If you’re a small business you have probably heard of Xero cloud accounting solution. It’s the fastest growing cloud accounting platform out there, that’s why we decided to promote it to our clients and why we became a Xero Partner.
Xero can transform the way you run your business, streamlining and simplifying the financial administration and putting you in control with real-time information on performance.
What’s less obvious is how you can save time, effort and money on everyday activities. Here are a couple of examples that our clients love.
DEALING WITH RECEIPTS
Scenario 1 – Paul buys some materials to complete a job for Mrs Jones. He leaves the store, hurriedly puts the receipt on the dashboard, and gets back to site. The following Sunday Paul is doing his accounts ….now where is that receipt for Mrs Jones’ materials….?
Scenario 2 – Sarah buys lots of items for her business on-line and get the invoices by email either as text or in a pdf. She does her accounts on Saturday morning while the kids go swimming with her partner Ted. She looks in the inbox for a receipt but it’s not there. It’s not in the deleted folder. Did she file it? Where on earth is that invoice?
Do these scenarios sound at all familiar? There are 2 things wrong with these situations:
- Losing receipts
- manually entering expenses in the first place!
The typical UK employee is estimated to lose expense receipts worth over £400 per year and spend 23 days of their lives filling out expense forms. The self employed probably fare even worse. With Xero our clients avoid these problems completely. Here’s how:
Scenario 1 – Paul buys some materials to complete a job for Mrs Jones. As he walks from the counter he pulls out his phone, loads up an app and and takes a photo of the receipt. The photo is decoded and uploaded into his accounts in Xero automatically. A copy of the receipt is stored in the cloud in case it’s needed later. Paul puts the receipt into the bin outside the shop, jumps into his car and gets back to site. The following Sunday Paul takes his wife out for a pub lunch.
Scenario 2 – Sarah buys lots of items for her business on-line and get the invoices by email either as text or in a pdf. When an invoice arrives in her inbox she forwards it to a dedicated email address where it is decoded and loaded straight into her accounts in Xero. A copy of the invoice is stored in the cloud case it’s needed later. On Saturday she meets a friend for coffee while her partner, Ted, takes the kids swimming.
SAVING YOUR MILEAGE
Just about everyone incurs business mileage. If it’s a regular part of your life you probably have a well oiled process for recording the mileage and entering the claim. Well oiled maybe but time consuming for sure.
Our clients using zero have a different approach. When they jump in their car they load an app on their smartphone and enter some simple details about the purpose of the trip. The app uses GPS to records the mileage of their journey. Once at their destination they press a button and the expense record is created.
They can create favourite and recurring journeys to reduce time even further. Expense records are loaded into Xero at the touch of a button.
XERO – MORE THAN JUST ACCOUNTING
The standard functionality of Xero is great for lots of our clients but one of Xero’s great strengths is that, a bit like Apple with ios, they have opened their system to 100s of service providers to allow them to create apps that integrate directly with Xero and are designed for specific tasks or types of business.
These apps or Xero add-ons as they are know, provide a whole range of functionality from CRMs to stock control, from invoicing to workflow management. Some of the add-ons have general application to all businesses but there are also add-ons aimed at specific business types such as tradesmen and publicans.
You can see if there’s an add-on that could transform your business on the Xero add-on marketplace.
Using Xero? What’s your favourite time saving feature?
If you’ve not looked at Xero and the massive time saving advantages associated with Cloud Accounting, or would like advice on how to maximise the advantage your business can gain from using Xero contact your local Burgis & Bullock office on 0845 177 5500 , email your usual contact or use our on-line form.