Greg Millar and I attended the Xerocon conference on 30 April at the Viaduct Events Centre in Auckland. This is the only venue large enough in Auckland to cater for over 1,000 or so attendees, such is the high level in Xero and its popularity now.Alliotts has been involved with Xero since the beginning and we have seen its rapid growth to be major player in the small and medium business accounting software market.
Every year we make an effort to attend the conference to see not only the direction the company is heading but also the increasing number of add on products to Xero that continue to allow small business to get the benefits of more expensive systems.
NZ the test lab of the world!
Rod Drury CEO of Xero opened the conference with a key note speech embracing New Zealand as the “Test lab of the world”. It makes sense, with New Zealand small business being the highest number of cloud-based accounting software users in the world.Our own willingness to embrace this technology throughout the business chains including our banking system has led to this. Rod Drury also gave some insight into the future which included the following:
- A paperless business environment
- The growth of the financial web i.e. everything financial online
- Reduced compliance costs for businesses, more funding opportunities for small business due to direct data sharing between business, banks and government.
- Access for small business to “big data” to better manage and run their business
Increasing number of add on products that continue to emerge
Xero’s add on products now range from workflow systems, customer relationship management systems, debtors collection, specific software for building, tradies, truckies, real estate agents and so much more. Here are a couple of the apps that we really liked:eWAY – get paid faster with simple, easy to use online invoicing. The app allows you to have a “Pay” button on your invoices so your online invoices can be paid instantly.
Tradify – a smart new mobile app helping tradies get their evenings back. It makes jobs, schedules, timesheets and quoting easy by seamlessly integrating with Xero. Quotes can be converted to invoices while still on the job.
Sharesight – track and report on your own share portfolio. The app automatically loads prices and handles trades and dividends. You can use Sharesight as a Xero portfolio add-on by automatically synchronising details of your share purchases, sales and dividends to Xero.
Receipt Bank – with a few clicks you can quickly and easily send your expenses data from Receipt Bank directly to Xero. This app removes the hassle of receipt and invoice data entry and keeps a scanned copy of these in Xero so you no longer need to keep paper copies.