As I've said for years, "I have a face for radio," but my shaky voice isn't much better.
Still, you can head to Insightful Accountant's Accounting Insiders Podcast to watch my summary of Xero Product enhancements to their Core Accounting, Payments, and Payroll feature set related to North American users.
From a technological standpoint, Xero is deeply committed to enhancing its core accounting, payments, and payroll functionalities, especially those related to North American customers.
Their goal is to be the:
- Most insightful accounting platform
- The most powerful accounting platform
- Most personalizable accounting platform
- Most integratable accounting platform, and
- The most mobile accounting platform
Here is what Xero has done over the past year or so or has planned for the immediate future to accomplish those three areas of enhancement:
Xero's Core Accounting capability enhancements
JAX
In beta this month, JAX will help small businesses and their advisors run their business more efficiently. Businesses can ‘Just Ask Xero’ to generate an invoice or modify quotes directly within Xero or other commonly used apps and devices like mobile SMS, WhatsApp, and email.
Additionally, JAX can deliver personalized insights, such as understanding payment history and recommending actions, facilitating better cash flow management, and informed decision-making in collaboration with advisors.
Bank Feeds
More and more accountants and users rely on bank feeds for transactional information, from checking accounts to credit cards and loans. This functionality is critical, but with over 7500 banks in the US alone, reliable Bank Feeds have been amiss in almost every accounting platform, not just Xero.
Xero is changing the game, going from just 20 banks with direct connectivity 18 months ago to more than 700 banks and 100 bank data aggregators.
But even more exciting is that Xero is making a new PDF Bank Statement import feature available that automatically extracts transactions within 35 seconds of import and begins the transaction reconciliation process to tie out the accounting.
Payroll functionality
When Xero first came to the US, it tried to offer its own payroll program, but it couldn't work out the state-to-state variations as fast as its subscribers were growing in various states.
Xero worked out a payroll app integration with Gusto to fit the needs of many of its subscribers. At the same time, as the number of payroll offerings has increased, subscribers are requesting tighter integrations with those other payroll options.
You can expect to see those types of integrations in the future.
Payments functionality
Another example of tighter app integration is the new embedded bill payment functionality powered by BILL (aka Bill.com).
As far as 'getting paid,' users will see streamlined invoice templates, including Mobile App invoicing and invoicing via SMA text messaging, with payment functionality via Google Pay and Apple Pay.
For Xero Mobile users, there is a new 'tap to Pay' option using Stripe... tap your app to your credit card, the money is in transit.
Inventory
This is an add-in to the essential core accounting features. Xero has just announced that its Inventory Plus feature went live out of Beta during Xerocon. This expanded inventory option gives users eCommerce integration, in which sales are processed via sales orders, and inventory is tracked across all sales channels.
The feature also has Sales Tax support and reporting via direct integration with Avalara.
Speaking of tax, Xero is also enhancing its W-9 data capture and 1099 reporting, which you will see before year-end.
You can read more about the new Inventory Plus feature HERE or attend the upcoming App Academy webinar covering Xero's new Inventory Plus feature and also the Avalara Sales Tax functionality.