Xero connects with over 1,000 apps that help small businesses and their advisors succeed, check out the Xero App Store. Each month we celebrate an app partner who stands out for helping small businesses thrive. Find out more about becoming a Xero app partner here.
Xero recently hosted Xerocon London, one of the most anticipated events on the calendar for cloud accounting leaders. We were excited to reconnect with more than 2,000 accounting and bookkeeping partners and share the latest product developments across Xero.
In addition to the smorgasbord of breakout sessions and keynotes, attendees also had the opportunity to hear from some of our ecosystem app partners, who are an essential part of Xero’s small business platform vision and enabling small business success. So, we thought we would switch it up for July’s App Partner of the Month by showcasing some of the Xero app partner success stories that exhibited at Xerocon London (21-22 July).
Preparing the UK for ‘Making Tax Digital’ in 2024
The UK Government’s Making Tax Digital (MTD) for ITSA will impact up to 4.2 million UK small businesses so we’re working closely with our partners to ensure everyone is prepared ahead of 2024.
“With MTD in the UK increasing the demands on accountants and bookkeepers, it’s imperative to work from quality records. Data assurance has never been more important,” says Jon Jenkins, founder and CEO at Hindsight. “Hindsight powers the accounting firm of the future by providing peace of mind for accountants and bookkeepers knowing that their portfolio is continuously monitored for issues and risks. Hindsight automatically syncs client data from Xero to create fully customisable client alerts, giving accountants and bookkeepers a clear, up-to-date view on the most critical issues and risks.”
Logan Ransley, co-founder of rental accounting and management app Landlord Studio also says MTD will encourage residential landlords to make the switch from spreadsheets to cloud software solutions.
“As the UK introduces MTD legislation, Landlord Studio is a great starting point for residential landlords that are moving off spreadsheets to a digital solution. By simplifying and automating the process of collecting and reconciling rental income and expense information, Landlord Studio and Xero can help landlords improve the return on investment on their property investments.”
New ways to support businesses selling online
eCommerce is driving many businesses towards new tools like A2X and Link My Books to streamline their sales, stay on top of cash flow and better serve their customers.
“Knowing your numbers has never been more important for businesses selling online,” says Jamie McDonald, CEO at A2X. “With rising cost of goods, supply chain issues, and mobile privacy updates impacting the efficacy of digital ads, understanding the true financial performance of a business has evolved from a nice-to-know to a need-to-know. eCommerce accounting can be challenging on a good day, but with A2X and Xero the process is automated, fast, and accurate.”
Daniel Little, co-founder and CEO at Link My Books agrees that an ecommerce business’ numbers are critical, and believes that automation has a key role to play.
“Thousands of UK businesses selling on Amazon, eBay, Shopify and Etsy, and accountants with clients selling on these platforms, use Link My Books together with Xero to ensure that they pay the correct amount of VAT on their ecommerce sales,” says Daniel, “We found more than 75% of online sellers get it wrong and end up overpaying due to not grouping their sales correctly.”
Digital toolboxes to help you on the construction site
Xero already has a strong reputation for supporting tradies’ businesses around the world, and tools like NextMinute help construction professionals to make business life easier.
“Tradespeople don’t learn about running a business at trade school,” says David Falconer, CEO at NextMinute. “Builders know how to build a house and accountants and bookkeepers know how to build a business, sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don’t. Our digital toolkit for tradespeople and their advisors helps improve workflow, cash flow and remove unnecessary admin processes to save time and boost profits.”
Time saving tools to get your freedom back
At Xero, we strongly believe digital tools are here to help businesses save time and money, while freeing them up for more important work. We love our app partners that enable that ethos.
“We’re all about cutting down time,” says SuiteFiles CEO, Andrew Sims. “In practice, this means removing steps from time consuming processes that eat up the limited hours small businesses have each day. We provide one source of truth for your client data through integrated document management. Let’s give businesses those critical hours back.”
If there’s a common theme coming through a lot of these apps – it’s automation.
David Tuck, co-founder and CEO at Mayday, believes his company’s mission is to ‘mend’ month-end. Mayday Recharger serves Xero users with multiple related entities by automating the recharging of costs and revenues between those entities, saving between two to three hours each month – easy.
New collaborative tools to better engage your customers
“We created Timworks after experiencing firsthand how painful collaborating with our accountant was,’ said Ben Marcilharcy, co-founder and CEO at Timworks. “We built Timworks to help the client-accountant relationship unleash its full potential, via a simple, client-friendly, ‘WhatsApp-like’ client support app. It connects to an accountant’s core app stack in Xero to simplify the way accountancy firms and virtual CFOs support their customers.”
A key part of customer engagement is producing data in a language, and format, they can easily understand, according to Richard Francis, CEO and co-founder of Spotlight Reporting – a product suite covering reporting, forecasting and consolidation.
“We enable accountants to import actual and budget data from Xero with the click of a button, to deliver detailed performance reports and powerful forecasting, for better business outcomes,”
says Richard. “We believe that providing accountants with greater clarity is the best way to add value to their customer relationships.”
Integrated reporting, analysis and forecasting app Fathom also celebrated its 10 year anniversary earlier this year, joining Xero back in 2012.
“We want businesses and their advisors to move forward and plan for the future with confidence,” shares David Watson, co-founder and Director at Fathom.
“One of our core values is to make genuine connections. We love connecting with the industry and our customers, and Xerocon is an absolute highlight of the year for the Fathom team.”
Congrats to our app partners
That’s a wrap! Congratulations to our July App Partners of the Month from Xerocon London.
If you’re in the USA or Canada, the North American leg of Xerocon is in New Orleans this year on 24 and 25 August at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Find out what you can expect and purchase a ticket, or attend as an exhibitor by emailing xerocon.exhibitors@xero.com.
The final Xerocon of the year, covering Asia, Australia and New Zealand, will be held at Sydney Convention Centre on 7 and 8 September – learn more about how you can join us here.
