuring in Xero’s Cash Flow and Hospitality app playbooks

Trusted by leading accounting firms 70 / Issue 27

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Power up Xero with multi-step approval automation KEEP APPROVERS OUT OF XERO ENSURE COMPLIANCE AND FACILITATE AUDITS ESTABLISH CONTROL AND VISIBILITY SCALE UP AND IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY

GET YOUR FREE 30-DAY TRIAL ON APPROVALMAX.COM

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Issue 27 / 71

MinuteDock’s Guide to Surviving an 80+ Hour Work Week

@minutedock

Bryce Armstrong, Customer Success Manager, MinuteDock Bryce is dipping his toes into the cloud-based accounting ecosystem after recently partnering up with his brother Jared, founder of MinuteDock: time management software for professional services.

The team at MinuteDock offer advice for that most dreaded of circumstances, the double work week. Learn how to survive and thrive!

he 80-hour working week is a thing dreaded by even the most dedicated of professionals. It is, after all, the equivalent of working two weeks within the space of one. While it certainly isn’t recommended as an ongoing, regular part of your work experience, a hard week of 80+ hours may allow you to catch up on your workload and keep the stress away from the rest of your month. It is important, when you decide to do something like this, to do it right – it would be all too easy to burnout and be unproductive for most of the time or to produce sub-par work. If there’s one thing you don’t want, it’s to have to backtrack later on and fix the mistakes you made while you were too tired to think straight.

7-day week would make that more like 11 or 12 hours per day. Those numbers are much more manageable on a day-to-day basis, but have the disadvantage of cutting into your weekend, so the choice will be down to personal preference.

and make sure you are getting enough during your week. Not only is this important for your health, but also the quality of your work. You need to have set sleeping hours and shouldn’t compromise those scheduled hours. Doing otherwise will have you quickly But is working 80+ falling out of sync “Your non-working hours in a week with your work time: in particular healthy? Working schedule. your sleep, is 80 hours a week important to keep for a short period, The importance good track of and or intermittently, of regular physical are make sure you may well aid you in activity on the during enough getting reducing work time health of the human your week.” stress and pressure body and mind is well affecting your mental documented. Keeping state by letting you get out in physically active during your week front of big projects or catch up will have a noticeable effect on quickly when you’re behind the both the quality and efficiency of ball. Having said that, it’s vitally your work. Don’t get caught in the important to make sure you are trap of telling yourself that you getting all the physical and mental don’t have time for it: you will see stimulus you need to keep healthy that your ability to work hard and First, you will want to give a lot while you work a heavy week – be productive because of your of consideration not just to the making sure you have enough exercise regime will more than hours you will work in the sleep to feel rested, make up for the time you spend week, but also to the are eating full and actually exercising. number of days you healthy meals, and “Taking appropriate will work. Working a are getting enough Taking appropriate time to time to unwind and traditional five-day physical exercise unwind and reset for your next reset for your next week will result in – these are all task is crucial to maintaining your task is crucial to you having 16-hour important factors to productivity. A rest period is not maintaining your workdays; something consider! only important for maintaining productivity.” you might find yourself your health but also for allowing struggling to accomplish. Ensure you have a healthy you to mentally adjust when A 6-day week comprising a total sleep schedule. Your non-working switching tasks in order to of 80 hours would be between time: in particular your sleep, is maximise your work output. 13 and 14 hours a day, while a important to keep good track of You’ll quickly feel like you’re going

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insane if all you fill your day with is work, work, work: get some sunshine, take a walk, listen to some of your favourite tunes. Just like with getting appropriate sleep, having some time for yourself will pay off in the long term by helping you to maintain your productivity. Ultimately, don’t make it a habit! Working extreme hours in this way is manageable once or twice, but making it a regular feature of your work life will quickly create stress and have a strong negative impact on both health and performance. Remember, there’s more to enjoying life than just work success – don’t forget to spend time with your family and get out there to enjoy the sunshine!

FIND OUT MORE... Visit our website at: minutedock.com/features/ time-tracking

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Issue 27 / 73

Do you enjoy data entry? Neither do we. AutoEntry leads the industry in automated data entry. Whether it’s invoices, receipts or especially bank statements, we take the pain and hassle out of data entry. We’re especially proud of what we can do with bank statements, there are other automation services on the market, but none automate bank statements like we do.

Find out why AutoEntry leads the industry in automation and how to automate your bank statements with our webinar at autoentry.com/bank_statements_webinar You’ll also learn the numerous benefits of accounts automation, from the immediate and obvious to the more subtle and nuanced.

www.AutoEntry.com

74 / Issue 27

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Automated Data Entry for Accountants, Bookkeepers and Business Owners

NEVER MANUALLY ENTER A BANK STATEMENT AGAIN!

BANK STATEMENTS

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Issue 27 / 75

BANK STATEMENTS

Future Proofing Your Small Business T

he impacts of the global pandemic have been farreaching, both from a cultural and business standpoint, and small businesses owners have been forced to adapt to survive. The snap transition to digital last year resulted in many businesses being forced online, yet many lacked the digital skills to capitalise on the new opportunities presented. With online transactions surging since the onset of the pandemic, small and medium businesses must ensure they keep up with the digital world in order to stay relevant. So, how can your business do this? Here are a few tips to help future proof your business. Offer online payments for your invoices In Australia, over 1.2 billion invoices are exchanged annually with almost 90 per cent of small and medium businesses still processing paper-based invoices. The Australian government has identified e-invoicing as a critical reform to deliver significant economic benefits for businesses and the wider Australian economy. When an e-invoice replaces a paper invoice, the businesses involved could share savings of up to $20 per invoice. Digital payments have become

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the leading method of accepting funds since the pandemic. They’re simple, easy and require no handling of physical cash or cards. Businesses can simply add an online payment option to an invoice and even set up recurring payments to ensure invoices are paid on time. For Small and medium business owners, e-invoicing helps not only to manage cash flow, but also increase productivity with reduced administration. Adding a digital option to your payments can also speed up payments as your customers have fewer barriers to pay. Ultimately, with most of the world now shopping and conducting business online, moving to digital payments will provide your customers with a smoother online and shopping experience and may remove any additional barriers presented in physical locations or via traditional payment methods. To future proof your business, ease and convenience are key, to ensure the best possible chance of survival and success. Find the right online payments solution Ensuring you have the right systems to take and accept online payments is essential for your business’s success. Given the global shift to digital, moving your payments to an online system will ensure you can track data

@PinPayments

Chris Dahl, Director of Sales & Growth, PinPayments Chris Dahl is the Director of Sales & Growth at Pin Payments and has a wealth of experience across both web, business and software development. Chris headsup the sales, marketing and customer success functions at Pin Payments to assist the expansion and integration of its services into global markets.

more easily and integrate that information into your business plans and strategies. You may even decide to pass on any fees to your customer, by looking for vendors who offer surchanging as a part of their services. Getting paid by your customers, merchants or clients as a small business owner is essential, so setting up the right online payments systems will give you greater transparency on your business transactions, inventory, cash-flow and financial insights. Automate your reconciliation process As a business owner, you likely rely on several different services or tools, like accounting or HR software, to manage your operations, and going between these systems can be laborious and time-consuming. Luckily, Xero enables you to integrate your digital tools and apps. Once your payment solution is integrated with Xero, you should look at solutions that can help you automatically reconcile your accounts. Automating reconciliation will reduce time spent on manual data entry and remove the element of human error. Having a single view of your business will help you manage and grow your business more effectively in the long run.

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Look for trusted digital partners If you haven’t yet found the right digital tools to help you manage your business, make sure you look for trusted suppliers who can offer you local support and understand your business needs. Finding the right price point for your requirements, and a provider that can scale with your business is important to ensure you get the right support. Ultimately, if your digital business practices are user-friendly and time-effective, your business has a greater chance of achieving a better output and growth. There are many tools now available to help manage your business, time and money. Getting digitally literate and savvy with your business operations and management is essential in future proofing your business in today’s world. It might be a process of

trial and error before you find the right services and practices to make things as digitally smooth as possible. However, in doing so, you’ll ensure your business has the greatest possible chance of growth and the capability to weather any storm.

FIND OUT MORE... Add online payments to Xero by adding Pin Payments. Get started today.

CONNECTED APP

Powerful Management Software for Charities, Churches & Community groups Reach more people Develop more committed members Increase donations

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Phone: NZ (+64) 07 579 3085, UK (+44) 0161 738 1437

Issue 27 / 77

It is what you do (and the way that you do it) Process mapping for success

You know how your practice works - but what about everyone else? James Kilford of Senta Practice Management shares some of the benefits accountants will gain from mapping practice processes - and how to get started.

Above: Steve Case, CEO, Finance Box

teve Case is the CEO of Finance Box, self-styled ‘Bean-counting superheroes’. I was interested to talk with him after the support team were raving about how he was using all the data generated by Senta to improve productivity. What I actually uncovered was a process mapping mastermind,

who has detailed the way his practice works and used that info to build processes which make the practice run better. It’s made a massive difference to the effectiveness of his team. And their clients are happy too - because they know exactly what’s expected of them and when.

@sentaHQ

James Kilford, Founder, Senta James is one of the founders at Senta and drives the company vision and product design. He is a techie by trade, not an accountant, but knows just how valuable a good accountant can be. James is chief advocate for Senta clients - he is always talking to practitioners, finding out where they are going, what they need and how Senta can do things better.

What do we mean by process mapping? It’s not so alien - nor is it difficult. Steve compares it to a spreadsheet. “As accountants we program client inputs, create a machine of formulas and then study the output. If it’s wrong, we check the machine and edit how it works. The same applies to process mapping: we look at the info we need and how we complete a task. Then we keep tweaking this to make our processes better over time.” Post-it note by post-it note Steve has gone on to build each post-it note step into Senta. For those of you who don’t use Senta, we’ve set it up so it’s completely customisable for the needs of your practice. You can create workflows and automate emails that help you manage client work as it moves through your practice. By automating the small admin jobs, your time is freed up so you can concentrate on keeping your clients happy, your team motivated and your coffee cup completely full. Priorities everyone, priorities.

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Six steps to success

very important things you must do.

Steve was kind enough to share his killer six step process with us:

Firstly, don’t just consider the “Happy Path” of your processes – also consider the exceptions. Make “From a business sure you spend time owner perspective, I thinking about have peace of mind and being honest that all my clients are about the parts receiving exactly what of a process that they’ve been sold and can go wrong and the same high level of service.” what you do if that Finance Box Case, Steve happens.

1. Map out your existing process. What’s the reason for each step? Use post-its (electronic or physical ones!) to detail each step, so you can clearly see gaps or add in new steps later. 2. Once you’re clear on your existing process, look for opportunities to make improvements. You may need to add new steps in, or find ways to link one step to another. What parts can you automate? e.g SMS reminders around tax season or chasing emails. 3. Consider the data you hold at each stage and where it could be used or needed later - link that data up in your process. e.g. payroll process. You have all the data in front of you. If you note the PAYE to be paid now, you could use that in a step later such as an automated PAYE reminder.

Take your team on the ride Team buy-in is essential to success. Steve recommends involving your team as you build your process, paying heed to those who are really involved with the client work. But you definitely need to be clear that following the process isn’t optional - it’s essential for your practice to succeed. A degree of empathy is required too, as you need to put yourself in the shoes of your client. Do you have a friendly client you could call on to talk

4. Take the new process away and consider your business brand. Is this what YOU want as the business owner? Are you asking the client to do too much themselves? Do your automated emails sound like they come from you? Is the language the best it can be? 5. Test the new process as if you were experiencing the client side as well as the staff side. The client side is how your clients are going to feel about your process - even if you know in your head what you’re doing. 6. Review and evolve. There’s nothing wrong with not having it perfected the first time. We should be looking for constant evolution and improvement - and technology, like Senta, allows us to do that all the time. Review your processes regularly as a team and make sure they remain relevant.

about how they see the process or even get some feedback on proposed changes? All feedback is important. Fix the chaos Ally Watson from Make Change Matter helps accountants and business owners identify and fix the things that cause chaos in their business. “Process mapping isn’t difficult, it just takes time and focus but for it to be truly effective there are two

Secondly, processes constantly change so don’t do it once and then forget about it. Senta’s dashboard shows you when things go wrong, when they are overdue or haven’t been done or you may get negative feedback from a client through your NPS.” Process for peace of mind What our clients are telling us is that their processes are a key part of who they are, it’s part of their brand. Having processes clearly mapped out also helps with everyone’s peace of mind. Steve Case agrees: “From a business owner perspective, I have peace of mind that all my clients are receiving exactly what they’ve been sold and the same high level of service. It protects us - and makes the teams’ lives easier. If someone’s on holiday or away from work, the rest of the team can see exactly what needs to be done, how and when.”

Find out more... Don’t just take our word for it - try Senta free for 30 days. Visit: www.senta.co/XUMag2021

Sublime practice management software for accountants and bookkeepers. www.senta.co

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Issue 27 / 79

Q&A

@ExpenseOnDemand

with Sunil Nigam (CEO) of ExpenseOnDemand The ExpenseOnDemand app offers global businesses a simple solution for automating their employee expenses thus, helping them create a paperless & contactless environment to work in. Q) Why did you choose to offer a pay on demand service?

demand. Would I recommend it to SMBs – Yes.” Jon Butterworth – Healthier Weight

A) Having worked for numerous businesses prior to launching ExpenseOnDemand, I was acutely aware that companies often get stuck in long term inflexible contracts with multiple suppliers. And often not utilising the services or being able to scale up (or down) as their demands changed and inevitably wasting money. To address this, we wanted to offer a solution that allowed businesses to take control and be able to change or cancel their contracts on a monthly basis.

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Q) Why are Pay On Demand solutions so important now? A) The pandemic has seen a huge increase in the demand for its ‘Pay as You Use’ model as businesses leaders and finance directors are sourcing solutions that allow their businesses to automate the process, whilst being able to adapt to the ‘new normal’ and ever changing COVID-19 business landscape.

This was perceived as a risky solution as we weren’t ‘trapping’ our clients in long-term contracts, but this simply hasn’t been the case. The flexible solution proved very popular and business quickly realised they could not only save money but could simply amend their requirements as they used the service.

As businesses look to the postvaccine future and the potential return to offices, a recent survey by ExpenseOnDemand highlighted that nearly 30% of financial experts will be focussing on automation this year. They will be actively sourcing solutions that offer cutting-edge technology and flexible ‘pay as you use’ subscription models, so that they can keep the costs down when the service requirements reduce.

“Pricing is great, as we only pay for what we use – nothing more, which helps us plan the cost for the service. I have an option to trial any new function and turn it off all on

As automation increases, businesses also need to know that their data is safe and secure, and this is something we offer at ExpenseOnDemand. The

Sunil Nigam, CEO & CoFounder, ExpenseOnDemand We launched ExpenseOnDemand in 2003 with a vision to enable companies & their employees globally to focus on their core job by offering a smart, simple & intuitive expense management solution. We continually update our technology to make our solutions current and affordable to everyone. When not at work, you will catch me mentoring young entrepreneurs, debating Indian history & global economics, reading a book, or cooking a meal for the family.

information being uploaded to our servers from employees and businesses is stored in a secure cloud solution. “ExpenseOnDemand has been supportive, responding to business change and acquisition requirements throughout this timeframe. They have also imparted knowledge of how the system can work most effectively for us.” Joanna Benjamin - Eurofins

Q) How has the pandemic impacted your business? A) Since the outbreak, businesses have had to adapt quickly to survive, manage their dayto-day processes and ensure their staff can work seamlessly whilst working remotely. This adaption has been made possible by sourcing tech solutions to automate and digitise parts of their business which had not been updated for years. The pandemic has also caused a huge increase in demand for the ‘Pay as You Use’ model as business leaders and finance directors are sourcing solutions that allow their businesses to automate processes whilst being

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Q&A able to adapt to the ‘new normal’ and ever changing COVID-19 business landscape. This has meant we have had a surge in demand for our services and we have seen many businesses choosing to move to our solution from less flexible offerings. “Their ability to respond and adapt at speed has always been a mainstay but this has never been more apparent than in these past twelve months; always available (even during a pandemic), supportive, generous with their time and passionate about their business.” Lady Blackwood

Q) Name 3 challenges that your system resolves for businesses A) The first is flexibility – Many businesses are looking to expand post-pandemic as economies bounce back which will mean a sudden increase in staff but many of these will be on shortterm contracts as they gauge how much they need to expand. Our solution allows business to scale up and down as required and with no penalties or additional cost. Remote Working – As our app is so easy to use it makes managing expenses from multiple locations easy for the business and employees to manage. Finally, and most importantly for many businesses, is cost. We offer a very competitive and costeffective solution that saves our clients time and money. “Our company has been working with ExpenseOnDemand now for nearly 1 year. I can say working with the team has been fantastic, very organised, easy to work with and very open to all ideas.” Cherelle Khassal – Empire Digital Services

“As a telecommunications company, our employees are out on the road building networks. We were dealing with a lot of paper until we moved to ExpenseOnDemand. It is very easy to review, approve and pay expenses.” Lidea Budean - Kelly

Q) How does your system deal with expense fraud?

with Xero, Sage, QuickBooks and Tally seamlessly.

A) We give our clients the control and power to simply manage this by offering a variety of policies on our app. These include expense capping, duplicate rule, pay night limits, pay per person limit on entertainment and many others.

In addition, as technology continues to rapidly impact business processes, many businesses will need to collaborate and offer open APIs to allow seamless integration and for multiple software’s to be able to talk to each other. This has been happening across many sectors, such as, FinTech for years as accounting, expenses and internet banks integrate to allow a completely coherent solution for businesses. To address this, ExpenseOnDemand offers Open API, which can “talk” to any accounting, payroll, HR or CRM application, to pull or send data between ExpenseOnDemand and the target application.

The feedback from our clients on our policies is really positive as it offers an easy but very effective solution to control expenses and manage employees especially while they work remotely. Q) What does the future hold for ExpenseOnDemand? A) The team at ExpenseOnDemand has been adapting our market leading app since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and we have been working hard to make it easier for finance leaders and staff to manage expenses in the new normal, especially with so many employees working from home. Our systems are continually being updated and developed to ensure we can offer our clients solutions that are current and work for them no matter where their staff are working. Q) You claim that your expense system easily integrates with third party apps – how does a customer benefit from that? A) At a simple level, ExpenseOnDemand integrates

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We continue to expand our offering, to ensure this is the best possible service to our customers. We have recently introduced Bitcoin as a currency option for employees to use when managing their expenses and are the first expenses solution to provide this. We will continue to innovate and lead the way.

Find out more... For more information go to: expenseondemand.com/ expense-managementsoftware

Issue 27 / 81

Extend the power of Xero with Ordering & Payables automation Unlock the full potential of Xero and your firm with Lightyear Xero Expenses and HubDoc are great tools for basic expense and AP automation, however complex businesses need a much more robust and flexible solution.

nlock the full potential of Xero and your firm with Lightyear Remote working has increased the demand for business process automation (especially regarding collaboration and approvals) within the Accounts Payable (AP) and Procurement sphere. Xero Expenses and HubDoc are great tools for basic expense and AP automation, however complex businesses need a much more robust and flexible solution. Features such as line item extraction, customisable approvals workflows, multicurrency capability, autostatement reconciliation, bill to PO matching and group analysis are all key components of larger business’ AP requirements. What can Lightyear do for you? Lightyear is a 5-star rated Purchasing and AP Platform that extends the functionality of Xero and offers a market leading all-in-one solution for large SMEs and accounting firms. Whether you need Purchasing, AP, or both, we’ve got one of the most comprehensive and featurepacked purchasing to payment platforms in the world; unbeaten when it comes to value for money, ease of use and customer satisfaction.

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Free your data entry from the chains of repetitive tasks Lightyear’s proprietary data extraction technology delivers line-by-line data by default, including product codes, quantities and unit costs in real-time. One transparent cost per document: unlimited pages, unlimited line items. Not only do we provide immediate and detailed extraction, we give you the tools to run detailed spend analysis reports with richer data to help you make informed decisions. Never overpay a supplier again Lightyear’s automated price checking system is a great way to make sure that you aren’t being overcharged. When bills are received, Lightyear will automatically check them against the supplier’s price lists and, with its handy traffic light system, tell you if the price is correct on every single item! Get your team on the same page Route all of your documents through a multi-tiered approvals workflow, including departments, to get one-click approval at each stage. You can have up to 5 levels of approval triggered by various routing rules, and with the

@lightyearcloud

Chris Gregg, CEO and CoFounder, Lightyear With more than 10 years experience within the fintech sector, Chris is currently leading his second successful fintech startup. He is passionate about helping companies solve their purchasing and AP pain points and works tirelessly to ensure his customers have the time to focus on the important things in life.

Lightyear mobile app, your team can approve and collaborate from anywhere, anytime! You’ll also be able to approve in-browser or via email if that’s more convenient for your team. Automated Statement Reconciliation Reconciling bills against supplier statements is a time-consuming task which can become very costly for large organisations. Lightyear’s unique supplier reconciliation feature automates this process, giving you back valuable time to spend in other areas of your business. Need an end-to-end purchasing solution? Lightyear’s purchasing system allows your teams to create detailed purchase orders for services and/or products! It’s so simple thanks to our integrated solution, with no need to worry about data entry as our intelligent AI engine will auto-populate details from your suppliers’ catalogue. Our seamless approvals workflow routes Purchase Orders directly into the hands of approvers without any user input needed whatsoever. So, whether you need a simple or complex workflow, there’s no need to hesitate, we can accommodate you.

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Record stock received and update inventory levels Easily mark stock as received with Lightyear’s intuitive Goods Received function and automatically export that stock data into any third-party inventory system, saving hours upon hours of manual stock data entry and giving you a more up-to-date view of your stock on hand. World first line-by-line 3-Way Matching

together. Extract data in one app, export to xero, re-extract info into the next app, put it back into the first...it not only becomes timeconsuming, but keeping track of that process can be a job in and of itself. Not to mention multiple bills, logins and training sessions. Lightyear removes the pain and provides the all-in-one solution that you and your clients have been looking for. How to use Lightyear to secure higher value clients

Not only is this process prone to human error and (quite frankly) boring, it takes precious time away from growing the business and generating revenue. That is why we purpose-built this platform with businesses and accounting firms in mind. When we asked Lambro Manouras, CFO of St Basils Homes (SA), what he would tell anyone considering automating their Purchasing and Accounts Payables with Lightyear, he had this to say;

Lightyear is the first Xero AP provider to release automated line-by-line 3-way bill to PO matching. This is a huge benefit for your financing teams, as a task that once took hours can now be done in seconds. It completely revolutionises how payments are done.

Lightyear enables you to service larger value clients that previously may have been outside of your firm’s capabilities. The flexibility, level of customisation, and the sheer amount of features available means that you have a solution at your fingertips for businesses that ordinarily you would be unable to take on.

Apps - All for one and one for all

Conclusion

FIND OUT MORE...

One of the biggest problems faced by accounting and finance teams is meshing multiple apps

At Lightyear, we know that the last thing anyone wants to do is spend hours on manual, repetitive tasks.

Find out more by visiting: www.lightyear.cloud

“Go For It! It’s such an easy platform to use. It saves heaps of your time and every invoice is at your fingertips. The support team is awesome and you never have to wait more than a minute to speak/ chat online to someone for advice or help.”

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The Accountant’s Client Satisfaction Lifecycle Some firms we speak to believe that offshoring or outsourcing is a silver bullet to solve all their ills. At AdvanceTrack we believe that it is just one of the building blocks to success.

n our experience working with accountants, the firms that prosper are the ones that have nailed client satisfaction. With that in mind we have devised a seven-step process called ‘The Accountant’s Client Satisfaction Lifecycle’ to help forward-thinking accountants replicate this success.

It is a repeatable, scalable, plan that can only happen alongside robust systems and processes. If you have these processes in place then, when a client walks through the door, you will know what happens next to provide them with the best support.

Vipul Sheth ACA CTA, Founder and Managing Director, AdvanceTrack Outsourcing Vipul is a UK based ICAEW Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor. Vipul trained with a regional UK firm before moving to Ernst & Young and KPMG. AdvanceTrack is a UK Headquartered Accountancy Outsourcing Company with offshore operational centres, delivering services around the globe. AdvanceTrack demonstrates compliance with international security laws including GDPR through certification to ISO27001:2013 and BS10012 audited by BSI. Quality is certified to ISO9001:2015 and Business Continuity certified to ISO22301:2019.

The more efficient and technologically-enabled the processes, the more painless that service will be.

Invest time in building a trusted online presence and give value to prospects. This will set the tone for doing more of the work you enjoy, with the clients you want. How many firms think every client is good business? Many businesses go through that phase where any new business is good business. But, it’s important that the clients understand you and your team. Why? Because otherwise, they drain the energy from your team and from the clients that really do understand you. For that reason, your messaging is important in attracting the right type of client. How do you share what it is you do? Your culture and your expectations in how you deal with clients is important. Some

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@AdvanceTrack

firms say they want to deal with SMEs. What does that mean? For example, Is it nearer the ‘S’ or the ‘M’ in SME? You might enjoy helping start-ups - if that’s the case, just say it. Otherwise, the £10m business will come along and you will debate if they are an appropriate client or not. You’ve also got to look at the skillsets you and your team possess. If you’ve never dealt with a creative business, you might struggle to be their expert adviser. Set out expectations and then ensure you communicate those. It’s less painful than after you’ve engaged them.

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How technology-enabled is your onboarding? Firms have many ways in which they bring clients on board. There are multiple tools: Practice Ignition; Karbon; Senta; and DocuSign etc. that firms can use to automate this process, or just speed up the onboarding process.

then what that client might think if your engagement letter dropped through the letterbox. An important part of this process is cash collection. Using Go Cardless, Practice Ignition, Stripe etc. sets your firm’s position right at the start of the engagement on your expectation of what the client needs to do to pay your fees.

Think about when you used to send out physical documents. Today, there is no need to do that. More importantly, you’ve attracted clients on the basis of your adoption of technology. Imagine

We talked about engagement letters above, for example, being electronic. Training your clients in collecting data efficiently will help you deliver better, more timely and accurate data for them to run their business. It seems quite normal to us at AdvanceTrack to expect our client firms to using Dext, Hubdoc or AutoEntry to enhance data collection. I, for one, think there is still a long way for firms to get enough of their clients well-trained in using these products/services.

Automation, in this context, can include offshoring/outsourcing. How integrated is the offshore delivery team in your service delivery process?

We hear so many firms say “we use these products”. But, when we ‘look under the hood’, we often find that only a small proportion actually use the software. Some firms let clients drop in their records and a junior team member or admin staff scan it to use within these products. This means that real-time reporting just isn’t happening.

Culturally, your onshore teams can respond in the way that your clients understand. Also, they’re in the same time zone and they’re solely focused on client engagement.

Our offshore teams are not distracted by answering client calls and e-mails. This is an important part of your firm’s ongoing communication (which we discuss later), but this should normally be handled by your onshore teams. Why?

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Who is doing the checking? How consistent is this process? Is it appropriate for your client-facing teams to be doing all the basic checking?

of output. In the wrong hands of course, it could be dangerous! Our well-trained teams can help.

Offshore teams can run this process, often when you’re sleeping. This means that when you and your teams are at your desks, you’re looking at a nearly complete process that can be validated. There are ways that the offshore teams can target the work they do. Tools such as Dext Precision can only improve the speed and quality

You’ve identified the problems, what are the next steps? Who is responsible? Business Owner? Accounting/Bookkeeping Firm?

you can say “The computer says….” In terms of the accounting firm or outsourcer taking ownership, if there is a clear demarcation of roles, this is easier to address. The need to learn is so important, to prevent errors from recurring.

Outsourcer? The answer is probably all of the above. What’s the process of communication? If you’re talking to the Business Owner, you need to be careful how you broach the subject. My experience of many SME businesses is that the business owner’s partner at home helps on the weekend in keeping the books up to date. That’s why having an objective tool helps break down the barriers. Imagine the conversation previously being quite fraught. When there is an objective report,

Clients providing timely and accurate data can only allow you to deliver more timely services. Having worked with businesses for over 30 years, I recognise that most common delays result from clients providing information that is incomplete or inaccurate. Demarcation between outsourcer and firm is no different to allocating roles to team members if you were doing it in-house. What you want to avoid is to start mudslinging. Whether it’s maintaining harmonious relationships in your team or with your offshore team, this will help. Robust processes too. Experienced outsourcing teams like those at AdvanceTrack can help a firm build this process.

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Does communication come naturally to your team members? If it doesn’t, what process have you built into your business to allow this to happen consistently? This sounds simple, but it’s not. Again, there are tools such as Clarity that give you the ability to run client-facing meetings in a consistent way. Equally important, if not more so, is acknowledging that it’s not always partners communicating with clients. Regular check-ins give clients the comfort that they are being looked after. If there is something a junior team member can’t deal with, then there needs to be an escalation process. The firms which navigated the pandemic best were those where client contact was shared out.

Speaking of sharing: we’ll be sharing a lot more thoughts about the seven-step process between 8-10 June (12.00 Noon to 14:00 BST). We have a great line-up of speakers scheduled to speak on the day including speakers from: AdvanceTrack; Xero; Dext; Capitalise; Clarity HQ; Remarkable Practice; Appacus; and Practice Ignition. Book your free space using this link: Events | AdvanceTrack® Outsourcing

FIND OUT MORE... Discuss your Outsourcing or Dedicated Offshoring Requirements with an expert: advancetrack.com/start-here

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Introducing a new cash flow service to your clients - a conversation guide A client’s first cash flow conversation is an important one, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. What are the important questions you should consider before having that conversation?

@FloatApp

Sam Fairbairn, Key Account Manager, Float Sam is a Key Account Manager at Float, an operational, visual and easy-to-use cash flow forecasting solution for Xero. Sam works with practices worldwide to support them in scaling their cash flow services and learning what works and what doesn’t in the process. Float is used by thousands of businesses and accounting practices internationally, with the vision of putting cash flow awareness at the heart of every business.

t can be challenging to demonstrate the true value of your services to clients, especially when you’re introducing a new service for the first time. But having clients develop an understanding and appreciation of how important an accountant or bookkeeper’s role is, is key to embedding your new service in longer-term with full client buy-in. We asked business owners what more they wanted from their

accountants. Almost a third of people said they wanted their accountant to provide a cash flow forecast. So that means people are crying out for cash flow advisory services, right? Well, not quite. Here’s a question: do your clients actually connect their business problems with cash flow as the solution? This is where Float’s Cash Flow Proposal Guide comes in. We’ve created this conversation guide as a hub of practical advice on how to go from identifying an opportunity for a new cash flow service, right through to having a client paying a recurring fee for it. The step-by-step worksheet is designed to help you engage clients in meaningful conversations around cash flow. And by meaningful, we mean effective.

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Here are 5 key, actionable steps from the worksheet: • Discovery & groundwork - what are your client’s immediate goals and challenges? • Requirements to meet goals & address client challenges - what needs to be done to get the outcome both parties want? • Responsibility - which party is responsible for each task to be done? • Embedding your cash flow service longer-term - show evidence that cash flow isn’t just for a crisis • Pricing the jobs to be done how to price the proposed work Having a structured conversation establishes a roadmap and proposal for cash flow support that both parties agree on. Shared responsibility to achieve joint goals is an excellent way to encourage client accountability.

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Pricing the proposed work you will do for a client can be notoriously difficult, especially when it is an entirely new service. But by dividing responsibility, you’ll be able to price more economically. For example: if breaking down the responsibilities shows your client will be doing a lot of the work, you’ll be more inclined to set the price lower. If you or your team are shouldering a hefty portion of the responsibility, then the price will naturally be higher for the service. Evidencing this cost breakdown will also help you demonstrate to clients how valuable you and your services are in supporting their small business. Building knowledge and educating your clients on cash flow and working together on their business’s cash management will reap multiple benefits for your

practice - not only improving your relationship and cash flow dialogue, but also how your clients tackle or approach problems in the future.

Find out more... Download your copy of the Cash Flow Proposal Guide at: try.floatapp.com/cash-flowproposal-guide

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Fast track to advisory A revolutionary approach to introducing/scaling business advisory services within your firm

@clarity_hq

Aynsley Damery, CEO & Founder, Clarity Aynsley is a chartered accountant, multi-award winning entrepreneur and international keynote speaker. Considered as one of the most influential accountants in the UK on social media, he is a founder and CEO of Clarity - a business advisory platform for accountants. Aynsley has advised thousands of businesses around the world and sits as an advisory board member on a number of companies and charities.

Clarity’s revolutionary approach has helped hundreds of firms generate significant GRF within weeks of implementation. Of course, those that achieve results, take action.

re you delivering business advisory services to your top 10/20% of clients but unsure how to scale throughout the firm? Are you yet to introduce business advisory services to your compliance-only clients? Have you tried in the past and not succeeded? Perhaps you feel you don’t have the right clients? Or, you believe small business owners don’t want or care to pay for business advisory services? At Clarity, we have completely reimagined what business advisory services are. You see, delivering a typical Big4 style advisory service, using a bespoke process, with senior members of your team, doesn’t always work. And it certainly doesn’t work for most accounting firms and with most small business owners. Our revolutionary approach has helped hundreds of firms generate significant GRF within weeks of implementation. Of course, those that achieve results, take action. Let me say that another way, 100% of firms that take action get positive results. 100%.

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Our process and approach works. It’s that simple. It’s been designed with the small business owner at the forefront. But more importantly, it’s been built by multi-award-winning accountants for you. Accountants who have been there, who have tried to deliver Big4 methodologies to small business owners, who have used almost every piece of tech that is supposed to work and who understand what small business owners really want. And, who have worked out a way to deliver those services profitably for the firm, yet in a valuable way to a business owner and at a price they can afford. If you’re looking to increase the value you deliver, increase the level of engagement with your clients and give them clarity to understand their numbers better and make better business decisions to grow and improve, then our get clarity workshop is just for you! We help you engage with your clients in a more meaningful way. And it’s not all about automation - although leveraging technology in the right way is important. We help you become better, quicker and more efficient to deliver the outcomes

your clients really want. CAVEAT: if you’re looking for reporting tools and a methodology to hide behind, then this workshop series is probably not for you. If you’re looking to get out in front of your clients more and help empower the team to do just that, if it’s about more meaningful engagement and communication and if it’s about focusing on outcomes and not inputs - then this is just the thing! We have completely redesigned the traditional workshop to focus on learning, implementation and accountability. We have broken it down to work for an online environment and not in a way that you expect. Everything about our workshop is focused around you, your goals, your firm, your success and your clients. We have created a methodology that gets outstanding results, time and time again. But don’t just take our word for it - see what others have said: “The value I got from the workshop was phenomenal! It’s given me clarity on what I want in my future and helped me commercialise the

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advisory part of my business (and stop giving away stuff for free). It opened my eyes and showed me how easy it was to start a conversation with clients, help them achieve their goals and implement an advisory service.” Stephen Paul, Valued “I’ve always known what the possibilities are for delivering strategic planning and advisory services within my client base. But Clarity has opened my eyes to a quick, safe and structured way of doing it. Clarity is a great conversation starter and the uptake has been breathtaking already. Steve and Aynsley have a wealth of experience and information which they are willing to share. They are keen and enthusiastic to help you reach your potential. And it feels genuine and authentic too. It’s not just about using Clarity. They

clearly want to move the industry on and help accountants provide businesses with the support they really need.” Paul Miller - Cornish Accounting “By attending this workshop and by using Clarity with prospects, I am overwhelmed by business coming my way. Prospects have said to me that, “no one has ever asked them questions like that before”, “I’ve never been so excited about my business” and “It’s like you’ve lit some fire beneath me” David Mahwe - Muson Hills “Clarity bridges the gap between cloud-based management accounting work and smaller SME Corporate Finance work and naturally creates a pipeline of acquisition, funding and exit planning work. I was expecting that the workshop

would only gloss over the mechanics of your system and was very pleasantly surprised by the detail and proper training you are providing. The fact you have automated the advisory service to a certain extent by creating the tools you have gives staff the confidence to engage with this type of advisory work” Chris Kelly - Whiting & Partners See for yourself, at the get clarity workshop series, how our revolutionary approach can fast track your firm to advisory,

FIND OUT MORE... To find out more and register click here

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What’s the future of Making Tax Digital and digital accounting?

@MarketFinance

Chris Findlow, Head of Partnerships, MarketFinance Chris Findlow is Head of Partnerships at MarketFinance. He’s passionate about helping SMEs get access to funding and working with entrepreneurs to free up more time to focus on growing their business.

How digital accounting is changing the tax landscape Over the past few years, HMRC’s ‘Making Tax Digital’ (MTD) initiative has been a regular topic in XU Magazine. But with Making Tax

Digital for VAT now up and running, what does the future rollout of MTD look like? And how can you ensure that your firm is ready?

hris Findlow, Head of Partnerships at MarketFinance, looks at the history and future of MTD and the need for a flexible digital accounting setup at the heart of your accounting firm. We live in a digital world. Our lives and our businesses are run and managed using online tools, digital solutions and a diverse, customised set of apps in our app stacks. And with the move to online banking, Open Banking and a growing network of fintech solutions, the financial world is ever more digital in its nature. So, why should tax be any different? Making Tax Digital is HM Revenue & Customs’ (HMRC) initiative to upgrade, streamline and digitise the tax system. Generally speaking, the key aims of MTD are: • To make it simpler and more effective for companies and individuals to submit their tax information – and to move this process into the digital space. • To make it easier for HMRC to

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access the relevant data, in a digital format – and for returns to be digitally submitted on a more frequent basis. • To reduce errors, late returns and missing data – and by doing so increase the tax revenues coming into the Treasury.

cope with MTD. A digital platform streamlines the key accounting processes and, most importantly, keeps you and your clients MTDcompliant.

Digital accounting allows you to: • Record your clients’ financial transactions • Digitise and “For most Xero store the relevant accounting practices, data • Output clients’ MTD shouldn’t tax information in be a hassle. The the right format the and technology for HMRC

This means businesses and (in the near future) individual taxpayers will need to digitally record infrastructure are their financial already in place.” transactions and The digital submit digital tax technology and the returns. And to do this, infrastructure are already your firm and your clients need in place for many firms. And this to have the right accounting has meant that getting clients software and infrastructure in ready for the initial rollout of place. Making Tax Digital for VAT was a relatively straightforward process A digital accounting platform at for most tech-savvy advisers and the heart of your offering their business clients. When your firm’s key processes are based around an online accounting platform, this puts you in a far better position to

But with further expansion of MTD on the agenda, what will the future of MTD look like?

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MTD

Making Tax Digital – the timeline to 2023 Making Tax Digital for VAT was the first stage of MTD to go live back in April 2019. It’s now mandatory for all VAT-registered businesses with a turnover over the £85,000 registration threshold to submit quarterly digital VAT returns. So ‘going digital’ is no longer just a nice-to-have for the average business owner. It’s a mandatory legal requirement, and that’s put some real impetus behind the digital transformation of the nation’s small and medium-sized businesses. In any business economy there will be a mix of tech savvy early adopters and reluctant technophobes. But it’s the businesses that fully embraced cloud technology and online accounting early that have found it easiest to get up to speed with MTD. If your clients have been filing their quarterly VAT returns via Xero for some time, the switch to MTD will probably have been totally imperceptible. Their bookkeeping is automated, their documents are all saved in Xero and your team can quickly pull together a digital return within the software and submit this digitally to HMRC.

The challenge: many selfemployed individuals and property owners will have an extremely basic accounts process in place. Switching clients and prospects over from outmoded spreadsheets and paper files could well be an uphill struggle. There’s likely to be a need for some education around the many benefits of a digital approach and how this helps clients to manage their finances more effectively. • April 2026 (TBC): MTD for Corporation Tax – the plan has always been for MTD to be expanded to cover all business and income taxes at a future point in time. But it looks likely that MTD for Corporation Tax (CT) won’t become a reality for some time. The challenge now is that MTD The challenge: at present, is expanding – and that means MTD for CT is some way off. getting your smaller sub-£85,000 HMRC is currently running turnover businesses, sole traders a Consultation on MTD for and property owners ready for Corporation Tax and is looking digital returns. for feedback from businesses, Here’s the current agents and timeline: “The challenge developers • April 2022: MTD now is that MTD is around how for all VATexpanding – and this could work. registered that means getting A pilot scheme businesses your smaller clients will be made – the first ready for digital available, but MTD step will be for Corporation Tax an expansion returns.” is unlikely to become of MTD for VAT. mandatory before 2026, From the start of the at the earliest. So, firms will 2022/23 tax year, MTD for VAT need to run MTD-compliant will be extended to cover all returns for some business VAT-registered businesses, taxes, with CT still dealt with in regardless of turnover. So, if a the traditional online manner. client submits and claims VAT, it will be mandatory to do this via Broadening your understanding the HMRC digital portal. of client’s financial situation The challenge: Getting smaller and micro businesses up to You could be forgiven for speed and switched over to a thinking that preparing for MTD fully digital process could be is a compliance job. But, in fact, a lengthy process, so it’s best this mandatory switch to digital to start this transformation as accounting has the potential to early as possible. revolutionise your clients’ financial • April 2023: MTD for selfmanagement. And, by doing so, assessment – the next step transform the value you can add will be the extension of MTD to as their adviser. self-employed individuals and partnerships. This will cover Smaller clients may currently be self-assessment income tax for weighed down by paper records, sole traders and also private outdated desktop accounting landlords with £10,000+ of and complex Excel spreadsheets. annual property income.

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Switching to digital accounting is likely to be a revelation. By going digital, you can: • Get real-time reporting – with a real-time accounting system, you and your clients have all the latest business data and management information at your fingertips 24/7. This helps to improve oversight and allow faster, more insightful decisions. • Track performance more accurately – setting clear targets and recording these metrics is hugely beneficial. You and your client can see their companies’ financial and nonfinancial performance over time and spot the opportunities for improvement. • Track tax liabilities in realtime – carefully recording every transaction makes it easier to see the impact on the clients’ tax liabilities. See how much

VAT, CT or income tax needs to be paid, plan out the payments and ensure the appropriate cash is available. • Keep clients MTD-compliant – with a digital accounting platform, you ensure that all client tax returns can be dealt with either in the online or digital space. This keeps your clients compliant with MTD and improves the firm’s tax processes. • Improve clients’ access to funding and finance – lenders will want access to clients’ financial information and cash flow forecasts before supplying any funding. This is far easier to do when you have access to the client’s digital accounts – increasing the client’s chances of successfully accessing extra funding. The digitisation of the small business economy is gathering

pace. So adapting and evolving to achieve the benefits of digital should be front and centre of your firm’s strategy. A digital firm is more streamlined, more efficient and far better aligned with the needs of MTD. Tax and accounting may be the first business areas where you’ll see the benefits of digital. But having a digital platform at the centre of your accounting firm paves the way for all manner of long-term efficiencies and insights.

FIND OUT MORE... Find out more about MarketFinance and how we support your accounting firm: marketfinance.com/ accountants

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Closing the rule book

on old methods – how to make advisory as

natural as compliance While there has been a notable increase in demand for services that could be packaged and charged as advisory services, the shift from compliance to advisory has been slower than many have envisaged.

t Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK, we support customers with tools and processes that make client advisory as natural as producing a tax return. Here we share why there is such a slow shift to advisory and some practical tips to becoming an advisory practise. Client needs have significantly evolved over the past few years.

First, it was a shift to the digital age with Making Tax Digital, then uncertainty brought on by Brexit, followed by a global pandemic. Many of our customers have seen an increase in demand for their client advice, real-time information and quick access to data. While there has been a notable increase in demand for services that could be packaged and

@wolterskluweruk

Wendy Rowe, Director (TAA Europe), Wolters Kluwer Wendy has been with the company for over 18 years. Rowe’s focus is on how a business strategy and product vision can evolve through its customers and people. She translates customer needs into a software approach that solves pain points and provides new opportunities. Wendy is responsible for governing the Cloud Strategy Operations vision and strategy for Europe.

charged as advisory services, the shift from compliance to advisory has been slower than many have envisaged. At Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK, we support customers with tools and processes that make client advisory as natural as producing a tax return. Here we share why there is such a slow shift to advisory and some practical tips to becoming an advisory practise. Tracking a growing market We conducted interviews with practices in nine countries across Europe and a common piece of feedback was that firms do not believe the shift from compliance to advisory is accelerating as fast as they envisaged. That said, whilst many conversations with clients started with a compliance task, most ended up involving advice as well. The advisory work was on a reactive basis, responding to requests from clients. This seems like a contradiction. How can the shift from compliance to advisory be slow

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when the demand is clearly there, and the environment created by recent uncertainty has primed practices to take on more clients? One consideration is that firm don’t have advisory embedded into the DNA of their business, as they have with compliance.

the tools, strategy and processes in place that drive an efficient chargeable process for completing compliance tasks. Advisory should be no different.

Put simply – they don’t have the tools or processes to support that change to advisory, nor do they have a strategy to make a start.

The art of segmentation

Tools and strategy: the keys to unlocking advisory services Many practices already provide advisory services to their clients when asked, but they lack standardised processes on how those services are monetised or managed within the practice – from the monitoring of deadlines to the billing of the work that is completed. Does this resonate with you today? You may be providing snippets of advice on the back of compliance work, which makes it difficult for you to sell and charge for the extra value you’re providing. Your clients might already have expectations that this advice is packaged into your services. Demonstrating that tangible value is key in this scenario. The next challenge is to answer the more difficult question - can you say no to compliance work that is potentially easier to win, to make room for higher-value services? Whilst it might be deeply entrenched within your practice to provide a set amount of compliance tasks, making room for standardised processes for advisory is a conscious decision that must be made. It requires a strategy. Identifying the need and offering advice at the right time, to the right client who will pay for that advice, is difficult and can be very time consuming. This will also require a strategy. Think about how you provide compliance today. You have

Developing your advisory service offering is by no means an allor-nothing task. Start with one service offering - you should consider not taking on too much at once, otherwise, this will harm the customer experience and first impressions matter. Look inwardly at the skill set you have within your practice. Do you have the right people with the skills to offer advisory services to your clients? If not, is there the potential to upskill your existing employees or is it a completely new skill you are looking for? The next step is to consider your existing client base and get to know their needs, vision and challenges. They may already be asking you questions that should give you visibility of the pain points that require addressing. These questions will help you establish the services that you can offer them today. Once you start the process of reviewing your clients, you will see similar requests or topics emerge. Segmenting clients into can be an invaluable way for you to give tailored advice to each segment and, therefore, to each client. It is an efficient way of understanding what level of value you can offer. Building layers of advisory services across your client base At a basic level, most, if not all, of your client relationships start with compliance. There may be clients who are only interested in a relationship during selfassessment season. These clients may have some way to go before shifting their mindset that your role of trusted adviser could improve their business. These

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clients form your base layer. With clients expecting more in less time and at a lower price, automated systems can help you produce figures quickly, giving you opportunities to monetise higher-value services to make up for lost profit. This is the next layer of services, which includes reporting and analysing your clients’ business health and key performance indicators. You might already have clients requesting real-time information. Business intelligence, financial reporting and growth planning can be monetised based on value. Better yet, they can be provided efficiently if you have the right tools. Finally, the third layer of advisory services is a strategic offering, where you come into your own as a trusted adviser. Layer two provides the figures, but level three is where an extraordinary advisor turns those figures into valuable insights. This is where you can take complex financial figures and turn them into decisions about what to do next for the business. You can use tools to make a genuine difference to your clients, ensuring your advice is relevant and your practise remains invaluable. Putting a price on your value For your practice to take advantage of new revenue opportunities, consider changing the way you are valued by your clients. This requires a change in mindset, from being valued for

Issue 27 / 99

your time to being valued for your insights. You will need to decide what value to place on services and expertise in the business. Once you have decided on a pricing model, the next step is to review existing clients’ pricing agreements and how they can be adjusted. What tools do you have available? Having the right tools in place to enable great conversations and show your clients what you can offer them is the next important step. You might already be providing some level of this service to your clients, such as using reporting functions within your existing software. Having a financial reporting tool is a very good starting point to turn that data in your software into actionable insights. If you want more information about these tools, you can learn more about them here. Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK has

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launched a new cloud tool, finsit, that makes providing insights and financial reporting effortless. So, with the demand for your advice and a strategy in place, there should be nothing to stop you from offering additional services. To sum up, here are our top five tips for turning your vision of advisory into reality. Five steps for turning your advisory vision into reality 1. To embed advisory as part of the DNA in your practice, you will need to ensure your practice has the skills, strategy and tools to sell and provide advisory services. 2. Ensure that you use your valuable expertise where it is most needed. Segmentation is key, as you are more likely to gain greater value by investing these services in the clients who will most value your work and advice. 3. Manage client expectations about the value of your advice.

Think about what you will continue to offer alongside compliance. More importantly, think about what you should stop offering for free with compliance and monetise your advice instead. 4. Ensure that you start to commoditise the insights that you have in your system. You are likely to have valuable data from your clients - start there. 5. Find ways to make advisory a natural part of the services you provide - one that your clients will really value. This is where your strategy will come into its own.

Find out more... Find out more about our cloud insights tool today.

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Issue 27 / 101

Cover Case Study Story

Boost your advisory power with technology and help clients change their businesses for the better From the moment I was on the call with Michelle, I could see her professionalism and entrepreneurial spirit shining through the screen, along with her passion for

@WorkflowMax

Natalie Prescott-Brann, Head of Sales - Northern Hemisphere, WorkflowMax I love working with small business clients and the accounting channel to uncover the best solutions for success. It’s truly rewarding to build relationships and connect people with the perfect match of software, so they can spend more time on the important stuff!

helping her clients use both WorkflowMax and Xero.

et me introduce Michelle Janse van Rensburg. She’s an accountant by trade and always knew she was destined to start her own company from a young age. Today she’s the managing director of Nimacc Business Lounge – a dynamic, digitally savvy consulting firm based in South Africa. Michelle and her team cover most aspects of modern business such as business analysis, system development, implementation, and training, alternative finance solutions, brand development and digital marketing. One aspect of their work is implementing systems like Xero, WorkflowMax and Xero Practice Manager to help their clients succeed.

be the person that could align the two.”

An entrepreneur from the get-go, Michelle laughs at the memory of selling her school projects for pocket money. Jump ahead to adulthood and that entrepreneurial drive was still there when she left her accounting job at PricewaterhouseCoopers to start Nimacc Business Lounge just five years ago.

WorkflowMax plus Xero equals the right match for Nimacc’s professional services clients

“I saw a gap between the gut instinct that a business owner has about their numbers and the facts that software can empower them with,” says Michelle. “I wanted to

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Now with a powerful team of 20, Nimacc isn’t in the business of plugging holes. Instead, they provide cloud-based, long-term solutions and tell clients to dream big. By doing a strategic discovery process followed by software implementation and training, Nimacc’s clients know what their numbers mean on a day-today basis, not just when they hand everything over to their accountant at year end. “To see the pure joy when they realise they’ve actually got the numbers at their fingertips and it starts to make sense – that’s what I love about my job,” says Michelle.

Michelle started using Xero seven years ago and likes it because it speaks in a language that the entrepreneur can understand. So simple and yet so powerful at the same time. Then when she discovered WorkflowMax, she knew it would also be a good fit for Nimacc and her clients who manage jobs and projects. “We started using WorkflowMax at Nimacc and saw that it’s just

easy,” says Michelle. “It’s simple to use. I love that we can log on from our phones and find clients or jobs, and track time from wherever we are. And it’s got really intuitive reporting.” Michelle says that in the beginning they worked with a couple of WorkflowMax team members to get set up. “We liked what we saw and signed up to become a WorkflowMax advisor – which was also an easy process. We got the right guidance from the start and now we provide that guidance to our clients.” Nimacc’s clients include business consultants, engineering firms and research firms, manufacturing companies and other professional service businesses. If there’s project management involved in their work and they have to manage tasks and milestones, Michelle believes WorkflowMax will be a very good fit. “There are many apps from the Xero app marketplace that we could recommend but we really only implement a handful of them. We truly believe in the value that WorkflowMax offers our clients. From its value for money to its ease of use and functionality,” says Michelle. Combined with Xero,

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Case Study WorkflowMax offers business owners one source of financial truth that’s visible anytime, anywhere. And it shines a light on profitability. “Many business owners are really good at sales and running their business, but they don’t always know how much profit they’re making per job. WorkflowMax reports give them that clarity. Whenever we implement WorkflowMax, we set up custom reports for our clients so they get the exact data they need. Being able to track milestones and set up recurring jobs are also huge benefits,” says Michelle. Left: Michelle Janse van Rensburg, Managing Director, Nimacc Business Lounge

Time-saving features and automation really do change how a business can operate Michelle offers a few more examples of how technology like WorkflowMax can empower businesses. She explains that if you’ve got a team of consultants and you’re taking an hour or two every day or second day to hold project status meetings, that’s a lot of non-billable time over a week. “If you implement software like WorkflowMax, you can do the same meeting in 15 minutes. That’s because you can use WorkflowMax to track time and tasks, show the last communication with clients, check the status of quotes and so much more. So if your ten consultants get back 90 minutes every couple of days, and you’re billing each consultant at X, it’s easy to see how these numbers affect your bottom line.” She also has clients who have been able to automate at least one role in their business and move that team member to another area like sales or account management. “WorkflowMax helps companies automate previously manual tasks so there’s more time to spend on clientfacing roles which can help grow the business and build stronger relationships,” says Michelle.

Now’s the right time to expand your app advisory offering Michelle believes (and I do too!) that if you have clients that operate in consulting or project management industries, it helps both of you if you’re on board with the different apps that integrate with Xero and how they can help your clients. She says, “Knowledge of Xero, WorkflowMax and other software will help you deliver better business advice and support. The information that these systems give you can help you advise clients on where they can increase their margins and profitability.” She also feels that now is the right time to convince more clients to fully digitise their processes. “As we’ve all seen, if you can’t get to your office or see your staff every day, you need one version of truth and you need to be able to access your data easily. Cloudbased technology gives you this information plus added value that an old legacy system simply doesn’t offer,” says Michelle. One of the best parts of my conversation with Michelle was about uncovering where she’s leading the Nimacc business

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into the future...and Michelle has big goals! She says, “When we started out, our clients were your smaller sized businesses. With the systems available in the Xero app marketplace today – like WorkflowMax – we’re now servicing larger international clients as well.” “Cloud-based technology is helping expand our footprint and inspire global change in terms of the way business owners operate and in terms of the way they understand their numbers. I’m very proud of the work we do and how we’re helping businesses become more efficient, automated and effectively improve their bottom line,” she concludes.

FIND OUT MORE... Sign up to do the WorkflowMax advisor course – it’s free: workflowmax.com/advisor Contact us to discuss how to become an implementation partner: workflowmax.com/ contact-us

Issue 27 / 103

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Issue 27 / 105

Book CoverReview Story

Book Review:

Everything you need to know

It’s not an e-book. It’s not a long brochure. It’s 88,000 words explaining everything you need to know about Xero Practice Manager.

about Xero Practice Manager XU Magazine’s CEO, David Hassall, received a copy of Will McTavish’s and Reuben Sweeney’s new book. David told us of his appreciation when reading this new title which

he dubbed as “A 6-week training module bundled into one book, but not quite pocket sized!”

ritten by Will McTavish & Reuben Sweeney (Founders of Link Solutions) this is nearly a decade’s worth of knowledge extracted from two minds that know all there is to know about Xero Practice Manager (XPM). Newly released in February 2021 this book really is a first of its kind. I am a big fan of any practical content which is going to help propel the reader to get from A to B in the most efficient way possible. This book seems to have been created simply with that in mind, cover to cover it is all practical implementation with

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a seasoning of theory on how to best run your practice.

but is always followed on by a practical example (see Fig. 1). The detail in these examples Going from setting up clients to ensures that you’ve understood it job management and correctly. Some key profitability reporting, integrations are If you want this book covers it covered between to become an all. As well as the XPM, Xero, Practice expert running practical setup and Ignition and Link an accounting implementation Reporting (see practice, this within XPM Fig. 2). These are it also covers enough to ensure book is for some general best that you can start you. practices relevant to automate the flow for accounting and of data between systems bookkeeping firms of all sizes. whilst ensuring that you keep Each section is clearly laid out XPM as your single source of to give you the area of training truth. The flow between XPM

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Book Review

time estimate of four hours to each of these tasks inside our job template.

job rollover by adding these estimated times to the job template. GST is a great example here. We may determine that on average a GST return takes two hours

Variable tasks

to prepare and file. We can add this two-hour estimate to the tasks on the job template. We may also determine that it takes 1.5 hours to review a set of annual

Variable tasks on a job template describe any task that varies in duration from

accounts so we can add this estimate too. These tasks will be ready to schedule as

client to client. A task like annual accounts will vary depending on the complexity

soon as the job rolls over each year.

and volume of transactions in the annual accounts being prepared. Time estimates for these tasks will need to be calculated from the budget of the engagement. The

To arrive at an estimated time for ‘Annual Accounts – Preparation’, however, we

challenge we are faced with is that we are unlikely to have expressly priced each line in

need to approach it a bit differently. We have to figure out what time budget is

our proposal to the customer, we may have just provided them a list of services and a

left after we have allocated the times to our standard tasks. Another challenge we

single price, such as $3,000 per annum.

have is that all of our staff are billed out at different rates that reflect their skills and experience. We are unlikely to know who will be performing this work yet.

Let’s take a look at an example:

So to do this we’re going to need to use a task rate for each of our standard tasks. These task rates can be found in ‘Business > Settings > Tasks’ and represent the

Say we have an annual engagement for Barry’s Boxers & Briefs Limited with a

average billable rate of the people who typically perform this task. Because our

budget of $3,000 that includes preparation and filing of annual accounts, with

organisation settings are set to ‘Staff Billable Rates’ for our invoicing, these task

six bi-monthly GST returns. The job template we apply to our recurring jobs

rates are very rarely used – except here.

in XPM or our engagement rollover in Practice Ignition may look like this: Our task billable rates might be:

•

Annual Accounts – Preparation

•

GST $100 per hour

• •

Annual Accounts – Review

•

Annual Accounts $150 per hour.

•

GST - June/July

•

GST - August/September

• •

GST - October/November

•

GST - February/March

GST - April/May Here is an updated view of our job so far: Task

GST - December/January

A job template like this may be called ‘Annual Accounts + Bi-Monthly GST’. Some of the tasks in this template may have time estimates that don’t vary much from client to client. Others will vary depending on the complexity, volume or scope of the services being delivered.

Time

Rate

Annual Accounts – Preparation

$150

Billable Value Y

Annual Accounts – Review

$150

$300

GST – April/May

$100

$200

GST – June/July

$100

$200

GST – August/September

$100

$200

180

Everything you need to know about Xero Practice Manager

181

As XPM is very much a like-for-like of WorkflowMax (WFM), I believe that most of the content in this book would be relevant to other service-based organisations using WFM. However, the content within this book itself can draw little criticism but I believe a followon deep-dive into the world of integrations and automation between software solutions (XPM being the cog in the centre of the wheel), would be a priceless asset for accountants and bookkeepers looking to build a scalable and efficient practice. We had a teaser of this but I was left wanting more.

Fig. 2

and Xero is a natural one but it is clear, and something I learnt during this read, that you still need to implement best practice when linking these together. Visual representation throughout this book (eg. as seen in Fig. 3) ensures that in whichever way you digest information - you should be covered.

leaves, like you do with training sessions. You can keep referring back to it and learning more. For any users of XPM, new or experienced, I expect this to be a must-have tool that will sit on

your desk and constantly be referred to.

BUY THE BOOK

Our verdict:

For more information and to buy the book, click here.

The great thing about this book is that you don’t lose all of the knowledge when the expert

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Fig. 3

Fig. 1

For tasks we can estimate ahead of time, we can save ourselves time each year at

Issue 27 / 107

The working from home revolution means spend management is more important than ever!

@compleatp2p

James Vear, General Manager APAC, Compleat Software James joined Compleat’s UK team back in 2017 with experience in financial and payment software, having previously worked at Xero Australia and PS Financials. He now heads up Compleats APAC Division in Melbourne Australia.

Over the last year, most business staff have been forced to work from home. This was a necessity that we found ourselves in. But now that we are slowly on the other side of the worst of the pandemic, why are business and their staff not flocking back into offices around the world?

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s many predicted, the working from home revolution is here to stay. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 41% of people with a job worked from home at least once a week. This is a huge increase compared to the pre-pandemic stats of only 24%.

new job said the most important thing to them in a new role is flexibility to work from home”. They said this has overtaken the more traditionally most important items such as money or future promotions. Candidates would rather forgo money in place of being able to work from home more regularly.

A recruiter in Melbourne told me that “Every candidate looking for a

So, we know that people want the flexibility of working from

home going forward, it will be an important part of company culture and the way they recruit talent. But how will this effect the way we spend money within the company? Money is going to be tighter Initially, every business that managed to survive will want to count every cent. Keeping staff was key, but with that comes

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sacrifice. That sacrifice comes in the form of large office spaces and other expensive overheads. Automation is the start You will hear the word automation everywhere these days. Every software claims to be able to automate and save your business time and money (most of them can!). However, with money being tight, you will need to make decisions about what type of Now we’re past automation is most the worst of important to your pandemic, the business.

why aren’t businesses flocking back into offices?

Traditionally, most would go down the staff expenses route, but this type of technology is not at the top of the list anymore. Expense software lacks control as the money has already been spent when the automation kicks in.

Accounts Payable automation is going to be a key part of the working from home revolution. Purchasing with approved suppliers and having invoices captured and approved as quick as possible will be the greatest value to a business going forward. Control is the next step Automating the finance process is one thing, but the next step is gaining control over how and what staff are purchasing. Working from home has made this more important than ever! Before the pandemic it was much easier to keep control on what staff were purchasing. If a business had a solid process, they would have a list of suppliers that were approved and potentially have deals with those suppliers for better than list price. The first problem that the old process faces in the new world is that there are no central delivery sites anymore. Meaning deals on prices could become defunct and delivery charges may change

drastically.

to undertake.

Without an online system in place, staff will revert to purchasing goods themselves and expensing them. This is where the business instantly loses control and will see budgets bulge quicker than usual. Putting in a system that allows a business to control where and what staff spend their budgets on gives the greatest level of control seen yet.

This is when having all your data at line level, digitally, comes in handy. Using AI and BI, we can now analyse this data to find out where a business can save money on certain purchasing categories. Using systems like iCompleat P2P can help move the businesses into being fully automated from start to finish but using the power of Compleat Procure we can give you substantial savings on purchasing that would never have been possible previously.

Ultimately, the revolution on working from home has begun already. In my opinion, it has been coming for Businesses that a long time. The survived will pandemic has count every just accelerated cent. Keeping the timeline.

Gaining purchasing insight to save money So, what if you have already made the smart decision to automate your purchasing and invoice process?

staff is key but brings sacrifice…

Most business are likely to have been purchasing repeat items from the same supplier for a long period of time. The price of those items may not have changed at all, so you think you are getting the best deal possible, but are you really? Some switched on finance teams will go through a process of negotiating better deals for those items or even explore alternative brands and suppliers. This is a long process, however, and one that only a few larger businesses would have the time or resource

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Businesses that have limited resource and budget need to take action into how they are going to gain control on spending and ultimately save money before it’s too late.

FIND OUT MORE... Put the ‘Pro’ back into Supplier Invoice Processing: compleatsoftware.com/ accounting-automation

Issue 27 / 109

Case Study

Reducing emissions and odours for a cleaner future How Armatec Environmental Ltd apply

their practical environmental expertise to the industry

@tidyint

Michelle Nicol, Chief Storyteller, Tidy International Michelle is a copywriter, trainer and brand storyteller who helps businesses tell their story through words that attract attention. A former BBC journalist, she loves nosing out a great story and sharing her writing expertise through training and workshops.

Armatec Environmental Ltd is New Zealand’s leading supplier of air pollution control equipment and industrial fibreglass products. We speak to Managing Director, Bryan Holyoake about how they help clients manage emissions and odour control through chemical engineering expertise and technical innovation.

rmatec has seen lots of changes over its 30 years in business, including growing awareness and legislation to protect the environment. Bryan believes that their success comes from a vital drive to protect Earth’s eco-system that’s matched with practical, commercial concerns. “People are much more aware of the environment, absolutely, but they’re economically rational as well,” he says. “If you run a multimillion-dollar manufacturing organisation or food processing facility, you’re not going to overspend on a space that simply doesn’t need it. You’re likely going to go bankrupt if you make decisions like that. So, what we do is only as valuable as the business case. If they don’t see any value in reducing emissions or odour, they wouldn’t even call us.” Industrial problem solvers “Problem-solving, practical environmentalists” is how Bryan describes this family-owned business. Clients from a range of industries including wastewater utilities, dairy plants, pulp and paper manufacturers and food and chemical producers seek out Armatec’s environmental

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expertise as he explains: “Here in New Zealand, local government and councils give companies and organisations permission to emit a certain amount of gases and particulates as part of their processes. They must achieve a certain emission limit. Otherwise, they’re in breach and could be shut down, and generally those limits are continuing to get more and more stringent. So, most industries need a form of scrubbing solution in order for them to fit under those limits. That’s where we come in. We are able to provide the equipment and design the technology, size and optimise it for them.” Armatec’s products range from fibreglass pipes and tanks to specialised air scrubbers that filter out noxious gases. They have a mix of international and locally developed product ranges and technologies to help solve problems for different industries and are a world-leading solution provider in their target industry sectors. In an ever-changing global environment, Armatec understands how important it is for business to remain flexible

and to solve problems by building better products and systems. Bryan says: “We’re constantly innovating and miniaturising our technologies and making them easier for our clients to use, specify, understand and maintain.” Leading by example Armatec apply high standards of health and safety and quality assurance to their work and don’t drag their heels when it comes to their own environmental responsibility. They are committed to a zero waste to landfill programme and are in the first year of signing up to Toitū, New Zealand’s leading carbon certification programme. This environmental consciousness combined with pragmatic business thinking has brought the company significant success both at home and internationally. Armatec were a key technology provider to enable an Egyptian fertiliser manufacturer to secure the investment to expand their operations and add significant value to its production and operations. As Bryan explains, the process that turns rock into fertiliser

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Case Study

produces gases that form hydrofluoric acid, and these gases must be safely removed from the process to prevent discharge to the atmosphere. “The only way for them to obtain the loan to build the facility was if they had proof that they could achieve the World Health Organisation’s stringent emissions standards. We provided the technology that enabled the entire process to go ahead. We designed and built the system and shipped it to them. Without a technology like ours, the project wouldn’t have gone ahead.” “They are hitting world standards in terms of being one of the world’s leading plants now, which is wonderful,” he continues, “And we’re in the process of commissioning the second plant.” Embracing cloud technology Bryan sees the business as a practical enabler: “To reduce the environmental impact of industry, our role in the market is to make sure that the emission control technology is available, that it’s reliable, effective, that it’s locally, supported, and trustworthy and does what it says on the tin,” he explains. “One of the key reasons we chose Tidy in the first place was because as a manufacturing organisation we needed a solution that was able to take account of equipment, labour and materials in managing a project and you’d be surprised about how hard that was to find that type of solution that fitted our dynamic business.”

“We were previously in the dark ages operating off Excel spreadsheets, and Tidy were very responsive to what I was asking for and quickly moved to try to make that a plausible outcome. And it was really, really good to have a New Zealand based company to be able to share those desires with.” Armatec use TidyEnterprise to track all their manufacturing projects including costs of equipment, materials and labour and link that through to Xero for invoicing. It helps them keep customers informed about project timelines and is key to managing prices and costs. Bryan says: “We use it for managing our supplier information. We have a product catalogue that we host in Tidy as a source of truth in terms of the costs of this product catalogue.” “We’ve also introduced IoT (Internet of things) into our equipment so we can get continual feedback about what the systems are doing. That knowledge has been very helpful in providing a wider context about where our products are being used and the health of them. We’ve recently signed our first service contract on the back of that technology. That is a worldwide future trend for our markets and we share in that vision.” According to a forecast from International Data Corp, companies like Armatec that continue to adopt cloud

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computing are helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, potentially preventing more than 1 billion metric tons of CO2 from entering Earth’s atmosphere between 2021 and 2024.

Above: Armatec Environmental Ltd - some of the Taranaki NZ team

Practical environmentalists Bryan and the management team ensure that Armatec’s practical and commercial approach to environmental improvements benefits both the business and the wider community: “In my mind, every good business should have a strong bent towards how they can help as well as being commercially viable and have good returns for investors,” he says. “It should be a service that the community wants, whether that’s about employment, improving environments or from a New Zealand centric perspective, providing more export dollars to the country. All those things are important.” By developing new technology and employing the many advantages that cloud-based systems can offer, Armatec continues to play a leading role in helping industry to reduce emissions and sustain long-lasting environmental solutions.

FIND OUT MORE... To find out more about how you can make your business Tidy, visit: tidyinternational.com/ solutions

Issue 27 / 111

How Cloud Software Can Reduce Your AP Workload by 80% Spenmo is a spend management platform specializing in smart cards and automated payments

Mohandass Kalaichelvan, CEO and Founder, Spenmo Mohandass started his career as a management consultant with BCG. He then moved to Grab where he led regional strategy and launched multiple financial services products in SEA Today, he heads Spenmo, an aspiring fintech unicorn, which has already processed more than $200M of payments on an annualized basis.

Automation is a growing trend in a conducive business hub like Asia. Payments automation gives your business an edge against competitors, trims down unnecessary spending, and promotes productivity and efficiency.

any businesses in SEA remain stuck in manual processing that involves Excel spreadsheets, data entry, and tedious manual reconciliation. Finance professionals often spend too much time searching, entering, and organizing data. In a study, 30% of an employee’s average workday is devoted to searching for the right information. While automation services from SaaS providers are booming in the city-state, a lot of SMBs are still struggling to understand

and weigh in the pros and cons of accounting automation particularly on expense management and bill payments. The ugly truth behind current payment processes The accounting process is naturally designed to be inefficient. It involves a step-bystep process that consumes time and effort just to generate the right amount of money tagged as receivables and payables. From recognition to reconciliation, finance employees use as many

as 10 applications to complete the job. Considering how much time is wasted, finance employees often have limited time and rush their work to beat the deadline. This pressure results in errors and inconsistencies that lead to costly financial decision-making. Recently, the Singaporean government erroneously paid an excess of $370 million in wage support when wrong dates were used to determine the amount that 5,400 companies should get. This may not entirely be attributed to manual processing but business owners should realize the importance of cloud solutions in generating accurate data, reducing workflow by 80%, and coming up with cost-efficient business processing strategies. The benefits of using cloud payments software Automated expense management systems like Spenmo can lessen the workload by up to 80%. Spenmo offers solutions with great visibility to the spending of each employee and accrued expense making every information accessible and verifiable in real-time. Just like

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sending an email, employees can do fast and easy invoice recognition, payment, and reconciliation. There is no need to prepare spreadsheets and enter data manually and suffer the ugly consequences of inaccuracies. Cost-efficiency is another obvious benefit of automation. By preventing errors, businesses enjoy the guarantee of paying the right amount of wages, supplies, and bills. Spenmo offers the advantage of saving up to $1000 per month on foreign exchange

transactions as businesses leverage on 0% markup for overseas payments to suppliers and freelancers. Virtual cards that offer FX rates as low as 1.5% is an economical provision to SaaS subscriptions and marketing expenses paid in USD. Finance tech for fast-growing companies Fast-growing companies in Asia should consider automation and cloud solutions to futureproof their finances. In a study

conducted by Dell, businesses that invest in mobility, cloud, and big data see a 53% revenue increase compared to their competitors. It is undeniable that automation accelerates processes and operations while creating cost efficiencies and reducing risks.

FIND OUT MORE... Book a demo to see how you can supercharge your payments stack with Spenmo!

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Issue 27 / 113

Top ways job management software helps customers pay on time Tips to help your clients improve cash flow

@simprosoftware

Toni Duncan, Partner Manager New Zealand, simPRO With 5 years experience in the finance industry, Toni recently joined simPRO as a Partner Manager in New Zealand making the exciting leap into the SaaS world. Toni works with local accounting firms, bookkeepers, business and technology consultants, wholesalers and fellow SaaSbased software platforms to champion simPRO as a solution for their trade and field service clients.

Are your field service clients chasing down unpaid invoices right up until the final hour? Discover how your clients can better manage invoicing and payment processes and keep cash flowing.

he tedious task of tracking down field staff to check when, where, and what work they’ve completed, including hours worked and materials used, is undoubtedly causing a nightmare for your clients. Not to mention the wasted time spent manually comparing schedules to hours worked. This isn’t only an inefficient invoice management process, it’s a pesky and downright stressful task for everyone involved. In times like these, post COVID, businesses are working towards getting back to normal as restrictions begin to ease. Keeping cash flowing will help to keep their business ticking over and prosper in the future. As their trusted accounting advisor, you’ll be their reminder of this and have a unique opportunity to offer additional tools to support them. So how can you help your field service clients streamline their invoice payment process and avoid missing money? By recommending systems that can remove the manual processes in their existing invoice management

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workflows. Let’s take a look at the top ways your clients can use job management software to streamline their invoice payment process and get customers to pay on time.

streamlined invoice payment process enabling customers to quickly and easily pay for work as soon as it’s complete. As a result, your clients can avoid the lastminute scramble to get customers to pay.

Single database for Contacts Job management software like simPRO, provides a single location to store all customer information so your clients can stop wasting time trying to track down customer information for invoicing from multiple places and people in their business. A single database centralises all customer information. It keeps it organised and up-to-date so that invoices and payment reminders go to the right customer at the right time. Job management software not only houses all important customer information but can even automate sending customer invoices based on event triggers, such as field staff completing a job. This saves your clients time and helps them to provide a more

simPRO makes managing contact information in a single database even easier with duplicate contact reports and an option to merge contacts manually. Both features help remove duplicate contacts and keep contact databases clean, so that customer invoicing remains accurate and accessible by any member of your client’s team. Collect payments quickly and easily in the field Remote mobile apps allow field staff to make real-time updates to job progress and contact information right from the field. With the simPRO Mobile app it also enables them to issue an invoice and take payment from the field via Square integration capabilities. The Square Payments

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functionality makes it easy to include debit and credit card payment options for customers at the time of completed work. Using Square with simPRO is easy. Your clients simply pair Square’s contactless payment device with a tablet or smartphone to invoice and collect payments in the field. When a customer pays via Square, this updates in real-time to their simPRO database as well. The latest update to Square capabilities in simPRO also allows your clients to take recurring payments from customers automatically. By providing customers with a secure automatic payment option for ongoing recurring payments through the simPRO Customer Portal, your clients can charge recurring invoices automatically when they are due. As a result, your clients won’t forget to invoice customers, and customers will more likely pay ontime, keeping cash flow moving and helping your clients avoid the last-minute scramble for unpaid invoices. Get invoice alerts Cloud-based invoice tracking not only keeps track of invoices but also alerts your clients when they’re due or overdue. The latest invoicing update in simPRO shows an alert if your clients create

a new job for a customer with outstanding invoices. This allows your field service clients to easily follow up with customers on unpaid invoices as they find them, rather than waiting until the last minute or end of the month to track down missing payments. This feature gives your clients the ability to follow up on overdue funds before booking in more work with that customer, helping your clients to stay on top of their cash flow. It also provides more visibility and transparency into customer payment history for the right members of your client’s team. Seamlessly integrate accounting software Job management software not only makes it easier for customers to pay on time, but also helps your clients run more efficient business operations. To ensure a truly end-to-end solution, it’s important your client’s accounting software can integrate with their job management software. This will help to eliminate manual data entry, tedious hours crossreferencing transactions and keep both financial and business data accurate.

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Software such as simPRO quickly syncs with Xero enabling customer invoices, and more, to be sent directly from simPRO to Xero. With a direct bank feed to Xero, payments to your client’s bank account will also be linked to invoices that most likely match that payment. Once in Xero, these payments can be brought back to simPRO, keeping your client’s data consistent. A comprehensive end-to-end solution simPRO enables your clients to provide their customers with payment flexibility, create professional invoices from the field, and integrate with accounting solutions to streamline the invoice management process. As a result, your clients will see better cash flow and have more time to focus on completing work, winning new business and growing their company. Want to recommend simPRO to your clients? Get in touch with one of simPRO’s friendly Partner Managers.

FIND OUT MORE... Help your field service clients succeed! To find out more visit the simPRO website

Issue 27 / 115

What if your costs increased by over 10%?

Managing foreign exchange exposure More than a year after being declared a pandemic

by The World Health Organisation, the full and lasting

impact of COVID-19 on global trade remains to be fully

@WorldFirstLtd

Simon Smallwood, Head of Partnerships, WorldFirst UK Before joining WorldFirst Simon worked for a number of years with an SME and Accountancy focused Fintech business, having previously spent 8 years working for an Internationally focused UK based SME that he co-founded and is still running today. This provides Simon with a great insight into the benefits technology can bring to SMEs in managing their finances and the opportunities for Accountants, Bookkeepers and business owners alike.

understood. Casting a fresh spotlight on supply chain

vulnerabilities, the pandemic magnified problems that had been previously overlooked. The impact Covid-19 had on

supply and demand across the world economy triggered unprecedented levels of volatility and highlighted the importance of risk management for businesses.

n the years preceding the pandemic, the markets had remained relatively calm, and in spite of a few spikes in volatility in 2016 following the Brexit vote, 2018 and 2019 were somewhat stable. This meant many small businesses did not consider developing a company-wide foreign exchange policy. So, on March 20, 2020 when sterling fell to its lowest level against the US dollar for 35 years, with the GBP/USD exchange rate moving from 1.3157 to 1.1494 in the space of a few days (a shift of around 12.6%), companies that were making US-dollar payments from sterling during that period, without any forward contracts in place, would have witnessed a dramatic difference in the amounts received from the same payment had it been settled on March 10, compared to March 20. The trifecta of volatility, debt expansion and low interest rates

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therefore made businesses reexamine their risk management strategy in a way that hadn’t been done since the 2008 global financial crisis. Adopting a strategy to protect against foreign exchange risk and exchange rate volatility affecting import and export prices is subsequently more important than ever, but what can finance directors and business owners do to reduce risks from future fluctuations? Should you have a FX risk management strategy? If you or your clients raises a proportion of revenues or pays a proportion of costs in a foreign currency that is significant to your business, we think YES, it’s a

good idea to find out how a solid risk management strategy could benefit you. Strategies will vary in size and complexity according to business needs, but products are available that could help you approach potential exposure in a sensible and measured manner. Hedge against uncertainty Hedging can introduce predictability to your future FX rates, increase visibility of your cashflow, and protect your internal budgets and profit margins from foreign currency fluctuations. A forward exchange contract with WorldFirst can be entered to facilitate payments for identifiable

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goods, services or direct investment (making a capital investment in an enterprise to obtain a lasting interest in it). The main types of forward contracts WorldFirst offers are Fixed, Window and Flexible Forward Contracts. WorldFirst can help formulate a contract that suits the SMEs needs to make supplier payments or receive income by evaluating the risks and benefits of each strategy. Understanding that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach, WorldFirst offer a range of flexible hedging solutions that helps SMEs take advantage of favourable currency movements so they can focus on growth and stability. Flexible hedging strategies: • Static hedging: can be used to protect a budget rate by purchasing forward contracts to cover your budget rate for a chosen period. • Rolling hedging: involves simultaneously opening a new contract as the previous one expires - this could benefit a company that receives updated transaction forecasts on their FX exposure throughout the year. • Layered hedging: unlike static hedging, a layered hedging program uses forward contracts with different execution and value dates, unlike a static hedge that sets rates for the whole hedging period. Risk management solutions overview You can approach your currency risk in a number of different ways; from spreading out the purchasing of currency over an extended period to using

risk management and hedging methods to curtail your risk exposure to the FX market itself. WorldFirst specialise in the creation and execution of these strategies for our clients and we use a variety of different products and methods to achieve this:

currency agreed for immediate delivery can either be a rate better than where the market is trading (to try and catch the rate when it moves in your favour) or worse than where the market is trading (to ensure you have a worst-case rate).

Forward contracts

Firm orders

Buy or sell an amount of currency at or before a set time in the future. A forward contract is a hedging product that allows you to secure an exchange rate over a set period of time on a predetermined volume of currency. Forward contracts help mitigate currency risk without SMEs having to buy currency upfront on the spot market. The forward price is always based on the current spot price. With WorldFirst you will be able to lock in a rate 24 months in the future.

If you’ve got a target exchange rate in mind, but don’t have time to keep track of market movement, WorldFirst can act on your behalf. A firm order allows you to instruct us to execute a transaction at a rate of your choosing. When the rate hits your desired level, we’ll make the transfer the moment we can secure your currency at the agreed rate – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Spot contracts An order allows your company to agree to transact an amount of currency for immediate delivery (within 2 working days) if you can get a particular rate. We’ll offer you a rate based on a live market rate (or “spot”) and you can choose whether or not to transact then and there. The amount of

How can WorldFirst help? WorldFirst helps customers move money around the world with simple, fast and affordable FX transactions. Since starting out in 2004, more than 240,000 businesses have utilised our services to send more than £87bn around the world. In 2019, WorldFirst became part of the Ant Group, the operator of digital lifestyle platform Alipay, which serves 1.3 billion users worldwide with its global e-wallet partners. By leveraging one of the largest global commerce ecosystems since its coming together with Ant Financial (now Ant Group) in 2019, WorldFirst has accelerated its vision of becoming the best financial services platform for international business. Today, WorldFirst provides a range of tools and services far beyond global money transfer, with international payment and collection accounts, marketplace integration and hedging products.

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What does this mean for you? WorldFirst understands the level of expertise an accountant can bring to SMEs, that’s why we partner with accountants to help their clients save on their international money transfers with our tailored end-to-end solutions and accountancy software integrations. Our team of dedicated relationship managers will work with you on the best strategy for reaching and supporting your clients. Here are some of the ways they provide support:

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• Save SMEs time and money when paying international suppliers via our transparent pricing structure. • Provide robust hedging solutions to help protect a client’s profit margins. • Combining technology with fantastic personal service, to find the most suitable solutions to streamline their payment flows and business processes. • Customers are able to connect Xero to their WorldFirst currency accounts to seamlessly reconcile their transactions.

FIND OUT MORE... For more information on how your accountancy or bookkeeping practice can benefit from partnering with WorldFirst or how we can help your business visit our website: www.worldfirst.com/uk/ partners/accounting

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Bookkeeping, Community and Scrubs Meet Louise Ball MICB, Full-Time Bookkeeper and Mum and Part-Time Vaccinator

@ICBUK

Iris Christofides, Social Media and Digital Marketing Executive, ICB Global Having worked at ICB for over a year, I am passionate about copywriting, graphic design, and driving ICB forward. At ICB, we’re committed to upholding the standards of the bookkeeping profession, passionate about helping businesses succeed and determined to operate for the benefit of the many not the few.

Louise Ball is a bookkeeper on the Covid frontline. The owner of Eleven Accounts Services in Stockport has been juggling her new business, home-schooling and returning to the NHS to vaccinate the public as part of the monumental drive to end the deadly spectre of Covid-19.

fter working as a nurse for 10 years, Louise discovered her love for bookkeeping in 2018. Louise loves organisation, accuracy and being in control- everything needed to become an amazing bookkeeper! After studying

“Nursing and bookkeeping both require accuracy and documentation” Louise Ball MICB

with Ideal Schools and passing her ICB exams over the course of a year, Louise became an ICB Certified Bookkeeper. She has now risen through the ranks, gaining 15 clients in the last 12 months and is looking to expand her bookkeeping

practice despite the pressing demands on her time and her commitment to helping out in her community. Q: What is the size of your bookkeeping practice? A: It’s just me, I have 15 monthly clients at the moment. I offer a full virtual accounts department service for some of my clients. It’s very varied and I have gotten very busy in the last 12 months! This time last year I had two small clients of my own and I was also working part-time at an ICB Bookkeeping practice and then I got furloughed due to having two young children. As it became more evident that returning to work in an office wasn’t going to be feasible with the children and the uncertainty of life at the time, that’s when I started building from the two clients to the 15! Q: When did you start your bookkeeping journey? What challenges have you had to face and how have you overcome them? A: I started my bookkeeping

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journey when I was on my second maternity leave. I was a nurse previously and it had come to a point where I couldn’t be promoted because I wasn’t working full time hours. With two young children working full time wasn’t on my agenda, and I started to think, well what do I want out of life? I wanted to further myself because I had my children now but, I realised that maybe nursing wasn’t where I had my passion anymore, I wanted to find something that worked for me. So that’s when I was doing endless internet searches trying to find a new career path. It was important for me to be a professional because I had always been a registered professional in nursing and that’s something I wanted to carry on with joining ICB! I went to the Bookkeepers Summit as a student and got my first bookkeeping job! It was my first conference and I started talking to somebody who owned a bookkeeping practice and she said, ‘we’re always looking for bookkeepers- you don’t happen to live in Cheshire by any chance?’ and I said, ‘Well actually I do!’ We got to talking and she offered me a trainee role and that’s when I decided to fully transition from nursing to bookkeeping. Q: How do you feel about your PQ Award nomination for Personality of the Year? A: A bit embarrassed! I am blown away that they would even consider my nomination let alone shortlist me for the award. There are some amazing people in the category so it’s an honour to be amongst them. I was thinking I didn’t really fit into any of the categories when someone mentioned I should try out for Personality of the Year. I thought, well I’ve got nothing to lose so why not just fill it in! I had the application form on my phone late at night a couple hours before the deadline, basically filling it in saying this is what I’ve been doing for the last 12 months, and I got an email saying I’d been

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shortlisted! Q: How did you become a bookkeeping vaccinator? A: So, this time last year there was news in the press about how they were calling up nurses that had previously left and the panic was crazy! I didn’t feel like I could manage it with my kids, but I felt guilty. The last 12 months had been horrendous for people working in hospitals. I’ve got a lot of friends who are still doctors and nurses and I felt awful. I still wanted to do something, so I helped set up a mutual aid group for our area. We were sending leaflets, connecting neighbours, and setting up WhatsApp groups to encourage people to support each other. Initially we were getting people calling us saying ‘I need help I’m isolating’, ‘I need my prescription picking up’, ‘I can’t get any food’, you know all these things and we were matching people together that could help. That was quite intense at first because it was before the council had set up any services or there were any government initiatives. We carried on working together to set up a food bank collection; these WhatsApp groups would host a weekly foodbank and we’d send a box, and everyone would donate, and we’d then take that box to the local food bank to support them because their demands were increasing. At Christmas we collected presents within the community and the response was incredible - I was

absolutely blown away! We filled a church hall with brand-new high-quality Christmas presents to help local organisations and neighbours who were struggling to get gifts for their family. After that, because the government and the council support fell into place, the need for our group settled down and we began to adjust to the new normal. I thought to myself, what can I do now? A GP friend was involved with a vaccine clinic in South Manchester - an amalgamation of GP surgeries, and everyone was coming together, so I went back on the nursing register just to try to help a bit when I could. Q: Are people excited to get their vaccine? A: Some people come in skipping and others are quite anxious. It’s really rewarding to be able to help a little bit. Everyone wants it to be over and I want to do what I can to help everything go back to normal. Q: Are there similarities between nursing and bookkeeping? A: Nursing and bookkeeping both require accuracy and documentation. That’s something I was quite keen on in nursing, it increasingly became more about paperwork than patient care. But if there’s a box to fill in, I will always fill it in! I think that’s why bookkeeping attracted me

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Q: What are your hopes for the future?

because I like everything to be organised. Nursing on the other hand is a bit more chaotic and you can’t be in control most of the time. After 10 years of doing that, I like the control now. I’m still helping people; my clients say to me thank you I was so stressed etc thank me for relieving their stress. I like to do my work in a way where it’s always easiest for the client, I love to help them with their bookkeeping and their accounts.

A: Well, I hope these vaccinations get done quickly! I’ve got to a point now where I’m busy and I want to keep giving people the level of service they’re used to, so I’m thinking of growing my practice before I take on more clients. I have outsourced to a VA, and I am looking at outsourcing to another fellow bookkeeper to see how I can work that or if I should take on an employee. I’m making sure I’m developing my services as well and getting through my exams, which have been put on the back burner because I’ve just been so busy in the last 12 months! I’ve still got SelfAssessment Tax and Payroll to do so I can offer more services to my clients.

Q: Are you well connected with your community and has that helped your business? A: Yes! I think I’ve got two or three clients through community connections. One of my most recent clients is a Community Interest Company, told me she likes to work with people whose businesses help the community, so that’s why she chose me.

Find out more... Check out Louise’s bookkeeping business Eleven Accounts Services here. On April 29th ICB took home two PQ awards, one for Accountancy Body of the Year and ICB TV won the Innovation in Accountancy Award. If you missed it, you can watch the virtual awards show here. Want more ICB? Join us on the 14th-18th of June 2021 for this year’s Inspire Tour! Each day an ICB member will be taking to the main stage to share their insights and tips to help you be more successful. Experts will be keeping you informed about the latest technical developments affecting the profession and you’ll have the chance to try out the latest software. Tickets will be available on the 21st of May and can be found on our events page.

Help your clients plan for a brighter future Answer your clients’ key cash flow questions with Float.

Join Float’s partner program

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Interview

Q& A

Matt Vickers

GM Product, Xero

XU:

As we know, Xero has recently acquired Tickstar - but what do they actually do, and why did you choose them?

MV:

Tickstar is an e-invoicing infrastructure business based in Sweden. Tickstar hosts access points and other e-invoicing infrastructure that allows businesses like Xero to connect to e-invoicing networks, and exchange documents with other organisations. An easy way to think about how this works is through a postal analogy. An access point is like a block of mailboxes and an e-invoicing network is like the postal system. Tickstar hosts Xero’s customer’s mailboxes, and we can send invoices through that mailbox.

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The mail is then routed through the postal system until it arrives in someone else’s mailbox. Similarly, someone else can send an invoice to our customers via their mailbox that is also connected to the postal system. Why does Xero see e-invoicing as such an important feature?

We also expect e-invoicing to be mandated in several regions in the years ahead and are building solutions that ensure our customers can comply with any future e-invoicing legislation.

MV:

XU:

E-invoicing will only strengthen the impact of cloud accounting on small businesses and accountants. Automating the task of invoicing and bill entry will reduce admin time, eliminate errors and the risk of invoice fraud. The rollout of e-invoicing will be integral to Xero’s mission of creating beautiful software and simplifying workflows for accountants around the world.

Why is e-invoicing better than traditional methods of billing?

MV:

E-invoicing is by far the most efficient way to create, send and receive an invoice. In most cases today, accountants are manually entering the details of an invoice into accounting systems once they receive it. This can lead to significant errors, such as entering the wrong amount or bank

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Interview account. It can also lead to cash flow issues for small businesses that spend valuable time chasing customers for payments. E-invoicing sends invoices directly to an accounting system. The invoice arrives as a pre-populated bill, ready to be approved and paid. It removes the need for manual data entry, reducing the chance of error and saving time.

XU:

How does Tickstar work alongside

Xero?

MV:

Tickstar and its team of 10 people will operate as a Xero subsidiary company located in Stockholm, Sweden. The Tickstar team will continue to manage and grow the business, with additional support provided by a range of Xero functions.

parties are using software from the same provider. However, we are beginning to see the emergence of global e-invoicing standards and networks, which has the potential to allow people trading internationally to completely automate those relationships, with both buyer and seller being able to utilise their existing software. Over time, this has the potential to vastly speed up international trade efficiency while allowing trading parties to continue to meet all their compliance obligations.

XU:

Is e-invoicing available to

everyone?

MV:

SMEs have been some of the hardest-hit over the past year. How will e-invoicing help these smaller businesses in particular?

E-invoicing is currently available to Xero customers in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. Eventually we will expand this to our Xero customers in the UK and Europe. Once e-invoicing authorities have been established in other markets, we will build a seamless experience in Xero that enables small businesses in those regions to realise the efficiencies of e-invoicing.

MV:

XU:

Payment speed is one of the biggest pain points for small businesses, this has especially been the case over the past year. Traditional methods of billing take up significant amounts of time due to outdated manual processes and inputting invoices into numerous systems. In practice, our users will be able to send their invoice from Xero and arrive at their customer’s accounting system as a prepopulated bill.

XU:

With the constant growth of global business and connections, how will e-invoicing assist in maintaining these international relationships?

MV:

Cross-border invoicing tends to be very complex because it involves multiple tax jurisdictions and currencies, which means it has been historically the most difficult to fully digitise unless trading

How will Xero be adopting e-invoicing into their infrastructure? Will we see many changes?

MV:

Tickstar will not be visible to our customers. It is the infrastructure that sits in the background and allows Xero to connect to e-invoicing networks around the world. Following the acquisition, we plan to expand Tickstar’s development team to scale the platform and develop additional product features for its government and business customers.

XU:

Will Xero users have to make any changes to the way they work in order to use e-invoicing?

MV:

In Xero, it’s as simple as clicking a toggle switch when invoicing a customer. We’ve also made sure there’s a strong audit trail in our e-invoicing solution, to keep track of where

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the e-invoice has been sent and when. Best of all, e-invoicing will be included free of charge for Xero customers on starter, standard and premium plans.

XU:

What does Xero expect the future of e-invoicing to look like?

MV:

As a result of e-invoicing, many businesses will want to switch to cloud-based accounting platforms, as it’s much easier to manage e-invoicing in the cloud than using software installed on a server. While it’s still early days for the adoption of e-invoicing globally, we’re expecting to see significant changes to the way governments and businesses send and receive invoices in the months and years ahead. In the meantime, we’ll be working with the big end of town to make sure our small businesses customers and their advisors can use e-invoicing to enjoy faster payment times and better cash flow.

XU:

What does being General Manager, Product consist of?

MV:

Xero has a broad product strategy to continue to develop its platform well into the future. With thousands in the product and technology team at Xero, the general managers ensure the work in their portfolio is completed in line with the strategy. I focus on Xero’s bills and e-invoicing experience and make sure the product we are offering is world class. I set the direction and the objectives, create measurement and reporting on the outcomes, and help my team organise to deliver on that to ensure value for our customers and our shareholders.

XU:

You’ve worked at Xero for almost 12 years now, how has your experience been? Have you seen any major changes?

MV:

Absolutely! When I started there were

Issue 27 / 127

Interview we’ve been working on

about 50 staff and a much smaller product. As a product leader, things moved fast from ideas to execution. It wasn’t unheard of for our founder, Rod, to drop by my desk and ask for something to be done based on a conversation he’d had with a customer and for it to be tested and shipped that nnounced that Xero will acquire Tickstar, an afternoon.

ests in the future of ng globally

How does e-invoicing work? Sender

creates an e-invoice in Xero

rastructure business that allows businesses like Xero

The organization a lot, e-invoicing networks around the world.has Wegrown believe

and thethat product become one of the next big innovations willhas help smalla lot more powerful, with a lot more

d advisors streamline their accounting customers relyingwork on it, and whichget

means that there is a requirement to be a lot more coordinated when for ideating and producing ovides significant efficiencies small businesses— new software. We have a lot more nistration time, invoicing errors, and the risk of horsepower and expertise now It also makes it easy for governments businesses when it comes toand technology, so s faster, as the process isthe automated there is challenges and now are primarily related to communication, nually enter data or chase missing information. coordination, and focus. And in a way, we are trying to get back se Tickstar’s technology to connect to a place where we can quickly s to e-invoicing networks in Australia and and deliver identify improvements themXero fast, but in a way that meets This acquisition will provide with continued all the additional obligations voicing networks, while providing Tickstar with we now have to our customers and ources to service their existing customers and our technology partners. A very nes. different challenge, but I love it!

Sender’s access point

(Tickstar technology)

E-invoicing network

XU:

What were you markets around the world adopt e-invoicing,

doing before Xero, to use Tickstar’s technology to connect to the and what led you to joining

twork in that region. We may be able to theiralso team?

tant infrastructure to governments hoping to set

MV:

I was working at a design agency in Wellington which was doing a lot our e-invoicing fact sheet to find out more about the of great work and punching above we have acquired, including howinternationally. e-invoicing works its weight I enjoyed project work as been adopted aroundthe thedeadline-based world. and the great products we were re at the Tickstar creating. However after a while I noticed a lot of my most talented colleagues at the agency were disappearing to go work at this mysterious accounting startup called Xero. When one of those former colleagues reached out to me in 2009 to see whether I’d be Tickstar, Xero has acquired Invoici, an app that makes interested in joining too, I thought customers in Singapore to and receivetoe-invoices. I’dsend take an interview see what all the fuss was about. That decision Government has mandated e-invoicing capabilities turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever Invoici made. into our software providers like Xero. Bringing

in their market.

ng our infrastructure pore

oducts will ensure continuous access to e-invoicing for

Receiver’s access point

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Receiver

The e-invoices appears pre-populated in their software system ready to be approved and paid

customers, without relying on a third-party provider.

128 / Issue 27

XERO NEWS — APR IL 20 21 1

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Making it easier for your clients to do business anywhere Partnering with WorldFirst can help you and your clients collect, convert and manage payments globally. Seamless Xero integration for easier reconciliation Open currency accounts without the need for local banking relationships Hold funds to pay suppliers, repatriate, and make international payments Speed up your supply chain with faster same- and cross-currency payments Send mass payments from a single transaction Manage currency risk with flexible hedging solutions Dedicated account managers with 24/5 customer service Low, fixed, transparent pricing

Visit worldfirst.com/uk/partners/accounting/ or call +44 (0)207 095 0741 to find out more

Rated ‘Excellent’ on Trustpilot

Visit the XU Hub: Go to www.xumagazine.com

Issue 27 / 129

Apps Compared

Compared:

Credit Control Brought to you by Feature

+ Description

Chaser

Credit memo Reminder of unclaimed credit

Customer Portal View invoice

Accept/Dispute invoice

Make payments that reconcile in accounting system

Emails Email signature

Email text footer

Forewarning emails to let you know before the chase

Domain verification (send via your own email account)

Placeholders

Invoice reminder emails Automatically send reminders

Manually send reminders

Number of sequential, customisable chasing templates Multiple invoices in one email

Unlimited Send more than one outstanding invoice in the same email so the client doesn’t

receive multiple emails Escalated senders

Send the invoice from a different user, typically someone more senior

Escalated recipients per customer

Send the invoice to a different customer contact, typically someone more senior

Conversation history

View a history of communications

Set expected payment date

Set a date when the customer has indicated they will pay

Don’t chase invoices prior to any expected payment date Don’t chase invoices with an outstanding balance below £X

ü Set a value threshold and don’t chase invoices with a value below this

Attach invoices

Delay/Pause all reminders

Invoice reminder texts Text reminders

Outsourced Escalation - Use professional credit control specialists to get your invoices paid or initiate legal proceedings Professional collections service

Legal escalation

Legal action

This information was true and correct at the time of publishing. New releases happen all the time. Please contact the app for the latest release information.

130 / Issue 27

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Apps Compared

For more information, please visit: Chaser - chaserhq.com ezyCollect - ezycollect.com.au Invoice Sherpa - invoicesherpa.com Satago - satago.com

ezyCollect

Invoice Sherpa

Satago

Seen on statement

Unlimited

Visit the XU Hub: Go to www.xumagazine.com

Issue 27 / 131

Apps Compared Feature

Description

Chaser

Payments Payment gateway

Make payments for invoices

Payment plans

Setup installment payments for invoices

Pricing and particulars Minimum price

£29

Reporting & Insights Credit Control CRM

Add notes to client accounts

Credit Limit breaches

User notification and reports about customers’ balances exceeding

ü Coming soon

recommended limits (via Credit Reference agencies) Credit Summary Report

Instant (free) access to key credit reference data for all LTD customers

Coming soon

Full Credit Searches

Credit search customers via credit control platform Industry

Coming soon

Portfolio Overview

Practice view on clients’ customers credit control performance

Concentration reports

View customer segments and associated risk and debt performance

Debtor reporting

Average debtor days report

Average days overdue per customer report

Risk analysis report

Risk alerts

Invoice finance

Settings Number of schedules (max plan)

Different schedules for different customer profiles, i.e. one for good payers / one for bad

Set email time

Set the time that an email is sent

Set email days

Set the days that emails are sent

Turn off all chasing types at a customer level

Turn off reminders for specific invoices Chase on public holidays toggle

Unlimited

ü Choose whether customers are contacted on public holidays

Don’t chase on weekends

Add late payment fee info

Add late payment fee and sync to accounting platform

Setup Pre-built templates

Ready made email copy to use and customise

Pre-built schedules

Ready made intervals for communicating to clients

Statement emails Customisable statement templates

Unlimited

Attach statements

Thank you emails Customisable thank you templates

Unlimited

THE AUTOMA EXP 132 / Issue 27

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Apps Compared ezyCollect

Invoice Sherpa

Satago

$125 AUD

£49

£0

6 follow-ups + 2 additional schedules

Unlimited

On request

Yes for statements, not for reminders

Unlimited

View using email link

Unlimited per schedule

ATION PERTS Visit the XU Hub: Go to www.xumagazine.com

Issue 27 / 133

LAUNCH YOUR PRACTICE INTO A DIGITAL FUTURE 1st September 2021 Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

134 / Issue 27

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Join us for the first major accountancy conference in nearly two years! The Digital Accountancy Show will help the profession explore it’s incredible potential and understand how best to adopt and implement these exciting new technologies. It will bring together leading tech companies, accounting industry leaders and innovators and provide a unique platform for learning, discovery and networking.

Attend for free

Future proof

Unlock Growth

Boost efficiency

The event is open to all, with the expo and theatres being free to attend.

Discover how live data can add value and generate significant new streams of income.

Digital firms grow four times faster than non cloud based practices, don’t get left behind.

Explore the apps and software available to help you automate every step of your workflow.

Official Digital Transformation Partner

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Official Business Account Partner

Issue 27 / 135

Does one size fit all? G

enerally, if a product is described as “one size fits all” this means it can be suitable for, or used in, all circumstances i.e. it is intended to be suitable for everyone or every purpose.

However, to determine if one size does really fit all you need to consider the product we are referring to. When purchasing clothing labelled as one size fits all it could be appropriate for some items but not others. For example, it may work as a description for a poncho raincoat or an adjustable size hat, however for other items including shoes and jeans a specific size needs to be stated to ensure fit therefore one size does not fit all.

If we apply the term one size fits all to a cloud-based application or solution the assumption based on the above analogy would be the product is suitable or fit for every business purpose. However, as your clients trusted business advisor, when taking into consideration a client’s unique business processes and requirements you know there is no one solution to fit all their needs. You may be able to suggest or select a one size fits all solution that might meet one or a few of their needs, however a better option is to create a bespoke ecosystem of proven cloud-based solutions. These applications will work together to ensure all their business needs are meet, now

Joanna Cruickshank, National Sales Manager, CloudPayroll. CloudPayroll is a standalone payroll system suitable for 1 – 1000 employees. Joanna, is passionate in helping people get the best payroll solution for their organisation.

and into the future. For example, if your client is a start-up, their current business requirements will be a lot different to their future requirements when they could be employing 100+ employees. Xero understands that they cannot be the one size fits all solution to meet every business requirement, hence why they have partnered with hundreds of add-on apps including CloudPayroll in Australia and iPayroll in New Zealand. Most accounting solutions available are a strong fit to business match for accounting requirements however they may not meet requirements in job costing, inventory tracking, payroll and/or reporting etc. Through Xero’s App Marketplace you can research integrations partners they connect with as a starting point to building a clients application ecosystem. Both CloudPayroll and iPayroll are proven cloud-based payroll solutions. They are easy-to-use and feature-rich, and suitable for all industries and business sizes from one employee to 100+ employees. They seamlessly integrate with Xero working together to cut processing times and improve business efficiencies.

Find out more... Request a demo: secure2.cloudpayroll.com. au/free-demo

136 / Issue 27

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

ICB is 2021's Accountancy Body of the Year!

ICB MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

"Bookkeeping attracted me because I like everything to be organised. Nursing on the other hand is a bit more chaotic and you can’t be in control most of the time."

Louise completed her ICB exams in a

LOUISE BALL MICB: A BOOKKEEPER ON THE COVID FRONTLINE Louise runs her bookkeeping business around her kids and volunteers as a vaccinator When Louise decided to move from nursing to bookkeeping in search of better work-life balance, she hadn't dreamed that less than a year later she'd be taking up the call to don her scrubs once more.

Having spent the last decade as a nurse, Louise did a homestudy course and qualified as a Certified Bookkeeper in under a year. Louise's newly-formed practice, Eleven Accounts Services, already has enough business to keep her busy and she's looking to expand her team.

year and gained 15 monthly clients whilst moonlighting as a covid vaccinator!

“It’s really rewarding to be able to help.”

Join the Accountancy Body of the Year and get professional status, technical support and anti-money laundering supervision all for just £300 per year* Visit the XU Hub: Go to www.xumagazine.com Follow us on Twitter: @xumagazine Issue 27 / 137 Find out more at www.bookkeepers.org.uk

The 2020 Top 50 Women in Accounting Awards celebrates inspirational women in accounting who are driving advocacy, creating change, and fostering new opportunities for women of all backgrounds.

he awards

The ‘Top 50 Women in Accounting Awards’ were first launched on International Women’s Day in 2018 as a way to honour and recognise the incredible women who make a difference every day in our industry. Over the last four years, we’ve been incredibly fortunate to meet tons of brilliant women in accounting community. Earlier

this year, we decided to celebrate their achievements by asking our community to choose their top 50 women in accounting for 2020.

3. Advocacy of the accounting industry and support of the wider community. A global response

Our anonymised scoring system was primarily focused on the following three factors: 1. Dedication to promoting inclusivity and diversity in the workplace and beyond; 2. Investment in the next generation and the future leaders of accounting;

We already knew that the accounting industry is filled with fantastic women who are all doing their bit to create a better future for us all. However, we still didn’t expect our awards campaign to have such a wide-ranging, global response. It was incredibly motivating to see that no matter the country or continent, one thing’s for sure: women are at the forefront of everything that the accounting industry is doing well. This year’s campaign drew in 1,260 nominations from all corners of the globe, with our Top 50 list an accurate reflection of the diversity on display throughout our industry. On March 15th, we announced the Top 50 Women in Accounting, featuring women from Canada to South Africa, Australia to Uganda,

138 / Issue 27

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

the Cayman Islands to the United States, and everywhere in between. Some of our fantastic winners Not only are our winners all first-class accountants and bookkeepers, but they also show an ongoing commitment to making the industry — and the world more generally — fairer, more equal, and more diverse. We unfortunately can’t delve into each winner in detail, though simply check out the full list for more information. However, here are three winners that exemplified our awards criteria: promoting diversity and inclusion, creating opportunities for future generations, and having a longlasting impact on society. Baseema “Beeh” Nance Bee, based in Houston, U.S., has been an accounting professor at the University of Phoenix since 2014. In addition to teaching accounting and working to bring other women of color into the field, Bee also works for a nonprofit organization, Generation Teach, that aims to end racial injustice and inequity in education once and for all. Bee is an inspiration to all of us here at the Practice Ignition community, showing how women in accounting can use their skills, knowledge, and passion to give something back to the community. Keep doing what you’re doing, Bee!

goals for this year, Vanessa stated: “In Feb 2021, we launched our ‘Know your numbers’ membership pilot program, which we have been working on since mid 2020. The program will provide small businesses in Australia with the opportunity to understand their business numbers simply, in an affordable way, within a supportive and uplifting community of likeminded businesses. Our ultimate goal is to help them improve their financial literacy and, in turn, keep them accountable going forward.” Juliet Acom Koluo Juliet is another shining example of women in accounting going one step further. She’s not simply looking to serve her clients. Instead, she’s looking to serve the right kind of clients — those that will have the right sort of impact on society if given the chance to flourish.

Director of Vision Beyond Business, Vanessa is passionate about working with businesses and organizations that are driven by purpose (as opposed to just profit). She empowers purpose-driven businesses with the knowledge they need to run thriving, financially stable businesses that have a positive impact on society more generally.

Juliet’s company, Pollicy, provides free basic bookkeeping training for semi-illiterate and illiterate communities running smallscale businesses in the rural Teso region of Uganda. But their work’s impact goes beyond simply helping these businesses have a profitable quarter. As Juliet states, “By providing free basic bookkeeping training for the underprivileged, we are creating equal opportunities in education and economic empowerment.”

When asked about her company’s

It’s easy to consider the primary

Vanessa Bamford

Visit the XU Hub: Go to www.xumagazine.com

impact of your work: helping your clients. But Juliet’s work shows the power of also thinking about the secondary and tertiary impacts. How will serving your clients help the community at large become more educated and prosperous? In turn, what sort of impact will this have on future generations? Shining lights in dark times 2020 was a year like no other. However, despite the obvious challenges, one thing rings true: women around the globe are continuing to show up, step up and lead the charge. Whether they’re providing education programs, free resources to support small business, community-led initiatives, or seeking to raise up the next generation of leaders, the Top 50 Women in Accounting are actively and passionately driving this industry forward. Check out this link if you want to read more stories from our Top 50 Women in Accounting. Let’s all continue to shine a light on women across the globe who continue to show up, step up and lead the charge. If we do, we can create a better, more equal society going forward.

FIND OUT MORE... View this year’s Top 50 Women in Accounting here.

Issue 27 / 139

Constructing a process to eliminate revenue leakage Using job management software to control and profit from scope creep

@NextMinuteApp

Emily Mason, Partner Manager, NextMinute I have worked in the cloud accounting space for the past 8+ years, in both an accounting & bookkeeping firm and within the Xero Ecosystem. I see NextMinute as the upcoming job management system for trade & construction clients because of the excellent Xero integration for timesheets, invoices and bills and accessibility on iOS, android, tablets and computers.

Leaky tap? Call a plumber. Leaky pool? Call a tiler. Leaky roof? Call a builder. Business leaking money? Call a... Bookkeeper, accountant, all of the above?

enerally, tradies on a job site know the what, when, who and why of the job. However, this information is often hand-written on a post-it note or worse, it is just in their head. You, and them, know the business is bleeding money, but you don’t know where from. How are you meant to help them if the information of every job is being retained somewhere inaccessible.

140 / Issue 27

In the accounting world, we all know of “scope creep”, it has been discussed time & time again, and of course we are not the only ones affected.

growth in the scope of the job but it can cause a negative impact when there is no system in place to deal with it, or ability to identify it.

For the trades it is more commonly referred to as “variations” specifically on a fixed price job.

I hear the same scenarios over and over from tradies: 1. “If it is less than $500, then we just write it off” or; 2. “If it takes less than 1 hour, we just get on and do it” 3. “I told the client whilst we were

Scope creep is not a bad thing, it is unplanned & unexpected

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

discussing something else” So, what if there are 10 x “minor” changes requested throughout the job and each cost $450? That could be $4,500 worth of revenue leaking from the business because it is not tracked. And what if each variation took 45 minutes? That is 7.5 hours, nearly an entire working day. The staff still need to get paid for their time, the materials still need to be used but the business is not receiving the additional revenue for the work completed. The end result is always the same, the client thought it was $3,500 not $4,500, they are minutes but it keeps an audit trail. annoyed when it is added to the final invoice with no It can be explanation. They captured onsite complain, the cost at the time and The customer knows is negotiated, the ensure those business loses dollar leaks are their total costs out and the client sealed up. upfront and the has a bad taste in tradesperson is paid their mouth. The customer what they deserve! knows their total A simple solution is costs upfront capturing and sending and are happy they Quote Variations. have found an “honest Raise a new quote detailing the tradesperson, the tradesperson is changes & costs for the client to paid what they deserve and you accept - It might take an extra 5 can start reporting on the good

news story of increased revenue & accurate profitability. So the clients can call you to help fix their money leaks, and you can call us to help put a system in place.

FIND OUT MORE... Learn how NextMinute is helping builders fix their businesses: nextminute.com/scopecreep

Read all 27 issues online www.xumagazine.com

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Issue 27 / 141

New Xero Connected Apps

New to the Xero App Marketplace New App shout-out Are you a new Xero-connected App? Let other Xero users know... email alex@ xumagazine.com

Annature AU annature.com.au Bannature is an Australian made and owned e-signature solution that enables businesses to send and sign documents electronically. Sync your contacts database to enable intelligent filing and tracking of envelopes you send, eliminating legacy, paper-based agreement processes. They’re proud to support reforestation through One Tree Planted as an integral part of their business model. Every 100 agreements digitally signed with Annature plants one tree in Australia! Bepoz bepoz.com.au Bepoz provides the hospitality industry with the tools to optimise their operations. In addition to our POS system, Bepoz offers fully integrated Digital Signage, CCTV, Paging Solutions, Takeaway Order Apps, Self-Ordering, and Visitor Registration Software that are all fully customised to your business. BrightPay brightpay.co.uk A safe, secure and intuitive payroll software minimises payroll administration helping users pay employees and automate tax calculations. DataSights datasights.co

Please note: this is not an exhaustive list of new Apps in the Xero App Marketplace. You can see all Xeroconnected Apps at apps.xero.com

142 / Issue 27

The team offers consolidation and reporting services that guide your business to 100% automated financial and operational reporting. Our platform consolidates all your business data to make it easier for you to access and report on. Datasights is far more than just a data consolidation service though, our team puts the effort

in to understand each of our clients’ unique needs and goals, remaining on hand and responsive to ensure success on your journey of automation and data-driven growth. EarthClassMail earthclassmail.com Earth Class Mail is a leading virtual mailbox provider that helps customers access their postal mail online, from any device. Your important mail turns into secure, searchable PDFs, decluttering your home, office and landfills. Members deposit checks, pay bills and share documents online, all without touching an envelope. expensemanager expense-manager.com An all in one spend management platform specifically designed for SMEs. Enable your staff to manage expense claims, purchase orders, supplier invoices, and track budgets all from their easy to use mobile and desktop application. Allows your AP Team to manage a single or multiple Xero organisations. FireMate firemate.com A custom-built asset management software package developed specifically for the Fire Protection Industry designed around all versions of AS1851 and other statebased legislative requirements. Delivers automatic compliance reporting, complete asset management and defect quoting through the simplest workflow possible. Fresho fresho.com Fresho is a simple online ordering, order management and payments

platform that helps streamline the operation of food businesses and reduce food waste. They provide an online solution to the constraints and operational issues that food businesses experience, syncing seamleslly with Xero for invoice and cashflow. giniPredict gini.co giniPredict runs AI-powered forecasts and key driver analysis on your Xero data, giving you the foresight you need to run your business confidently. • Understand your company’s health and see red flags at a glance • Make better decisions with scenario planning • Keep everyone updated with shareable dashboards Jazoodle jazoodle.com Xero and Jazoodle integrate together to give you instant insights into the performace of any business. Monitor your Health Score, look at monthly and annual trends relating to profitability, liquidity, efficiency and asset performance. You can freely share these insights with fellow directors, colleagues and even your accountant. You’ll never be in the dark about how your business is fairing again.

JobFlow jobflow.nz/xero JobFlow offers job management for agricultural contractor complete with Xero integration for timesheets and invoicing. Improve your workflows and productivity with their simple, yet powerful web-based job management software and personalised support.

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

New Xero Connected Apps Accelerate your invoicing & create jobs fast with easy access cloud storage from anywhere. KnitHQ knitpeople.com Knit is a cloud payroll and HR platform for Canada’s accountants and bookkeepers which helps save you time and keep your clients CRA compliant. Unlimited payruns, unlimited paygroups, unlimited administrators, and all-inclusive year-end reporting in a single package. LodeiT lodgeit.net.au

myprosperity myprosperity.com.au A powerful client portal used by accountants, planners, brokers and multidisciplinary firms to better engage their clients in all aspects of their financial lives. Help achieve their goals and give a holistic view of their household finances. The wealth portal is used by individual households to store, manage and track all their financial affairs. Mobile and desktop applications.

PryHQ pry.co

OrderMate ordermate.com.au

LodgeIT is an online tax preparation and lodgement platform that enables Business owners, Tax and BAS Agents to lodge returns directly with the ATO (Australian Taxation Office). Seamlessly prepare workpapers and financial reports with in-built templates, getting them signed fast with e-sign.

OrderMate is an integrated hospitality POS system that provides one easy solution to help you run your business, utilising the industry’s most advanced technology. OrderMate can be highly customised to suit your venue type - so whether you’re a busy full service restaurant, a quick service business or a large pub hotel, OrderMate can be tailored to your needs.

Lucida lucida.one

Oversight (Finlert) finlert.com

Lucdia is a billing application in Costa Rica that allows customers to create invoices and credit notes that comply with Costa Rica’s government mandatory requirements of electronic invoices. All the invoices from Xero are automatically sent to the Ministerio de Hacienda for validation and tracing. It allows professionals and businesses to manage their sales and purchases with an easy-to-use UI.

A simple way to retain clients and grow your advisory business. Oversight’s client dashboard provides a clear and straightforward view of your clients Xero data. Identify changes in your clients data, see key Xero metrics, group files for customer overviews, set thresholds to trigger actions and develop data history that isn’t available in Xero.

Mixed Analytics mixedanalytics.com/api-connector Mixed Analytics’ API connector turns Google Sheets into a powerful, flexible API client. Access Xero’s API in a familiar spreadsheet interface without requiring manual exports, custom scripts, or a complicated data warehouse. Achieve dynamic codelike capabilities by referencing cells, looping through requests, and setting up triggers.

Payhawk payhawk.com Payhawk is the easiest way to manage company finances. An integrated solution which combines credit cards, payments, expenses and cash into a single experience. Payhawk offers 100% transparency of your company spend and oneclick integrations with all relevant ERP systems. Pet Manager petmanager.com.au Pet Manager is a complete cloud

Visit the XU Hub: Go to www.xumagazine.com

solution to managing a modern Pet Resort. Allow your customers to enter their booking requests and pet info directly through your website, sent automated emails and SMS and handle all financial records directly through Pet Manager. Whether you are a small boutique facility or a huge multisite operation - they provide the software that allows you to spend more with the animals rather than sitting in front of a computer.

Pry is finance for founders. Pry replaces spreadsheets to help startups and SMBs manage their budgets, revenue projections, hiring plan, and cash runway. Connect your Xero account to have ccounting, financial planning and business intelligence all in one place. QicWorks qicworks.com QicWorks is a single platform to manage jobs, payroll, scheduling, rosters, safety, training and compliance. Simply, enter data once from estimate to accountant. Designed with firsthand knowledge for building, construction and site installation businesses, QicWorks ensures real time meaningful data is captured. Together we can make QicWorks of Job Management. ReviewYou reviewyou.co.nz Improve your online reviews and increase customer satisfaction by automatically inviting happy customers to leave reviews by SMS or email. ReviewYou identifies unhappy customers before their problems have the opportunity to escalate and brings them to your attention so you can rectify the problem. Swingvy swingvy.com Simplify people management small and mid-sized businesses. Swingvy’s full-suite HR & Payroll cloud software makes it easy to

Issue 27 / 143

New Xero Connected Apps / New Releases onboard, pay, insure and support your team in one place.

to Company #BrewMoreBeer and #BrewBetterBeer.

SxStrategy strategyexe.com

TimeDock timedock.com

Seamlessly and directly align corporate strategy with Xero financial information. With operating structure in one place you are in control of achieving your vision, mission and goals. Measure, monitor and manage progress in real time.

Free up your time, improve accuracy and streamline your time tracking process from end to end with TimeDock and Xero. Badgebased time clock system, on site and off site, with purpose-built time clocks and QR code checkin. Timesheets and job hours stream through to your TimeDock dashboard in realtime, ready to push through to Xero Timesheets for Payroll.

The 5th Ingredient the5thingredient.com The 5th Ingredient develops all-inone data management systems for breweries. Beer30 and Bucha30 are designed to track data from inventory management, to brew log and fermentation data, to finished goods inventory and sales. Our platform helps breweries better understand overall margins and make real-time business decisions

makes your products available to a marketplace filled with wholesale buyers who can easily order your products with just a few clicks. Virtual Garage Manager (MotaSoft) motasoft.co.uk Virtual Garage Manager is a management software solution for the motor trade. It’s packed with features to help you manage your garage business, from online booking and job management to customer reminders.

Upstock upstock.app Upstock is a wholesale ordering app for buyers & suppliers in the hospitality industry. For suppliers, it’s a great way to gain new customers, while streamlining wholesale operations. Upstock

Updates and new releases from Xero connected apps New feature shout-out

AccountancyManager accountancymanager.co.uk

Are you a Xero-connected App? Got a new feature or update you’d like to share with the Xero User community? Email alex@ xumagazine.com

LoE Resign - We’ve introduced a new automated feature that generates an email asking your client to log in and resign their LoE via the portal on an annual basis. Users are notified that the email will be sent 7 days in advance and the email sent is fully customisable. Automation can be turned off and the same function is available at the push of a button. ApprovalMax approvalmax.com ApprovalMax makes reports even more actionable and convenient as you can now generate reports with line item details to get a deeper look into your accounts payable and accounts receivable. It’s also possible to schedule the reports

144 / Issue 27

generation and delivery to selected email addresses. With the new navigation in ApprovalMax it’s easier to find documents thanks to sorting by type and status, and switching between organisations is quicker. ExpensesOnDemand expenseondemand.com New function releases help customers with better expense management: 1. Hybrid Billing ExpenseOnDemand now offers the flexibility for Finance Managers to be charged for Claimants who either regularly or occasionally claim for expenses. 2. Audit Trail - Finance Managers can export expenses report from the Audit Trail. 3. Crypto Currency – Finance Manager can add own currency

including crypto currency. 4. Location - Function provides ability to setup and Assign Locations to Claimants. 5. Open APIs - Open APIs: Access app data via our open APIs and seamlessly integrate. 6. Setup Multiple Company - Setup Multiple Companies/Business Units in a Single subscription. Fathom fathomhq.com Three-way cash flow forecasting: now live in Fathom. HR Partner hrpartner.io HR Partner has a new birthday message sending function. Plus, employee birthdays can be shown on the company calendar!

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

New Releases infoodle infoodle.com

QicWorks qicworks.com

Keeping infoodle working for our clients involves changes to enhance specific areas of our system. We’ve made a large number of minor changes including enhancing the user experience and improving access to data in the reports area. We’re working on bigger changes watch out for our next update.

The team at QicWorks are excited to announce that we have just released our inventory module. Watch as your material data effortlessly flows through stock control, job management and procurement processes. Now you can protect your company from stock fluctuations, free up your cashflow and ensure you have the right items on hand to meet your client’s needs.

Lightyear lightyear.cloud We will shortly be releasing our eagerly anticipated Budgets feature to complement the new Purchase Order module. On top of this will also be the ability to consolidate extracted line items by GL codes and tracking categories. Projectworks projectworks.io Projectworks now brings deeper integration with Xero, including the ability to integrate leave for payroll, expenses, and timesheets. Margin reporting has also had a major overhaul so you can easily see where you are making money on both your services and nonservices work.

simPRO simprogroup.com simPRO now includes multicurrency support for contractors, allowing businesses to better manage contractor work that may be charted in a currency that is different to their local currency. simPRO will now use a currency exchange rate to accurately convert currencies from contractor forms, invoices and timesheets to the currency used for the business within the simPRO build.

Consolidated Forecasting feature, you can now consolidate up to 75 forecasts into a three-way group forecast. Inter-entity eliminations landing soon! To help you create tailored reports, we added two Industry Templates: Real Estate and E-Commerce. Packed with industry-specific KPIs, you can quickly visualise your clients’ most important metrics. Xero imports are now 2x as fast, and we also added lots of AutoText enhancements, plus so much more! Tidy tidyinternational.com Tidy now has the ability for users to manage assets in Tidy 2. Get rid of spreadsheets and use customisable fields to track your assets’ location, maintenance schedule, condition/status, warranties, serial numbers, and many more fields of your choice. Easily generate a report to gain a clear and fast overview of the status of your assets.

Spotlight spotlightreporting.com/ consolidated-forecasting With Spotlight Reporting’s

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Issue 27 / 145

Create the Restaurant of the Future with Digital Self-Ordering Solutions Discover why self-ordering channels at your restaurant are imperative not only to provide safe and contactless ordering for your customers, but also to skyrocket your revenue and future-proof your business...

t’s no secret that the pandemic has been a game changer for the F&B and hospitality industry. While several restaurants pivoted in innovative ways by shifting their sales strategy to online, ongoing capacity restrictions and social distancing mandates continue to challenge the dining out scene. Enter digital self-ordering solutions. Self-ordering through Kiosks and QR-code based platforms isn’t entirely new. However, their popularity has drastically increased with the changes brought on due to Covid-19. And with the world on its path to recovery, these self-ordering solutions are positioned not only to give guests the peace of mind of contactless ordering but also necessary fixtures for additional revenue and customer retention. The benefits of restaurant selfordering solutions go beyond contactless ordering. These platforms are proven to reduce customer wait times, optimize staff productivity, increase revenue, save costs, improve efficiency, and delight your customers. Setting up a self-ordering channel at your restaurant should be simple and stress-free. With select leading restaurant management

146 / Issue 27

solution providers, you can get up and running in minutes. No expensive hardware or complex IT infrastructure is required. You can create a beautiful selfordering channel–such as Kiosks and QR-code based systems–to let your customers enjoy a quick and convenient Order & Pay experience.

@SapaadPOS

Karina Rapose, MarCom Manager, Sapaad Karina Rapose is a Product Specialist at Sapaad, a leading cloud-based restaurant POS and delivery management system that empowers restaurateurs worldwide to drive business growth and enhance customer experience with the power of the Cloud.

Give them the assurance of safe and socially-distanced ordering, while reducing wait times, increasing overall customer satisfaction and keeping them coming back.

Serve More in Less Time With faster turnaround times, you can serve more guests in less time. Restaurant self-ordering Quick & Convenient Ordering solutions tremendously increase With digital self-ordering channels speed of service. Thus increasing at your restaurant, you can your sales and throughput. Plus, empower your customers your customers to place orders will love being independently and in control of The benefits go customize them their ordering beyond contactless at their own experience–from ordering and are pace and liking. placing and proven to reduce They can order customizing and pay with orders to wait times and grow just a few taps fulfilment. It’s a revenue. on a beautiful and win win. intuitive Kiosk. Or can scan a QR code to browse Say Goodbye to Order your digital menu, and order and Errors pay from the convenience of their Self-ordering significantly own phones. No menu cards or reduces the risk of errors. With paper receipts; no contact, no guests ordering independently hassle. It’s quick, convenient, and through the Kiosk or on their contactless. own devices, there’s no backand-forth with cashiers. This Reduce Customer Wait Times saves time, eliminates the risk Bust queues at the counter during of missed orders, and improves busy hours by offering guests order accuracy and customer the ease and flexibility of selfsatisfaction. ordering. Let your customers avoid crowds and skip long Improve Staff Productivity lines to place orders quickly and As customers place orders on conveniently at their fingertips. their own, your cashiers can

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

focus on the overall customer experience. Free up staff from manual order taking and empower them to add more value to your business by channeling their efforts towards tasks that boost sales and customer experience. Plus, save big on labor costs. With self-ordering solutions, you can serve more customers in less time without the need to increase your headcount, and keep your labor costs and operating expenses in control. Maximize Your Revenue Grow your restaurant revenue with strategic marketing levers, advertising opportunities, and more. Increase average check size with intuitive upsell and crosssell prompts such as upgrades, extra paid toppings, combos and add-ons.

automatically deducted in real time and is always up to date. And if you need to update your menu or mark an item as unavailable, you can easily make changes in real time.

Drive sales with fun and effective ads displayed during checkout to promote a new item or introduce a special offer. With a custom idle screen image, you can strategically display eye-catching offers and promos to attract customers and elevate in-store branding.

Gain LIVE Multi-Channel Analytics With a one-stop solution, sales data from your self-ordering channels are in sync with your Dashboard. You can get insights and analytics into your restaurant’s multi-channel performance in one powerful LIVE dashboard, eliminating end-ofday manual reconciliation.

Streamline Your Operations Leading self-ordering solutions are fully-integrated with the POS and complete restaurant management suite for an automated operational workflow. Orders placed on the Kiosk or through mobile phones are sent directly to the Kitchen Display System (KDS) and Token Screen for effortless order fulfilment.

Best-selling items, item profitability, outlet profitability, are a few of the many insights you gain – even on the go. With comprehensive reports and daily business summary, you can identify and analyze trends, compare in-house and selfordering channel performance, and make informed business decisions.

It also works in sync with the Inventory system, so stock is

Seamless Integration with Xero Leading restaurant management

systems are integrated with cloud accounting software like Xero. This means that daily sales data from your POS and self-ordering channels are automatically synced to your Xero accounting system. The out-ofthe-box integration simplifies and streamlines your restaurant accounting and removes the need for manual entry and end-of-day reconciliation. So you spend less time on your accounting, and more on growing your business. In conclusion, whether it is the new normal or a return to pre-pandemic normalcy, digital self-ordering is here to stay. It’s quick and convenient for your customers, and of tremendous advantage to your bottom line. There’s no doubt that digital selfordering channels are the future of dining.

FIND OUT MORE... To find out more about Sapaad Cloud-based POS & Restaurant Management System, visit us at: sapaad.com

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Issue 27 / 147

Focus: Mental Health

New Access for Small Business Owners Taking care of you as a small business owner is vital to your mental health and the overall success of your business. When we are mentally healthy and make wellness a key part of our small business, we ensure our teams, our customers and our suppliers are all supported as valuable participants to the success of our business.

have been amazed at the support from the Beyond Blue team over the past year. They have worked tirelessly during the coronavirus pandemic providing support and resources for everyone including key programmes aimed at small business. In March 2021 Beyond Blue in Australia launched a mental health coaching program to support small business owners across Australia. A Federal Government survey of more than 1000 small business owners found almost one in three have experienced stress, anxiety or depression over the past year. The free NewAccess for Small Business Owners is a six-week program that offers support by trained mental health coaches who have a background

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in small business. The program is delivered via telehealth to small business owners experiencing stress and worries, and coaches, who operate with oversight from clinicians, are trained to refer participants to other support services as required. This is an amazing achievement from Beyond Blue and recognises the challenges small business face and how the past year has added to those challenges. What is new Access for Small Business Owners? NewAccess is a free and confidential mental health program, developed by Beyond Blue to give small business owners the support you need. Whether you’re just feeling stressed, or completely overwhelmed about everyday life

Tim Hoopmann, Speaker and Trainer Experienced founder with a demonstrated history growing small business. Strong entrepreneurship and professionally skilled in Business Planning, Cloud Technology, Sales, Marketing, and Operations Management. A passion for helping small businesses use technology as a key enabler to increase productivity and decrease costs. A volunteer speaker for beyondblue, an Australian organisation that works to raise awareness of anxiety and depression, reduce the associated stigma and encourage people to get help.

issues like work, relationships, health or loneliness, NewAccess is there when you need it. Over six sessions your NewAccess Coach will work side by side with you to overcome difficult issues, providing you with practical skills to manage your stress and get you back to feeling like yourself. Why Have Beyond Blue set up a programme specifically for small business owners? Running a small business is a unique experience which can involve stress and pressure coming from many directions. If left unaddressed, these demands can sometimes place you at risk of severe or longer-lasting mental health challenges. We understand you may feel obliged to work when unwell, take

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Issue 27 / 149

Focus: Mental Health work home or find it difficult to justify allocating time for yourself, let alone for your mental health. And there are always many barriers that can make seeking help difficult, such as: • stigma • cost • lack of time • limited availability of services during business hours and in convenient locations, and prioritisation of business over self. Understandably, a lot of small business owners are reporting that COVID-19 has negatively affected their mental health. To address this need, Beyond Blue’s NewAccess program aims to provide a much needed and practical support option for you. How long will NewAccess for small business owners be available? The national telehealth program will initially be available for a period of 12 months from March 2021 to March 2022. Who is it for? NewAccess is for anyone aged 18 or over who owns a small business in Australia. For the purposes of program eligibility, a small business is defined as ≤ 20 employees. A person is not eligible for the program if they are: • currently seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist • dealing with severe/complex mental health issues. An initial assessment conducted by a clinically supervised Coach is used to identify if NewAccess is the most appropriate service to support your mental health needs. Please note, if your symptoms or condition are found to be too severe or complex for this program, you will be referred to a more appropriate service or back to a GP.

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What to expect from the program? NewAccess uses Low-intensity Cognitive Based Therapy (LiCBT) that allows the participant to recognise the way they think, act, and feel. Instead of a counsellor, they will have a Coach to help them work through an individual plan that they develop together. • Initial assessment – up to 60 minutes This is when the potential participant talks through their challenges and chooses one or two issues to focus on. They will develop a problem statement with their Coach, which summarises the issues they want to overcome and how they plan to do this. During the assessment, if it is identified the individual’s needs are more complex, they will be referred to a more appropriate service. • Up to five sessions with your NewAccess Coach – 30 minutes weekly Over these sessions the participant works with their Coach on a program tailored to their individual challenges and work through the problem statement. The participant will be given homework tasks to complete which are important for their growth as they move

through the sessions. There will be two follow up sessions with their Coach to ensure they are staying on track. The participant’s progress is reviewed at each session. This ensures they receive an appropriate level of care. If at any point they are not responding to treatment, they will be directed to a more appropriate service. The total time commitment if a participant were to attend all sessions including the initial assessment, is 3.5 hours. After the 6 sessions, is there any follow up or support offered? Follow up sessions occur at 1 and 6 months post final session. These sessions allow participants and Coaches to review individual progress. This also allows Coaches and participants to collaboratively review the outcomes achieved throughout treatment and to understand if the participant has been able to use the skills they have developed in the program. The program is delivered with clinical oversight and clear escalation and referral pathways, including business support and financial counselling services if required.

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Issue 27 / 151

Focus: Mental Health Who are the NewAccess for Small Business Owners Coaches? Coaches of the NewAccess program all have a small business background, allowing them to better understand the challenges small business owners may face. Coaches are trained in Lowintensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. This is a structured, evidence-based treatment that allows you to recognise the way you think, act, and feel. The Coaches undertake 12-months of training, starting with a six-week intensive that then moves to practical learning which involves managing participants and an ongoing curriculum under clinical supervision. Service Provider, Richmond Fellowship Queensland (RFQ) is responsible for recruiting the NASBO Coaches.

2016. Independent research and evaluations have confirmed its efficacy and ability to be scaled as a low intensity early intervention service.

by relatable coaches – in this case people who have owned their own small business – making it an ideal service for small business owners.

Based on the UKs Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) model, the NewAccess model is adaptable for particular settings and populations. Evidence tells us the NewAccess program is effective. The average recovery rate for general population services is 70 per cent. The Comcare workplace pilot, which supported participants to deal with common issues like work-related stress, achieved a recovery rate of 78 per cent.

How can the NewAccess for Small Business Owners Coaches program be accessed in Australia? Enquiry details below: • Phone: 1300 945 301 • Website: www.beyondblue.org. au/newaccess-SBO • Service provider: Richmond Fellowship Queensland – RFQ • Hours: Monday to Friday 8am – 8pm AEST via phone or video call • Email: newaccess. smallbusiness@rfq.com.au

Why it works?

Importantly, NewAccess is designed to appeal to people who might not otherwise seek support for their mental health and to provide support early, preventing symptoms from potentially getting worse.

NewAccess has been operating for several years in Australia, starting with a pilot phase in 2013-

The program avoids clinical language, does not require a doctor’s referral and is delivered

I would encourage all small business owners to make mental health and wellness a key focus in your business. There are many resources available and a great place to start is www.beyondblue. org.au or www.headsup.org.au Taking care of you means you can then support others around you.

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App Directory Blendo | @blendoapp blendo.co Boxkite | @getboxkite getboxkite.com Business sorter | @BusinessSorter businesssorter.com/xero Chata.ai | @thechataHQ chata.ai Cloudbusiness | @CloudBusinessLt cloudbusinessllc.com Controlc control-c.com/landing-xero CoverKit by NZI nzi.co.nz Cradle | @letscradlenz cradle.io/integration/xero Curve | @imaginecurve imaginecurve.com Customer Lobby | @CustomerLobby customerlobby.com EntryRocket | @entryrocket entryrocket.com Expense Check | @expensecheck expensecheck.com.au Farmflo | @farmflo farmflo.com Flowrev | @flowrev flowrev.com/xero Freshmethod | @Freshmethod freshmethod.com.au Fresh Projects | @ukfreshprojects freshprojects.co.uk G-Accon | @G_AcconServices www.accon.services Imporex imporex.com.au InView inviewapp.com

PropertyTree | @PropertyTree propertytree.com

checkeeper.com/xero

RDvault | @rdvault

CheckVault | @CheckVault

rdvault.co.uk

checkvault.com.au

Re-leased | @re_leased

CreDec | @CreDec

re-leased.com

credec.com

Real Estate Investar | @reiaustraila realestateinvestar.com.au

Directli | @Directli

rerunapp.com

directli.co.uk

Sharesight | @Sharesight

DPS Payment Express | @

sharesight.com/xero

PaymentExpress

Sharesight Pro | @Sharesight Synergy 8 | @SynergyEight

ezycollect.com.au eWay | @eWAY_

synergy8.com Tax1099 | @efile1099

eway.io Ezidebit | @Ezidebit

tax1099.com Track1099 | @Track_1099

ezidebit.com.au GoCardless | @GoCardless

track1099.com TransferMate | @TransferMate transfermateonline.com

Made for recurring payments

wisenet.co Workato | @Workato workato.com/xero Zapier | @zapier zapier.com Zendesk by Zapier | @zapier

integrapay.com.au InvoiceSherpa | @invoicesherpa

Outsourcing

invoicesherpa.com

AdvanceTrack | @AdvanceTrack

Kwanji | @KwanjiX kwanji.com OFX xero.com/uk/financial-services/ofx Pay RIGHT AWAY | @PayRIGHTAWAY

zapier.com practiceprotect.com

stripe.com Square | @SquareUK squareup.com Transfer Mate | @TransferMate transfermateonline.com uCollect | @ucollect_biz ucollect.biz/xero WorldFirst | @WorldFirstLtd

A smarter way to collect, convert and manage payments globally.

Worldpay business.worldpay.com

Payroll & HR appogeeHR | @AppogeeHR appogeehr.com citrusHR | @citrusHR citrushr.com/xero CloudPayroll cloudpayroll.com.au

Pin Payments | @PinPayments pinpayments.com

Payments

Australia

Authorize.Net | @AuthorizeNet

cloudpayroll.com.au Crystal Payroll

reseller.authorize.net Bill and Pay | @BillandPay

crystalpayroll.com Deputy | @deputyapp

billandpay.com Bill.com | @billcom

deputy.com Employment Hero | @

bill.com Chargebee | @chargebee

EmploymentHero

chargebee.com/integrations/xero Chargify | @Chargify

New Zealand

ipayroll.co.nz

pennypipe.com/info/xero

theoutsourcedaccountant.com

chargify.com/xero

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shieldpay.com Stripe | @stripe

Payoneer | @Payoneer

OneSaas | @onesaas

Practice Protect | @PracProtect

satfxonline.co.uk Shieldpay | @shield_pay

payrightaway.com.au

xero.com/uk/office-365

pensionsync.com

iZettle | @iZettle izettle.com

advancetrack.com

Office 365 | @Office365

Podio by Zapier | @zapier

rerunapp.com SAT FXOnline | @satworldwide

IntegraPay | @IntegraPay

zenoti.com/xero

finlert.com/leavecal-xero.html

pensionsync | @pensionsync

receivabl.es Rerun | @Rerunapp

Find out more at worldfirst.com

LeaveCal

pennypipe.com/info/xero

Xero’s Financial Services App of the Year

zapier.com Zenoti | @ZenotiSoftware

leap.co.uk

PennyPipe | @PennyPipe

polipayments.com Receivabl | @receivabl_es

vinosmith.com Wise.NET | @WisenetLRM

LEAP | @LEAP4LawFirms

ozbizsolutions.com.au

app.plooto.co POLi Payments | @POLiPayments

worldfirst.com

kitomba.com

onsightapp.com

gocardless.com

Plooto | @PlootoInc

Vinosmith | @thevinosmith

Kitomba | @Kitomba

OzBiz Solutions | @OzBizSolutions

paymentexpress.co.uk EzyCollect | @ezyCollect

pro.sharesight.com.au

jobready.com.au

Onsight | @Onsight_App

Debtor Daddy | @debtordaddy debtordaddy.com/xero

Rerun | @Rerunapp

JobReady | @JobReadyNSW

onesaas.com

Checkeeper | @Checkeeper

employmenthero.com enableHR | @enableHR enablehr.com.au

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

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

posbosshq.com Preno | @prenohq prenohq.com/xero Redcat | @RedCatPOS redcat.com.au/xero Retail Express | @RetailExpress01 retailexpress.com.au Sapaad | @SapaadPOS sapaad.com/lp/xero

PayrollBee payrollbee.co.uk

informdirect.co.uk

shopify.com Square | @SquareUK

Reporting Asset Guru | @Asset_Guru asset.guru/xero Benchmarking.com.au benchmarking.com.au BizEquity | @BizEquity bizequity.com/xero Blink Reports

floatapp.com

BPM bpmglobal.com Brightgauge | @BrightGauge

bstar.com.au btcsoftware.co.uk Businessbackbone | @ BiznizBackbone businessbackbone.co.uk Calxa | @calxa

paysonline.com.au PaySpace | @PaySpace payspace.com Simplepay.ca | @simplepaycanada

towersystems.com.au Vend | @vendhq

flowrev.com/xero

Carbon Analytics | @co2analytics co2analytics.com/xero

checkmybooks.co.uk Clarity | @clarity_hq

zilchconsulting.com

simplepay.ca

Visit the XU Hub: Go to www.xumagazine.com

fluidly.com/xero Futrli | @Futrli futrli.com Infoodle | @infoodle infoodle.com/xero joiin | @joiinreporting joiin.co Klipfolio Dashboard | @klipfolio

clarity-hq.com DataDear | @DataDearApp

klipfolio.com Maus | @MAUS_Software

datadear.com Debtze| @DebtzeCollect debtze.com/xero Dryrun | @Mydryrun dryrun.com/xero Fathom | @fathomhq fathomhq.com

maus.com.au Momentum atsora.com/xero My Cash Flow app | @ MyCashFlowAppSa mycashflowapp.co.za My work papers | @myworkpapers myworkpapers.com My Own CFO | @myown_cfo

All-in-one reporting, forecasting and business insights.

myown-cfo.com Numerable | @NumerableSW numerable.io Onestop reporting | @ OneStopReports

vendhq.com Zilch Consulting | @zilchconsulting

Flowrev | @flowrev Fluidly | @Fluidly

calxa.com

TheGoodTillco

PaysOnline | @paysonline

Real-time cash flow confidence

Btc | @BTCSoftwareUK

The Good Till Company | @ thegoodtill.com

Float | @FloatApp

blinkreports.com

squareup.com/gb

Tower Systems | @TowerSystems

flagshipreporting.com

linksolutions.co.nz

Checkmybooks | @movemybooks

Shopify | @Shopify

Flagship Reporting | @FlagshipReports

instafile.co.uk

castawayforecasting.com

Try Sapaad for FREE www.sapaad.com

financialdriver.com Finlert | @FinlertApps

Link Solutions | @LinkSolutions

Castaway | @CAforecasting

Connect Xero and Sapaad Cloud POS for a total business solution.

figured.com Financial Driver | @FinancialDriver

instafile | @InstafileApp

brightgauge.com/xero

Possboss | @posbosshq

Figured | @figuredapp

finlert.com

bglcorp.com Inform Direct | @InformDirect

Bstar | @BstarAustralia

Payescape | @PayescapeUK

paymentevolution.com

appsforops.com BGL Corporate Solutions | @BGLdot

noblypos.com/xero

pages.paychex.com/xero

Payment Evolution | @payevo

AppsForOps | @AppsForOps

Nobly | @NoblyPOS

Paychex | @Paychex

payescape.com

Professional Services

200+ REVIEWS

onestopreporting.com/xero Panalitix | @panalitix panalitix.com

Issue 27 / 159

App Directory QVinci | @Qvinci qvinci.com/xero Recount recount.com/xero-homepage-uk Ranqx | @ranqxHQ ranqx.com Report Amigo | @reportamigo reportamigo.com/xero Saasabi | @Saasabi saasabi.com/xero Savvy Reports savvyreports.com

GeoOp | @GeoOp

Timestamp | @timestampio

geoop.com

timestamp.io/add-ons/xero

Harvest | @harvest

Total Synergy | @totalsynergy

getharvest.com

totalsynergy.com.au

JobPro Central | @JobProCentral jobprocentral.com

Tradify | @tradifyhq tradifyhq.com

KeyPay | @KeyPayApp

Total Synergy | @totalsynergy

keypay.com.au

totalsynergy.com

Microkeeper | @Microkeeper microkeeper.com.au

Tsheets | @tsheets tsheets.com/xero

MinuteDock | @minutedock minutedock.com

WorkflowMax | @WorkflowMax workflowmax.com

Scott’s Add-ins

Xero HQ

scottsaddins.com Simple Numbers | @gregcrabtreecpa

Quick Win Development | @quickwindev quickwindevelopment.com Spotlight Reporting | @spotlightrep spotlightreporting.com Suitefiles | @SuiteFiles suitefiles.com Xero Workpapers | @Xero xero.com

Year End Wolters Kluwer | @wolterskluweruk cchoneclick.co.uk

Boma | @Boma_Marketing

simplenumbers.me

bomamarketing.com/xero

Simply Cashflow | @simplycashflow

Datamolino | @datamolino

simplycashflow.com/xero

datamolino.com

Spotlight Reporting | @spotlightrep

Expensify | @expensify

spotlightreporting.com

use.expensify.com/xero Fathom | @fathomhq fathomhq.com

Tools to digitalise your practice wolterskluwer.co.uk

Futrli | @Futrli

#1 Reporting & Forecasting app in the Xero Ecosystem

Nexonia | @nexonia

futrli.com Hubdoc | @Hubdoc

nexonia.com/xero NextMinute | @NextMinuteApp Outlook Int.Tools - QWD | @

spotlightreporting.com

quickwindevelopment.com

Suitefiles | @SuiteFiles suitefiles.com

time.patchability.com ProWorkflow | @ProWorkflow proworkflow.com Quick Win Development | @ quickwindev Roll | @rollhq

accountancymgr

rollhq.com/xero

accountancymanager.co.uk

Synergist | @Synerg1st

AccountKit | @AccountKit

synergist.co.uk

account-kit.com

Tanda | @TandaHQ

Class Super | @Class_Ltd

tanda.co

class.com.au

TidyWork | @TidyInt

DataDear | @DataDearApp

tidywork.com

datadear.com Doc2Data | @doc2data doc2data.com Exsalerate | @exsalerate

Active.collab | @activecollab

exsalerate.com/xerointegration EzzyBills | @EzzyBills

activecollab.com/add-ons/xero AppsForOps | @AppsForOps

ezzybills.com

JOB MANAGEMENT

appsforops.com AroFlo | @aro_flo aroflo.com

tidywork com

Deputy | @deputyapp

fergusapp.com Freshdesk | @freshdesk freshdesk.com/xero

GoProposal | @GoProposal goproposal.com Mogul | @MogulDigitalNZ mogul.nz/xero My Own CFO | @myown_cfo

deputy.com

Fergus | @FergusApp

2shakes | @2ShakesNZ 2shakes.co.nz

Time Tracking

ebillity.com

Practice Management

AccountancyManager | @

quickwindevelopment.com

zoho.eu

eBillity | @eBillity

practiceignition.com Spotlight Reporting | @spotlightrep

quickwindev Patchability

Thomson Reuters | @

hubdoc.com Practice Ignition | @ignitionapp

nextminute.com

TimeTracker by eBillity | @eBillity ebillity.com TimeCamp | @timecamp timecamp.com Timely gettimely.com/timely-xero

myown-cfo.com My work papers | @myworkpapers myworkpapers.com NowInfinity | @Now_Infinity nowinfinity.com.au Practice Ignition | @ignitionapp practiceignition.com

160 / Issue 27

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Visit the XU Hub: Go to www.xumagazine.com

Issue 27 / 161

Events

Virtual events in 2021: How to get the most from attending A user guide from the Accounting & Finance Show Asia

@accandfinshow

Laura Binns, Project Director, Accounting & Finance Show Asia, Terrapinn Asia Laura joined Terrapinn in 2018 and launched the first edition of the Accounting & Finance Show Asia. The show works to drive up the adoption of digital technologies amongst SMEs and accounting firms in Asia. With the show now in its fourth year, Laura and the Terrapinn team are now extending the event into a whole series running throughout the year.

The past year has seen events across the globe flip to virtual. Here we share what sets the Accounting & Finance Show virtual events apart, and how to get the most out of them in 2021.

ccounting and finance professionals the world over have been clearing time in their diaries year-after-year for the key industry events each year. The conferences and exhibitions for the industry provide a unique platform to meet up with your industry contacts, benchmark your progress and learn about what’s new particularly with the latest digital tools and tech. In 2020, suddenly these events were all moved online with mixed success. “You’re on mute” became the catchphrase of the year and many event experiences felt a little clunky and unstable with hard to navigate virtual event platforms. Others showed great promise, and it was clear that there was some great potential in this medium, particularly while in-person events were simply not possible. A year on, the Accounting & Finance Show Asia team has adopted the best virtual event platform in the business and honed its event calendar to deliver a slick online attendee experience. Its series of events provide a genuine replacement for in-person events in markets

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where it’s not yet possible to bring back large-scale exhibitions and conferences. What sets the Accounting & Finance Show Asia virtual events apart? • The virtual platform is simple, clear and so easy to use When you log onto an Accounting & Finance Show Asia event you will be able to find your way around instantly. The pages and content load easily wherever you are, and whatever device you’re using and you can begin networking and viewing on demand sessions straight away. • The balance of live and interactive sessions and ondemand content The vast majority of the event runs as live sessions where you can interact with the speakers, ask questions and engage with other attendees of the sessions in real time. It’s your chance to get your most pertinent questions answered and to hear how others in your industry are tackling your common challenges. If you miss a session, it will be available on demand so that you can catch up and we have a whole host

of Tech Demos ready for you to view any time. • The vast networking opportunities You will have the chance to connect and engage with other attendees signed up to the event. If there’s someone you usually make sure to meet up with at annual events, make sure they’re also attending and schedule some time for a virtual catch up. You can hop into a video call directly within the platform. It’s also a great opportunity to do the same with some brand new faces. • Story-telling led conference content The conference agendas at the Accounting & Finance Show Asia focus on the stories behind the topics, themes and challenges. We ask all our speakers to share real world examples to make sure that the sessions are both relevant and engaging. • Try new digital tools and software solutions before you buy The Accounting & Finance Show Asia series of events present unrivalled opportunities for you to demo, learn about and speak to the teams behind a vast range of all the latest digital tools and technologies

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Events

for accounting and finance professionals. Save yourself time researching and sending off enquiries and come to our virtual events to learn about a whole host of solutions that could help you, all in one place. What are the top tips to get the most out of attending a virtual event? 1. Make the event your own and plan your schedule in advance - choose the sessions you want to attend and diarise them so you can join live and get your questions answered. 2. Log on before the event and identify the people and companies you would like to meet and secure virtual meetings to replicate that networking you’re missing. 3. Engage - you will get out what you put in! When are the Accounting & Finance Show Asia Virtual events running? This year the Accounting &

Finance Show Asia has expanded into a whole series of virtual events to drill down into the crucial content for specific segments and regions. Here’s a summary of what’s coming up:

16 June 2021

Digital Practice Summit Asia

28-29 July 2021

Accounting & Finance Show Hong Kong

21-22 September 2021 Accounting & Finance Show Asia

12 October 2021

Accounting & Finance Show Malaysia

September 2022. We can’t wait to bring together the Accounting & Finance community from across Asia back together in-person! If you are interested to be involved in any of the upcoming events this year, or next, do get in touch.

Year-round

Accounting & Finance Show Asia and HR Technology Show Asia Webinar Series When will the in-person event return? The Accounting & Finance Show Asia will return as an in-person event in Singapore on 20-21

Find out more... If you would like to be involved in one or more of the 2021 events visit: www.terrapinn.com/ AttendAFShowSeries2021

Prepare with

Dext makes accountants more productive, profitable and powerful.

Visit the XU Hub: Go to www.xumagazine.com

Issue 27 / 163

...and finally

At Xero, we’re big believers in using cloud technology to unlock efficiency and power small business success. Every week we hear success stories from small businesses and advisors about how using apps has helped them do just that.

rowing our thriving app ecosystem is a journey Xero has been on for over a decade. After opening our APIs in 2009 to a handful of developers, it was in 2011 we certified our very first app. Which is why, 10 years on, we’re rapt to announce that we’ve passed a milestone in the growth of our platform, with over 1,000 connected apps in our ecosystem. You can check out many of these apps in the Xero App Marketplace. In the early days, we knew we couldn’t build every niche feature a small business needed to succeed ourselves, so we encouraged other innovators to build them and integrate with Xero, so our subscribers could reap the benefits. That helped form the foundation for the global small business platform Xero is today, which allows our 2.7 million global subscribers to pick and choose from over 1,000 apps to create their own customised cloud solution to suit their unique needs. Why we’re so passionate about apps and our community Since our humble beginnings, we’ve been on a mission to get

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more apps into the hands of small businesses and their advisors, because we know they not only help businesses survive, but thrive.

small businesses (or once small businesses) themselves, it’s been amazing to see the power of this community, innovating to help other businesses succeed

During the vast challenges of 2020, the power of apps became more apparent than ever. We saw a surge in demand for cloud technology, as small businesses reached for the tools they needed to stay operational. And we were proud the Xero App Marketplace was there to support, with apps to help with everything from cash flow management to moving sales online. We know for some small businesses, it was the technology they used that helped make all the difference. Xero’s Pandemic Insights report found during the peak of COVID19’s impact, small businesses using apps lost less revenue, and suffered fewer staff losses, compared to those not using apps.

Celebrating the journey to 1,000 apps in 10 years

Our app partners are central to helping us make life better for people in small business, their advisors, and communities around the world. And with many of our 1,000 app partners being

We’ve been on quite the journey over the past decade, as our community and the innovation on our platform has grown from strength to strength. Who could have dreamed that 10 years ago that we would one day have apps in our ecosystem like Aider, which you can literally talk to ‘siri-style’ and ask questions like “What’s our revenue today?”, and then get a reply pulled from information in Xero? Or that one of our imaginative colleagues would build an integration between Xero and a fax machine? We now welcome over 10 new apps to the Xero App Marketplace every month, each one personally reviewed by a developer evangelist and goes through a detailed certification process. Last year, our open API strategy and ecosystem was even recognised in the IDC MarketScape report, as a key strength.

XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

Visit worldfirst.com/uk/partners/accounting/ or call +44 (0)207 095 0741 to find out more

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Issue 27 / 165

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XU Magazine - the independent magazine for Xero users, by Xero users.

XU Magazine - Issue 27

Articles inside

Sapaad Create the Restaurant

FOCUS: MENTAL HEALTH

NEW RELEASES Updates and new

NEW XERO CONNECTED APPS

NextMinute Constructing a

Women in Accounting

Cloud Payroll Does one size fit all?

simPRO Top ways job

WorldFirst UK What if your costs

Spenmo How Cloud Software

ICB Bookkeeping

Compleat The working from

CASE STUDY Tidy

BOOK REVIEW Everything you need

Wolters Kluwer (UK) Closing the rule book

Clarity Fast track to advisory

Float Introducing a new cash

Lightyear Extend the power of

Q & A ExpenseOnDemand

Senta It is what you do (and

MinuteDock MinuteDock’s Guide to

AutoEntry Scaling with Xero and

Wolters Kluwer (APAC) Propel your practice

Q & A Fathom

GoCardless Xero & GoCardless

Chaser Why is chasing for

infoodle Why would your charity

XBert Using the right

Dext 3 Reasons to Try Fetch by

COVER STORY ApprovalMax

Updates from Xero

Formitize One simple platform

Q & A Flagship Reporting

AccountancyManager Can technology actually

ATOmate Cut your ATO document