On the 20/21st of Feb I was among four team members who travelled up to Xerocon – a huge conference with nearly 1,000 accountants and bookkeepers to find out where things are at, and what is coming with Xero.
Many of you will have heard us talking about Xero already, and 2014 will see some of you get your annual accounts prepared through Xero for the first time.
It was great to see the progress being made to get Xero Farming humming – one of the last hurdles is getting Fonterra to provide transaction data to Xero. We also saw how the reporting functions in Xero are being totally rewritten to allow pretty much full customisation of all reports – so we can show them in the way that makes most sense for your business.
I personally really like this – often we accountants get stuck showing you information in ways that work for us, which to be honest is totally the wrong way around. You need to see the numbers in ways which make sense to you or they are of very little value.
I think this development is a great example of how things are changing in accounting. We (accountants) have always said we are client focused – and I think by and large we are – but it has been in a ‘closed book’ sort of way, where we hold the info, we choose how you see it, and often what you see. The world is moving on and tools like Xero break down those barriers. Now, the data or information isn’t where our value comes from – it is the interpretation of it, and how we can help you use it to make real changes in your business.
This is massively exciting to progressive accountants! As hard as it is to believe, preparing tax returns all day can get a bit boring after a while. The opportunity to discuss growing your business is much more appealing!
To make things even more flexible, and really tie your accounting system into the running of your business, Xero now has 320 official add-on partners, from payroll, to POS providers, Job costing, time management, inventory and even things like website design. It was great to catch up with our friends from Rocketspark – a local Cambridge business who had a stand at Xerocon and presented on their business. This typifies how Xero and the cloud can take your business to places, markets and customers you simply wouldn't have considered a few years back.
We love the opportunities Cloud Computing and Xero provide and look forward to talking with as many of you as possible about it all!
Many of you will have heard us talking about Xero already, and 2014 will see some of you get your annual accounts prepared through Xero for the first time.
It was great to see the progress being made to get Xero Farming humming – one of the last hurdles is getting Fonterra to provide transaction data to Xero. We also saw how the reporting functions in Xero are being totally rewritten to allow pretty much full customisation of all reports – so we can show them in the way that makes most sense for your business.
I personally really like this – often we accountants get stuck showing you information in ways that work for us, which to be honest is totally the wrong way around. You need to see the numbers in ways which make sense to you or they are of very little value.
I think this development is a great example of how things are changing in accounting. We (accountants) have always said we are client focused – and I think by and large we are – but it has been in a ‘closed book’ sort of way, where we hold the info, we choose how you see it, and often what you see. The world is moving on and tools like Xero break down those barriers. Now, the data or information isn’t where our value comes from – it is the interpretation of it, and how we can help you use it to make real changes in your business.
This is massively exciting to progressive accountants! As hard as it is to believe, preparing tax returns all day can get a bit boring after a while. The opportunity to discuss growing your business is much more appealing!
To make things even more flexible, and really tie your accounting system into the running of your business, Xero now has 320 official add-on partners, from payroll, to POS providers, Job costing, time management, inventory and even things like website design. It was great to catch up with our friends from Rocketspark – a local Cambridge business who had a stand at Xerocon and presented on their business. This typifies how Xero and the cloud can take your business to places, markets and customers you simply wouldn't have considered a few years back.
We love the opportunities Cloud Computing and Xero provide and look forward to talking with as many of you as possible about it all!
