As a savvy business owner, you no doubt understand the importance of staying on top of your financial game. But are you sure you’re truly optimising every aspect of your financial management?
Don’t fret: Xero could be part of the solution. This is a type of cloud accounting software, which you may have heard of before, but what specifically can it offer for your business?
Seamless integration and real-time insights
How many separate spreadsheets do you maintain for your business’s finances? If you’re not using cloud accounting, the answer is probably: ‘a lot’. That can be extremely frustrating and prevents you from fully understanding how your business is doing right now.
With Xero, the opposite is true. Xero is a cloud-based technology, which means that all the data you put onto it is stored on the internet. Crucially, that simple fact lets you connect all your data sources into one cohesive infrastructure.
Therefore, with Xero, you have all you need in one place on one single dashboard, from invoice management and expense tracking to financial reports and even payroll, if you choose this add-on. No more headaches, no more lost time looking for buried figures. You can even view your figures and use many of Xero’s functions from your phone!
Streamlined financial management saving you time
Accounting, bookkeeping and financial management in general can be complex and time consuming. Xero tries to solve this by saving you valuable time and resources that you could reinvest into your business. Specifically, the software replaces manual tasks by introducing automations.
Automation is built into almost all of its features so that every financial task should be easier and quicker to complete. For example, you can automate all of this:
- Invoices: Xero pulls relevant information into an invoice template for you, which will then be automatically sent on a schedule you define. Reminders can also be sent automatically so you don’t have to.
- Expense rules: You can use Xero to set up rules for recurring expenses, automatically categorising them based on predefined criteria.
- Bank reconciliation: Xero can automatically match transitions from your bank feeds to corresponding invoices and expenses in the software, saving time and ensuring your financial records are up to date.
- Payroll processing: Xero’s specialised payroll software automates calculations for employee salaries, taxes and other deductions.
- Financial reporting: Xero can even automatically generate financial reports for you, potentially saving you hours of data collection and calculations.
- Data backup: There’s no need to spend time manually backing up your financial data every month — Xero will automatically do it for you.
Making better decisions
Most importantly, Xero will provide you with accurate financial data that you can use to make smarter business decisions.
This is done through its analytics feature, which can provide short-term cashflow forecasts and snapshots into your business’s financial health. The upgraded version also provides projections of your bank balances and smart scenario planning tools.
With this information at your fingertips, you’ll find financial planning much easier and may discover ways to improve your business.
Xero analytics is especially powerful if you work with an accountant who also uses Xero, as they’ll be able to connect with you and see what you see, allowing them to give you more specific, tailored and timely suggestions.
Have we convinced you about the benefits of using Xero? We welcome the use of smart technology to boost efficiency and help businesses make better decisions.
Get in touch with us to talk about how you can get started with Xero.
