What if you could access your company’s accounts and financials from anywhere? The online bookkeeping system, Xero, has made this a reality for many small-to-medium businesses. Designed to be cost-effective, intuitive and as automatic as possible, Xero is experiencing rapid growth, and now serves over a hundred thousand businesses.
XERO IS ALL ONLINE
Xero is a ‘cloud-based’ software program, which means that it’s accessible from any computer or smartphone with an internet connection.
With Xero, users can access financials, update income and outgoings, and run reports from anywhere. A bookkeeper or accountant’s work can be done remotely; staff members can easily input information while out of the office.
A company’s bookkeeping and accounting information is stored online on a secure server, so there’s no risk of data becoming lost, corrupted or overwritten. Xero also reduces the hassle involved with exporting or sharing data from one computer to another.
Using an online system also minimises the costs involved in software updates and hardware upgrade requirements. All that’s needed is an internet browser.
SAVE TIME WITH XERO
One of Xero’s strengths is its automation of basic bookkeeping and accounting tasks. These include automated invoicing and automatically generated graphs and reports.
Xero provides at-a-glance reports for:
- outstanding invoices and expenses
- projected income and outgoings
- projected tax costs/GST expenses.
Xero’s emphasis on automation encourages good bookkeeping habits. These in turn simplify validation and reconciliation processes, potentially saving on bookkeeping and accounting expenses.
The software is set to import bank feeds on a daily basis. This does away with the need for manual data input of this information and allows businesses to assess their financial standing in real-time.
Many accounting software programs are typically used only by a select few staff members. Xero’s collaborative approach means that all staff can easily use the system to perform tasks such as:
- logging and printing timesheets
- claiming expenses
- applying for annual leave or sick leave.
Data can be entered directly into the system, streamlining data entry and validation processes. Data can also be easily exported.
Xero eliminates the need to email large files and the time spent waiting for desktop accounting programs to load.
INTEGRATED ACCOUNTING SUPPORT
Unlike many other bookkeeping programs, Xero is designed to be a one-stop-shop for business owners, bookkeepers and accountants.
The information stored in Xero can be easily accessed by an accountant when compiling data for BAS and EOFY statements.
EASY TO LEARN
Because Xero is intended to be collaborative, it’s designed to be as simple to use as possible. The program’s sleek interface and inbuilt ‘help’ system helps users quickly and easily navigate through the relevant screens and processes.
In addition, the software is designed to support users at a range of different access levels. Users need only be given access to the screens and tasks that are relevant to them, and will only have to learn these elements of the system.
