XU Biweekly - Issue 1 - 22nd March 2021

Monday 22 March 2021 | No. 1

Receipt Bank and Xavier become Dext

XU Biweekly The independent news source for Xero users, by Xero users

NEW FOR 2021 Bringing you the latest highlights from Xero connected apps & FinTech news

W

E’RE EXCITED TO INTRODUCE TO YOU OUR NEW BIWEEKLY NEWSPAPER, BRINGING YOU THE XERO AND FINTECH NEWS HIGHLIGHTS YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS OUT ON. We all know how the past year has changed our lives, both personally and professionally. We’ve seen some amazing technological advances come from

Monday 22 March 2021 ISSN 2054-7234

9 772054 723006

01

READ MORE... p4

WIN!

10 COPIES AVAILABLE TURN TO PAGE 7

Win a copy of James Ashford’s ‘SELLING TO SERVE’

JOIN A WEBINAR... p6

these changes, but with our growing need for new and improved features, it has become increasingly difficult to keep on top of the constant news feeds, blogs and social streams.

You’re probably familiar with our quarterly publication, XU Magazine, which features articles, updates & new features from some of the best Xero Connected Apps around. We felt that 4 times a year just wasn’t

PAGE 3 raises €750 in funding page 8

enough to keep bringing you the cutting edge news we’re so eager to share, and so XU Biweekly was born.

Expect to find the biggest news stories, features, updates and new additions from Xero, connected apps & FinTech corps you might have missed in the past two weeks, all in one handy place.

And as always, it’s by Xero users, for Xero users.

So, read on!...

Chaser unveils new user interface on p2

New Apps & Updates

2 XU Biweekly | No. 1

G-ACCON FOR WORKFLOWMAX!

W

E ARE THRILLED TO ANNOUNCE THAT OUR NEW PRODUCT, G-ACCON FOR WORKFLOWMAX, HAS BEEN RELEASED IN THE G-SUITE MARKETPLACE! WorkflowMax is a powerful, flexible, end-to-end job management software that is designed for small to medium-sized businesses.

Our new product helps you complete project management including items such as quotes, jobs, invoices, and more.

XU BIWEEKLY - No. 1 Newsdesk: If you have any news or updates that you would like us to consider for inclusion in the next edition of the XU Biweekly, please email us at: newsdesk@xumagazine.com CEO: David Hassall Managing Editor: Wesley Cornell Director of Strategic Partnerships: Alex Newson Communications Manager: Bethany Fulks Advertising: advertising@xumagazine.com www.xumagazine.com ‘Xero’ is a trademark of Xero Limited (New Zealand). XU Biweekly and 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 publication may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher.

XU Biweekly 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 publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. XU Magazine Ltd cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information.

If you submit unsolicited material to us, you automatically grant XU Magazine Ltd a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in all/any editions, 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 Ltd nor its employees, agents or subcontractors shall be liable for loss or damage.

The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily the views of XU Magazine Ltd, its editors or its contributors.

G-Accon for WorkflowMax lets you bi-directionally connect your Google Sheets to WorkflowMax. This means that you can now easily export data and reports, design your own custom reports, make changes, and upload data in bulk to WorkflowMax directly from Google Sheets.

Read more about the new features & how to download a free BETA version...

NEW XERO CONNECTED APPS!

PAYHAWK PAYHAWK HELPS FINANCE leaders ensure full control and transparency over their company spend without changing their bank.

With the financial system of tomorrow, their users create one place to manage the entire spending lifecycle in a digital and compliant way.

Payhawk allows you to easily connect your bank account, load funds, issue physical and virtual cards with a click and reconcile to XERO in real time.

How Appogee HR is making hybrid working a reality for small businesses

A

PPOGEE HR IS THRILLED TO ANNOUNCE THE LAUNCH OF APPOGEE TIME, THE STANDALONE SAAS PRODUCT TO HELP UK SMALL BUSINESSES MANAGE HYBRID WORKING, OFFICE CAPACITY MANAGEMENT, TRACK TIME & ATTENDANCE AND RECORD TIME SPENT ON ACTIVITIES.

Working from home has been the reality for most UK based office staff for the last 12 months, with many staff missing the benefits of office based work, including the general excitement of what a productive day in the office can offer. Hybrid working, where staff are able to work in the office and from

LUCIDA 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.

REVIEWYOU

PET MANAGER IS A complete cloud 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 multi-site operation - they provide the software that allows you to spend more with the animals rather than sitting in front of a computer.

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.

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.

Accelerate your invoicing & create jobs fast with easy access cloud storage from anywhere.

Head of Operations, Charlotte Brown comments “Our customers loved the location recording and office capacity management when we launched Time as part of HR Success. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive in helping our customers plan for a hybrid working strategy. We’ve seen many larger enterprise corporations be able to take advantage of the hybrid model, and being able to make this a reality for small and medium sized businesses has been great for creating the ultimate working environment. We like to think of it as allowing our customers and their staff to get the best out of both worlds when it comes to embracing the future of work.”

“We’ve found that Time’s location features have obvious benefits when it comes to welcoming staff safely back into the office. You can book specific office areas, and set capacity limits on these, to help with social distancing and also as companies look to downsize offices the capacity management feature and remote working recording element will prove

JAZOODLE 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.

KEEP UP TO DATE ON OUR TWITTER @XUMAGAZINE

to have long-term benefits to customers too. The time & attendance tracking features and activity time recording are also helpful for companies to be able to see how many hours staff are working, and be able to record how long they’ve spent working on certain projects or activities, wherever they’re working from.”

Due to Appogee HR’s customer-centric approach, Time is available as an affordable standalone product or you can add it onto Appogee Leave or Appogee HR Essentials and it’s included in Appogee HR Success.

This means individuals can choose a package to suit them, while taking advantage of many other features to help make remote working a reality, such as company document management, employee self-service, absence management and online onboarding, performance management and much more. Integrations with Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Xero and LinkedIn Talent Hub are also available.

Find out more...

Introducing Fathom Advisor Certification

LUCIDA

PET MANAGER

JOBFLOW

home, has become a popular strategy for larger businesses to explore, but logistically the reality of implementing it for small businesses is less easy. With Appogee Time, it’s now a reality for small businesses too.

Appogee HR initially launched Time as part of its advanced HR software package, HR Success, and it’s been so hugely popular with customers that today’s announcement of a standalone product (which can also be purchased as an add-on for their highly popular leave management solution and core HR admin software) is sure to bring the reality of hybrid working to the forefront of small business owners’ minds.

Monday 22 March 2021

By Andrew Webb

F

ATHOM NOW OFFERS A CERTIFICATION COURSE, HELPING YOU UNLOCK FATHOM’S FULL POTENTIAL.

Chaser unveils new user interface

C

HASER IS COMMITTED TO ENSURING THAT EVERY USER HAS A GREAT EXPERIENCE USING OUR PRODUCT. WE ARE DEDICATED TO CONTINUALLY FINDING WAYS TO IMPROVE THE EXPERIENCE FOR OUR USERS. TODAY I’M EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE A FEW ENHANCEMENTS THIS TEAM HAS MADE TO IMPROVE USABILITY AND EFFICIENCY ACROSS THE APPLICATION.

First, we’ve updated the look and feel with a new font, colours and layout styles that reflect the new brand released in December 2020. They are not only pleasing to the eye, but are designed to help our users focus on what is most important while using the application.

For example, highlighting the main content against the background immediately sets the hierarchy and where to look.

Secondly, we changed the navigation from being entirely horizontal to a split between top level and left aligned sections, to further enhance the content area and give our users more space where it matters, for both small and larger screens. In addition to that, the distinction between the chasing sections and less frequent ones like the Settings is more clearly defined by this split.

To reinforce this point even more, we added some iconography to give the main sections extra weight and character.

Additionally, we made some improvements “under-the-hood” to really bring home the theme of usable efficiency. For example, the new navigation will remain visible and accessible even when scrolling down for longer pages. This not only helps maintain the context, but also makes it quicker to navigate away and change it.

Find out more...

In late 2020 we launched Forecasting, but that wasn’t the only project we were working on; we were also developing Fathom Advisor Certification. And now it’s here and ready to help you and your practice.

Offer clients more Whether you’ve been using Fathom for six months or six years, Fathom’s certification can help you find new features and ways of doing things, ultimately adding new skills to your firm. We’ve added lots of new features during the past 12 months, so you may not have seen or used them all. So if you’ve been using Fathom just for Reporting, you can start to explore other features like Forecasting and Analysis, and continue to improve the services you offer your clients as well as getting even more value out of Fathom.

Even after using Fathom for four years, I feel like I learned some new things that I didn’t know. I’m excited to implement them in my practice. Ellen Elpers, Milestone Business Solutions, USA

Upskill the team Upskilling and training for the whole team means that everyone can use Fathom’s features, even if they’re not always client-facing. And if you’re a partner who is not producing reports, knowing how they’re produced and what else Fathom can do – in detail – can help with business development conversations.

Read more on the XU Hub...

News

XU Biweekly | No. 1

Monday 22 March 2021 3

WHAT IS MILEAGE ALLOWANCE RELIEF? Find out the easy way to make a claim

By Steve Ash

Xero to acquire Planday to simplify workforce management and compliance

T

ODAY WE’RE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT XERO HAS AGREED TO BUY PLANDAY, A WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT PLATFORM THAT WILL HELP US DELIVER ON OUR PURPOSE TO MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR PEOPLE IN SMALL BUSINESS, THEIR ADVISORS AND COMMUNITIES AROUND THE WORLD. Planday integrates with Xero, other accounting solutions and third-party workforce-related apps, to deliver a real-time view of staffing needs and payroll costs, alongside key business performance metrics.

Planday helps to address the changing nature of work, with employers and employees increasingly adopting flexible arrangements.

At the same time, employers’ compliance burden is growing, creating the need for tools to manage workforce flexibility and regulatory compliance, accurately calculating wages, which are often their biggest expense.

Welcome, Planday Founded in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2004, Planday serves more than 350,000 employee users across Europe and the UK. Its product is available in 14 languages, and it can be tailored for new regions.

Planday will operate as a Xero subsidiary and continue to focus on serving small and medium businesses and enterprise customers. Following the acquisition, we will work closely with Planday to expand its presence into other markets where Xero operates, supporting Xero’s long-term growth plans.

A time saver for employers and employees Planday relieves business owners of one

of their most time-consuming tasks: adjusting rosters and tracking employees’ time.

Workers enter their availability, swap shifts and record hours through a mobile app.

Employers and employees can stay in touch through Planday’s chat function and messages can be broadcast to an entire team. As a messaging app, Planday modernises shift work and enhances flexibility.

Planday also simplifies compliance. It identifies employees by pay category, logs accrued leave, calculates overtime, and generates supplemental payments – while ensuring wages are updated to reflect local regulatory compliance.

ServiceM8: On-the-go job management

C

ONGRATULATIONS TO OUR MARCH APP PARTNER OF THE MONTH, SERVICEM8 – A JOB MANAGEMENT TOOL PROVIDING A ONE-STOP SHOP FOR SMALL BUSINESSES WITH HIGH JOB VOLUMES AND MOBILE TEAMS.

ServiceM8’s Product and Customer Experience Lead, Darren Ford, gave us an insight into how ServiceM8 helps these businesses better manage jobs to improve productivity and cash flow.

A new opportunity ServiceM8 was created in the late 2000s, after founder, Kim Ford, bought a locksmith business. Inheriting an overwhelming

Read more...

amount of paperwork and admin, Kim and the team immediately began looking for solutions. Without being able to find anything suitable that already existed, they spotted an opportunity to create their own.

“This was around the time the iPhone and the [Apple] App Store were re-

leased. After seeing the potential of how apps could work, the team saw an opportunity to develop a cloud-based solution not just for their business, but for all small trade and service businesses,” Darren says.

Read more on the XU Hub...

ANNATURE AU ANNATURE 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!

LODGEIT 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.

Planday and advisory Planday is a powerful platform when combined with Xero or other accounting and business solutions. It can deliver a real-time picture of labour costs versus key operating metrics such as revenue. This allows a business to adjust staffing levels as trading conditions fluctuate, and gives advisors greater insight into a client’s operations.

Planday also supports advisors’ compliance needs by creating a data trail for the related bookkeeping and HR services they provide to clients.

As always, Xero will remain committed to encouraging and supporting an open ecosystem that prioritises customer choice, allowing them to select the solutions that best suit their needs.

We anticipate small businesses will play an important role as the global economy emerges from a challenging period. If we can make life better for our customers, the benefits have the potential to extend well beyond small business to their families and communities. We look forward to working with Planday on this mission today and in the years to come.

XERO APP PARTNER OF THE MONTH

By Nick Houldsworth

I

F YOU’RE USING YOUR OWN VEHICLE FOR WORK, YOU MAY BE ABLE TO CLAIM MILEAGE EXPENSES FROM YOUR EMPLOYER. SOME EMPLOYERS WILL PAY YOU THE FULL HMRC MILEAGE ALLOWANCE (THERE’S MORE ON THIS IN OUR RECENT BLOG POST ) WHILE OTHERS MAY ONLY PAY YOU PART, OR NONE, OF THE AVAILABLE ALLOWANCE.

If your employer doesn’t pay you the full mileage allowance (called approved mileage allowance), you may be able to claim Mileage Allowance Relief. If you’re a taxpayer, this helps you to claim tax relief when your approved mileage allowance has not been fully used.

In this post, we’ll explain how the Mileage Allowance relief works, and the steps you’ll need to take to apply for this useful tax relief.

NEW XERO CONNECTED APPS!

BDO and Xero join forces in global agreement

By Rachael Powell

X

ERO IS BUILT ON PARTNERSHIPS AND IS COMMITTED TO WORKING WITH A LARGE ECOSYSTEM OF LIKE-MINDED COMPANIES WHO CAN HELP US ACHIEVE OUR PURPOSE OF MAKING LIFE BETTER FOR PEOPLE IN SMALL BUSINESS, THEIR ADVISORS AND COMMUNITIES AROUND THE WORLD. It’s for this reason, we’re thrilled to announce that Xero has signed a three year global agreement with BDO to help businesses build resilience and plan for success.

Under the agreement, BDO has been awarded Xero Global Partner status – recognising a new level of global engagement between our two companies. Xero will become BDO’s preferred accounting solution for its small and medium-sized clients globally.

We’re really excited about this partnership because more businesses will be able to use Xero’s accounting software platform with BDO’s business experience and expertise to gain better access to the vital support and information they need to succeed.

BDO shares our passion to enable more small businesses worldwide to succeed, so it’s such a natural fit for us to take this partnership to the next level.

Providing businesses with the tools they need If the last 12 months have taught us anything about business, it’s that digitisation has never been more important. Access to real-time, financial data and insights is vital and by leveraging the Xero platform, BDO’s advisors can use their expertise to support clients around the globe.

Our aspiration is to deliver Xero into the hands of as many BDO advisors around the world and in turn enable them to drive deep and meaningful conversations with their clients.

Working closely with Xero, BDO advisors will be able to deliver real-time data and help clients both understand and apply this information.

These accurate financial insights will be invaluable to small businesses. They’ll enable business owners to focus on what matters to them – whether that’s growing

their business, diversifying their products and services, exploring new markets, improving processes, or going completely digital.

The next three years BDO shares Xero’s focus for developing a consistent and truly global approach for supporting growing businesses.

We’re excited about the opportunity this presents and welcome BDO as a Xero Global Partner. The initial participating firms are expected to include BDO Australia, New Zealand, UK and Canada and we look forward to welcoming many more over the course of this agreement.

We’re proud of the community we’ve built at Xero through our network of partners, and are looking forward to working more closely with BDO.

Read more on the XU Hub...

Feature

4 XU Biweekly | No. 1

Monday 22 March 2021

Meet Dext Receipt Bank and Xavier become Dext

By Paul Lodder

O

UR COMPANY IS NOW DEXT. A PLATFORM COMPRISING TWO POWERFUL PRODUCTS - PREPARE (FORMERLY RECEIPT BANK) AND PRECISION (FORMERLY XAVIER) DEXT LAUNCHES WITH THE PROMISE TO MAKE ACCOUNTANTS AND BOOKKEEPERS MORE PRODUCTIVE, PROFITABLE AND POWERFUL.

How did we get here?

A decade ago, Receipt Bank began as a data entry tool used by one of our co-founders Michael Wood who struggled with getting financial documents to his frustrated accountant on time. Wood eventually bought the company who developed the very same data entry tool and Receipt Bank was born.

Since then, Receipt Bank grew into more than an admin tool, it became a data extraction market leader, adding data cleaning powerhouse Xavier to the mix in 2020. We began narrowing in on the importance of assured data for accountants and business owners. It was a natural progression to Dext, and we are continuing to grow and learn.

What we know presently is that for accountants, inefficient workflows mean missed opportunities to make revenue for the firm and make an impact on your clients.

For small businesses, there is no real time

picture of business finances now and into the future.

Adrian Blair, Dext CEO, details the steps taken to address these pain points that we heard loud and clear.

“The next step for us as a platform was to not only save time but to develop tools that make accounting firms more productive, that means automating time-consuming processes like extracting data, categorising, sorting and organising documents.

We have also recognised the critical role data accuracy plays in financial insights and advice - the more accurate your data, the better the insight you are able to provide your clients with.

Dext aims to turn data into actionable financial insights and do that in a way that allows your business, and the businesses of your clients, to be even more productive and profitable.

As Dext, we will keep innovating with the industry and together, as pioneers, work with accountants and bookkeepers to design products with them, for them.”

Why we’re Dext Our philosophy is simple. We believe that behind every successful business is a brilliant accountant. Our job is to help brilliant accountants make successful businesses. We wanted a name that reflected that mission. Hence Dext. It’s that simple.

Dext is a fusion of two words: the dexterity that accountants and bookkeepers bring

to their clients’ challenges and the next generation attitude that so many have.

Dext in detail Dext is a powerful accounting platform, with a range of features easily adapted to any accounting needs. We’ve also changed the name of our two current products to more accurately describe what they do.

Dext Prepare (formerly Receipt Bank) helps you prepare client accounts, make bookkeeping profitable, and free up your best people.

Dext Precision (formerly Xavier) gives you trust in your data by spotting errors before they become a problem.

Dext Prepare ensures that transactions are processed efficiently and regularly. Using the app and features like Auto- Publish, Supplier Rules and Fetch mean the days of manually typing in the data are long gone. The whole process can be fully automated resulting in hours and hours of time saved. This will create capacity to either take on more clients (without the

Feature

XU Biweekly | No. 1 need for additional resources) or to expand the current advisory services offering.

Operating within a “real time world” is increasingly important and so processing the data efficiently allows you to have visibility of the numbers quicker. This will mean that the right business decisions can be made at the right time.

Dext Precision is a game changer for accountants. The insights across your client base ensures that you can be confident the data is accurate before starting any work.

This will prevent time being wasted when undertaking compliance work but is also key to driving advisory services.

By using the “flows” it ensures the team are following an approved approach that maximises productivity, efficiency and profitability. The focus dashboards are tailored to meet your needs which means you will always have your finger on the pulse and so you can truly be a pro-active trusted advisor.

Dext Precision does the hard work for you which means you get better insight and spend more time advising your clients and help them achieve their goals. Better yet, Precision is expanding its capability into QuickBooks Online, so both Xero and QuickBooks users will have access. The perfect solution for accountants and bookkeepers is to use Prepare and Precision together. That will ensure maximum efficiency and productivity.

What’s new You still have access to everything you need to prepare your client accounts; automatic supplier and customer rules, bank matching, connections to more than 1,400 suppliers, and now sales invoice uploads direct to your accounting software.

You’ll soon see more tools that deliver actionable insights, with the same award-winning assurance, to ensure quality

and confidence in your clients’ data.

We’re not just delivering more precise data for accounts receivable; we’re also developing our product suite to get data from the receivable and e-commerce side by developing our product.

Dual product users will get a new, single view dashboard bringing useful insights from both Precision and Prepare together in one place.

You’ll also be able to work with more clients through the Dext Connect App. A sim-

Monday 22 March 2021 5

ple app that integrates the speed and accuracy of Receipt Bank with the security of Sage 50 and Quickbooks Desktop software, seamlessly.

This is only the beginning of Dext’s offerings for 2021. We’ll be delivering new productivity products that give you greater control of your firm, helping you to use your people efficiently and help you deliver more work to more clients.

Our focus remains on building efficiencies inside your firm and out into your cli-

ent ecosystem. The possibilities for Dext are endless and without our community of partners and clients we wouldn’t have the wherewithal to continuously improve our product.

So thank you, and welcome to Dext.

Find out more...

Visit our website at: dext.com

Builders can fix anything... except their own business Help builders get the right tools to run and organise their business

By Emily Mason

H

AVE YOU EVER BEEN ON YOUR TRADE CLIENTS WEBSITE AND BEEN AMAZED BY THEIR ADVERTISED WORK, BUT THEN BEEN INTO THEIR ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE AND THOUGHT, “WHAT THE...?”

9/10 times, they have called on the help of their partner, mother or sister’s best friend’s cousin who used MYOB once 20 years ago to get set-up. You have to start somewhere, but I am sure every bookkeeper has experienced the long-term frustration from sub- par setup. Chart of Accounts are incomplete, 1000+ un-

reconciled items, business accounts used for personal expenses and the only receipt you can find is for a chocolate milk and meat pie from the servo.

Tradies are out fixing everyone else problems, but who is fixing theirs?

50% of their work is on the tools and the other 50% is from their mobile phones,

so to achieve the best results, your process needs to fit this mould.

NextMinute works on both IOS and Android devices, allowing access to the job information needed from anywhere, with any device.

Once onsite, the team can open a job or task and start a timer, recording timesheets into NextMinute directly from the mobile app. A GPS pin will drop when the timer starts, so the boss has peace of mind even when they’re not on site. The NextMinute timesheets can then sync straight into Xero for payroll.

Most tradies glove boxes are full of receipts, so by suggesting ReceiptBank or Hubdoc, they can use their mobiles to get the data entry sorted. Once the receipts are in Xero they can be imported to NextMinute so they can be on- charged to

the associated jobs. Labour rates and other job related expenses can be automatically marked-up, allowing for accurate costs to be captured on the client invoices.

Invoices can then be sent directly to the customer via NextMinute and will again sync back into Xero.

All of this is wrapped up into a neat financial report showing the job costing and expected revenue. Tradies tend to not worry about costs, but if you can show

your clients the monetary benefits from having good processes, it will also help when it comes to plugging any revenue leakage - allowing them to continue spending on the important stuff, like Friday beers and pizza for the team.

Your clients wouldn’t put a roof up with no walls, just like you wouldn’t prepare BAS without finalising the bank reconciliations. These guys didn’t become builders to sit behind a computer, we

want to improve the collaboration between you and your clients, so that you can focus on helping them fix their businesses.

You are in a prime position to help tradies run their business just as well as they can build.

Find out more... www.nextminute.com/ fixingthebusiness

XU Don’t miss the next issue!

Biweekly

SIGN UP FOR FREE

Features

6 XU Biweekly | No. 1

Celebrating a Decade in the Accounting Ecosystem Spotlight Reporting turns 10

R

Xerocon 2: February 2011, Taupo, New Zealand Rod Drury leans over to me as I’m about to go on stage at Xerocon 2 to unveil Spotlight Reporting for the very first time. “Demo it live – no slides!” he says.

The thought of doing a live demo makes me want to bring up my breakfast.

Why? It’s because it was the “bleeding-edge early stage” of the ecosystem. To help you understand, I was unveiling v1 of Spotlight Reporting in an era when Xero and its entire ecosystem and software teams were small enough to literally fit into a small Wellington bar.

I take Rod’s advice anyway, and give the Xerocon crowd a live demo of Spotlight Reporting. It turned out to be a hit and Rod dubbed it “Reporting on steroids”, giving us a big launching pad.

Within months, some of the biggest and most progressive accounting firms had signed up and were rocking reports out to customers.

This was the very best affirmation I could’ve hoped for.

Three Years Later – Game On! Things were going very well for Spotlight Reporting and by 2014, we had signed up a few hundred firms. It was great to see CFOs and business owners sharing insightful Spotlight reports, dashboards, forecasts, consolidations, and industryspecific outputs. Customers were seeing new revenue and enhancing relationships with their clients, too.

By now our team had grown. Julie and I had mortgaged it all and were firmly set on a “death or glory” trajectory. We’d done a Seed Round (and later a Series A).

What’s remarkable was that we were still running the remnants of our own bou-

tique practice, while raising two small children in these early years.

To top it off, we’d started developing a fifth app – Spotlight Wo r k p a p e r s .

It was neat to have created the first online workpaper stack, but we knew we needed the reach of Xero in order to take it to a broader audience.

To achieve this, Spotlight Workpapers became Xero Workpapers and we mixed and matched our Xero and Spotlight t-shirts at various events for two years, much to the bemusement of many punters who would ask, “Weren’t you just on stage wearing a Xero t-shirt?”

It would’ve been easy to stall or flame-out at this point, but we doubled-down and built up teams in Auckland, Australia, the UK, and the US. We hired rain-makers, training and support teams, and Customer Success Specialists before it was even a ‘thing’. Our HQ team got too big for our seaside villa, which consisted of eight people working out of converted bedrooms. To cater for a growing team, we moved and found a seaside office that could house 25 staff, and chose to remain in Silicon Petone. Those were good times and things went from strength to strength – our customer base continued to grow and mature, as did our product road-map.

Bringing it into 2021!

Ten years after launching Spotlight Reporting at Xerocon 2, I can just about spot Xero Towers gleaming in the mid-afternoon sun across the harbour. Xero has become an international juggernaut and I can reflect back on the Spotlight Reporting journey alongside them with pride. As an ecosystem partner, we fully supported Xero’s “Beautiful Accounting” movement and went in boots and all from day 1. We’ve carved

JOIN A XU HOSTED WEBINAR

It’s not about survival; it’s about THRIVAL! Join us LIVE 23 March @ 11AM BST

By Richard Francis FCA ICHARD FRANCIS FCA SUMS UP WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE IN THE ACCOUNTING ECOSYSTEM FOR A DECADE AND WHAT HE’S LEARNT ALONG THE WAY.

Monday 22 March 2021

out a foothold as the most popular reporting and forecasting app for most of the last decade – being your #1 matters to us a lot!

What have I learnt?

T h e best journeys don’t happen by luck. As a founder, it takes blood, sweat, tears.

You’ve got to give 110% and have great shareholder belief. It also takes 20+ Xerocons, one million air miles, the brain-power and grit of 60 staff in 10 locations, the support of 2,000+ accounting firms, and a LOT of great coffee.

You have to forge genuine partnerships and friendships and put heart and soul into the industry you are serving. You’ll make mistakes, but what’s important is that you keep learning and that you move forward.

For Spotlight Reporting, the last 10 years have been revelatory. We’ve won awards and we’ve even had a death threat from someone who couldn’t complete a forecast! We’ve visited thousands of accounting firms and businesses, we’ve shipped hundreds of releases, we’ve written a book that ‘sold’ 20,000 copies (okay – it was free!), and we’ve provided a career trajectory for some wonderful people.

But just as importantly, we’ve worked alongside Xero and all of you progressive and dedicated advisors to help our industry make an impact, create change and drive the kind of success that makes communities thrive.

I’ve loved (almost) every minute of our first 10 years and know that the next 10 years will be even better.

Find out more...

Visit our website at: spotlightreporting.com

Cloud note taking for small business Join us LIVE 30 March @ 9.30AM BST

Simplifying invoice payments Click here to watch NOW!

How secure is your signing?

By Jemmah Revell

W

ITH SO MANY O P T I O N S FOR SIGNING DOCUMENTS ONLINE, IT’S IMPORTANT TO CONSIDER THE TOOLS YOU’RE USING AND WHETHER THEY PROVIDE THE SECURITY FEATURES YOUR PRACTICE OR SMALL BUSINESS NEEDS.

Digital vs E-signing Many small businesses are unaware of the legal differences between e-signatures and digital signatures.

The laws vary from country-to-country but in Australia and New Zealand we follow a minimal approach to digital signing, called an open legal model. This model lets nearly all documents be signed with a simple electronic signature!

The key features of a digital signature include signature encryption and linking to the original signee, it holds a data trail, there are high levels of authenticity, it secures a document and is legally binding. This differs from an e-signature in that the document is only verified instead of secured, the signature is non-encrypted, it’s typically simpler to use but less authentic, there is no guaranteed data trail, and the intent to sign is what creates the contract.

The main benefits of using a digital signature are around security, ensuring the person signing the document is the signee, and being able to back this up with an audit trail can be essential to the document holding up in court. If your business is set on using e-signatures, one way to have this document hold up in court is by gaining consent before using an online signature and be able to reasonably identify them. This shows the signee knows they entered a contract by symbolising their agreement.

Common Signing Methods Having a digital signing feature, our sales team often hears all the different ways small businesses are currently signing documents.

These different methods are often used because they are the simplest, are typically free, and don’t involve the client learning any new technology so takes less time to implement.

The traditional ink signature is one a lot of businesses are still using. This usually involves printing the document, manually signing it, scanning it, then emailing it to their client who will do the same. The time sunk into this process, the expectation of clients to have access to printers and scanners, and the manual follow ups required to get this signature back manually are often not considered.

The learning curve of a new technology usually takes far less time than the manual processes seen here, not to mention the difficulty of following this process while social distancing.

This method offers medium security; you can see the handwriting and signature matches the clients and without reasonable doubt you would assume this is who has signed the document. This method offers no security in the form of an audit trail or encrypted signature. It also offers only one authentication method of email, which is often not enough.

Another common method is using free tools. The small business will upload their document to a free online provider, create their signature, paste it on the document, then send it off to their clients. This poses the same security risks as the previous method but includes a third party who may not be trusted, nor does it offer the confidence of a handwritten signature.

The most common method we see is using a free tool to turn a Word Document into a fillable PDF, the signees will then type their name into the document, and this will act as a signature. This method is also sent via email so poses the same security risks as the above methods.

SuiteFiles Digital Signing Our digital signing feature offers encryption, authentication, and provides a full audit history of each document. Our approach complies with both tiered and open digital signature legal models.

The SuiteFiles signing feature works by automatically turning any document held in SuiteFiles into a signable PDF file, you can then drag and drop your chosen fields (signing, date, and text fields).

The document is now ready for signing, you add your recipients or save the file into your clients shared folder. If you’ve added recipients, they will receive a link to sign the document in the browser, the signed document will then automatically be saved back to the original location with a signed copy sent to each signee. If you’ve chosen to save the document to a shared client folder, you can add the recipient’s email address so they receive a notification to login with their Xero, Google or custom credentials to sign the document. The completed document will be automatically saved back to their shared client folder.

This year we’re focusing on adding enhancements to a number of features, including digital signing. We’ll be making this a simpler process for both SuiteFiles customers and end users, as well as adding even more security features.

Find out more...

Classifieds

XU Biweekly | No. 1 Accountant Tools

Cloud Integration

Inventory

Monday 22 March 2021

Payments

Reporting

7

Time Tracking

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

Find out more at worldfirst.com

Payroll & HR

CRM Making accountants more productive, profitable and powerful.

EASY TO USE HR SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS TO SUIT YOUR BUSINESS

STOCK MANAGEMENT

Real-time cash flow confidence

tidystock com

Invoices & Jobs Sublime practice management software for accountants and bookkeepers.

tidywork com WWW.APPOGEEHR.COM/XERO

Xero HQ

New Zealand

Automated billing for MSPs & Telcos

Sign up for a 30-day free trial www.senta.co

Manage, edit, share & sign all your business documents.

ipayroll.co.nz

Australia

Bills & Expenses

www.emersion.com/xero_partners

30 DAY FREE TRIAL

cloudpayroll.com.au

www.suitefiles.com

Debtor Tracking

Automated Data Entry for Accountants, Bookkeepers and Business Owners

Year End

#1 Reporting & Forecasting app in the Xero Ecosystem

BOOST YOUR PRODUCTIVITY

Get paid faster with human-like receivables automation

JOB MANAGEMENT

FOR BUILDERS

Tools to digitalise your practice

spotlightreporting.com

www.nextminute.com

TRY FOR FREE TODAY!

AutoEntry.com

JOB MANAGEMENT

wolterskluwer.co.uk

www.chaserhq.com

Dedicated to making work life easier for bookkeepers.

It’s a match made in heaven.

AI-POWERED PROCESS AUTOMATION AND RISK ALERTS

ARE YOU TIRED OF CHASING OVERDUE INVOICES? Automate your AR with ezyCollect

www.xbert.io Start your FREE trial: workflowmax.com/xero

Point of Sale

Outsourcing www.compleatsoftware.com

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

#TheFutureIsNow

BUSINESS FINANCE MADE EASY

Try Sapaad for FREE www.sapaad.com

marketfinance.com

The independent magazin

e for Xero users, by

Xero users

ISSUE

magazine

XU

magazine

ISSUE 26 OUT NOW!

RECEIPT BANK AND XAVIER BECOME

DEXT ISSN 2054-7226

Conn ecte Apps d

26

9 772054 722009

Visit the XU Hub: Go

PLUS LO MORE ADS FROM

Xero

PAGE 8

e.com Follow us on Twitter: @xumagazine TUTORIALS CASEwww.xumagazin STUDIES INTERVIEWS Issue 26 / 1 NEW APPS NEW RELEASES to

26

WIN!

A copy of James Ashford’s ‘SELLING TO SERVE’ We’ve got 10 copies of James’ new book to give away to our lucky readers!

To enter, simply tag @xumagazine & @THEJamesAshford in a post on Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook with the following hashtag...

#SellingToServeXU

FinTech News

8 XU Biweekly | No. 1

A SumUp raises €750m in funding

G

LOBAL PAYMENTS SERVICE PROVIDER SUMUP ANNOUNCES TODAY THAT IT HAS RAISED A 750M EUR FACILITY FROM GOLDMAN SACHS, TEMASEK, BAIN CAPITAL CREDIT, CRESTLINE, AND FUNDS MANAGED BY OAKTREE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, L.P.

With Goldman Sachs’ and Bain Capital Credit’s continued support as existing investors and high demand from new investors, the current round was oversubscribed.

SumUp will use the proceeds to accelerate its growth and continue to acquire and support its existing merchants in 33 markets across the world. The new funds will also be used to continue expanding SumUp’s product suite, both organically and through further acquisitions (M&A), as well as for refinancing existing debt facilities.

The company has recently broadened its product portfolio in the POS and gastronomy space across the UK and continental Europe through the acquisition of leading POS software providers Goodtill and Tiller.

These recent acquisitions will put SumUp into contact with potentially millions of new customers, from cafes and restaurants right up to the biggest sports stadiums and concert arenas; signalling a new generation of SumUp merchants coming into play.

SumUp has also recently completed the acquisition of the core banking system provider Paysolut, as part of its strategy to build up its offering of banking services for merchants.

Despite the effects of COVID-19 on SMEs, SumUp has entered 2021 in its strongest position to date. Over the past year, SumUp has unveiled a host of new solutions and innovations to help businesses navigate the operating restrictions brought about by repeated lockdowns.

This included the introduction of payment links & invoicing options, new online selling functionalities through the ‘SumUp Online Store’, and gift card collaborations with Google, Facebook, and Instagram; solutions all designed to help business owners to receive payments safely and continue trading in the face of uncertain economic circumstances.

In the year ahead, SumUp is looking to grow its 2000+ strong team by adding the world’s best talent to its 19 international offices on three continents. In addition to prominence in Europe, the US, and Brazil, SumUp’s long-term trajectory will include expansion into Asia.

In Europe, SumUp has launched in Romania, bringing the number of its European markets to 29. Within its new markets, SumUp acquired the full stake in the joint venture it previously had with Chile’s BancoEstado and will continue serving merchants and developing the market further exclusively under the SumUp brand.

The Colombian market launch is also a hugely significant step for SumUp, with the fourth largest economy in LATAM and a population of over 50 million people now able to come into contact with the company’s technology. With thousands of merchants joining the SumUp services every day, its proprietary card terminals are relied upon by over 3 million businesses globally.

Marc-Alexander Christ, Co-founder at SumUp comments: “Each day I continue to be impressed by how the SumUp team has faced down the challenges of the past year and continued to deliver the vital, payments technology that empowers small businesses all over the world; helping them to continue to be successful doing what they love best.

As one of the fastest growing technology companies in the world, this cash injection in addition to having the built-in option to expand the financing - will significantly accelerate the growth of our customer base, enhance SumUp’s technology leadership position, and drive the development of new services to support our merchants globally.”

Tom Maughan, from Bain Capital Credit comments: ”We’re proud to be backing SumUp once again and we recognise the truly impressive strides made by the company over the past couple of years. We have huge admiration for what SumUp is doing for small businesses across the world in helping them to keep trading and flourishing in some of the most trying economic circumstances imaginable. The doubling down of our investment in SumUp in this round is both a demonstration of our confidence in the company today and its strong future.”

Starling Bank announces £272m funding round led by Fidelity Investments

S

TARLING, THE LEADING UK DIGITAL BANK, ANNOUNCES A £272 MILLION SERIES D FUNDING ROUND LED BY FIDELITY MANAGEMENT & RESEARCH COMPANY (FIDELITY),

alongside Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), RPMI Railpen (Railpen), the investment manager for the £31 billion Railways Pension Scheme, and the global investment firm Millennium Management. The new investment values the company at £1.1 billion pre-money.

Starling is among the UK’s fastest-growing banks.

Since launching in 2017, it has opened more than two million accounts, including more than 300,000 small business accounts. A new customer joins Starling every 39 seconds. Starling’s total gross lending now exceeds £2 billion, while deposits top £5.4 billion. Starling was voted Best British Bank in 2018, 2019 and 2020 and topped the Which? customer satisfaction table for 2020.

The new funding announced today will support Starling’s continued rapid and now profitable growth.

The capital will be deployed

primarily to support a targeted expansion of Starling’s lending in the UK, as well as to launch Starling in Europe and for anticipated M&A.

Read more...

Monday 22 March 2021

Our new debit cards: A greener way to pay

S PART OF OUR MISSION TO PROTECT THE PLANET, FROM THIS MONTH, EVERY NEW STARLING CUSTOMER WILL RECEIVE A DEBIT CARD MADE FROM RECYCLED PLASTIC. Our new and replacement cards will now be made from 75% recycled rPVC plastic, with the other 25% – the chip and laminated surface – made from non-recycled materials. The new cards are the first UK Mastercard debit cards to be made from recycled plastic.

At Starling, we have an opportunity to build genuinely sustainable practices from scratch and prioritise prevention over cure.

We’re already branchless, paper- l e s s and run on renewable energy, and last year, we started planting thousands of trees every month. This year, we’ve become a founder signatory of the TechZero group, pledging to become a NetZero company – and rethinking our debit cards is an important step in that direction.

Collectively, the world holds over 17 billion bank cards – which is an awful lot of plastic by anyone’s

standards. We can’t do much about the sixteen billion nine-hundred and ninety-eight million other cards – but we can try to clean up our corner.

Why are we using recycled plastic?

Our card designer Mark Day explored a range of options, from degradable and bio-sourced plastics to materials like metal and wood.

He quickly discovered that most alternatives have clear downsides or aren’t quite as green as they first appear.

By using mostly recycled plastic, we’re making sure that far less plastic is being produced to make our cards, and that we’re making the most of what already exists. It’s the most sustainable and realistic option currently available.

Where does the recycled plastic come from?

The core of the card is made from recycled PVC from EU industrial waste, for example, plastic packaging.

The card’s laminated surface and chip isn’t made from recycled plastic, as that isn’t available as an option yet.

T

Clarity HQ grew from strength to strength in 2020 with huge developments added to the portfolio for accounting firms. Features such as Portfolio View, Financial Plan and Funding by

Helping those who help the community 50% off for the first 3 months Start a free trial to secure your discount* *Offer is valid for not-for-profits until 31 May 2021 for new subscriptions only.

50% off for the first 6 months & start a free trial

50% off for 6 months Start a free trial now & ask for our UK launch offer Limited time only. Terms apply.

Excludes partner plan.

Try free for 30 days & get an extra 2 months free

Read more...

Clarity HQ Software Development Update HIS QUARTER, #TEAMCLARITY HAVE FOCUSED ON ENHANCING OUR EXISTING PRODUCTS WITHIN THE CLARITY PLATFORM.

COUPONS

Clarity were all rolled out in Q3 and Q4 2020. The development team have worked continuously to improve these features for our accounting members, so that you can streamline your advisory services and continue to grow your firm and help your clients succeed.

Check out all of Clarity’s Q1 2021 updates on the XU Hub...

50% off for the first 3 months Stay competitive with cutting edge data entry solutions

Use code

APG-XU26 for 20% off!

Offer available exclusively to XU readers who purchased before 30.06.2021