Well sort of . . .

One of the things that I love about using cloud solutions is being able to provide services to clients anywhere, anytime.  In most cases this means providing them a far better (lower overall cost / much higher quality of information) service without necessarily needing to go to their offices.  But sometimes nothing beats getting on site, even when that means travelling half way round the world!

A few months ago we were approached by a client based in Burkina Faso (no, I wasn't sure either - click this link to see a map of West Africa) who had set up Xero for his business.  They were struggling to get their accounts up to date, because:

• They have 2 related companies with a large number of intercompany transactions
• The 2 companies are in different currencies (which makes dealing with all those intercompany transactions a lot of fun)!
• Much of the set up costs of the business had been incurred by the business owners (usually money spent in yet another currency), and had to be entered via a series of shareholder loan accounts
• And as if that wasn't enough, a whole range of other complicating factors!

Apart from numerous African languages, the official language of Burkina Faso is French.  Fortunately Elizabeth, one of the team at Viridity, speaks French fluently so has been able to work closely with the client's bookkeeper.  Over the past few months we have completed a large project to update their accounts, reconciling bank and other balance sheet accounts, preparing end of year accounts and so on. 

But now we want to help get their local staff working more efficiently with Xero - and sometimes nothing beats meeting face to face.  As I write this Elizabeth is en route to Burkina Faso (via a stopover in Paris, which she is very happy about).  She will be spending the next 10 days on site with the client implementing procedures, working with their bookkeeper and their local tax accountant to help them get the best from Xero.

So apart from clients in every state in Australia, we now have clients in half a dozen countries including Burkina Faso - and at least one member of the Viridity team has visited one of those overseas clients in person.  Does that qualify Viridity as a global business?  Ok, maybe not - but I think it does at least demonstrate one of the great benefits of using cloud solutions.

I have asked Elizabeth to write a post for this blog, part travel diary / part feedback on the project.  If you would like to read more of this please check back in a few days.  Hopefully we will get some pictures up also.

Forgive me for distributing a tweet thorugh a blog post!  There is a reason for this, first the tweet:

Heading off to the Xero dealers conference in Taupo, really looking forward to it! #Xero

So why blog it?  Well if you are interested in Xero, in what Xero can do for your business right now or what it might be able to do in the pretty near future please keep an eye on this blog or sign up to follow me on Twitter (Rhys2011).  I will try to Tweet throughout the conference, and within a few days will certainly post a blog of all that is new in the Xero world.

I am looking forward to meeting lots of other Xero dealers, to being able to hang out and chat with the guys from Unleashed, to taking a look at all the other third party applications which integrate with Xero.  It's gonna be a blast!

More to follow, or see you on Twitter.

One of the absolute joys of cloud accounting is having data that is always up to date.  This morning I logged into Xero a little after 9, and by 9.10 I had finalised the bank rec to September 30^th for one of my clients.

By 9.20 I had printed off and carefull reviewed the BAS reports (but there wasn’t much to check and nothing to change, we work with the client to ensure the transactions are recorded accurately when they are first entered).  By 9.30 I had emailed the report to the client prior to lodging it on line (which I will do shortly).

So here I am at 9.35 on the 1st of October, with the client’s September quarter BAS finalised, leaving me free to do something more interesting:  I am now going to run a range of management reports and forward those to the clients, along with some commentary on their business (just as soon as I finish writing this blog!)

Lodging the BAS – even when it’s done really promptly – doesn’t add value to the client’s business, but providing them accurate, timely information on which they can act to improve the performance of their business does.  This is why I became an accountant – not to “do compliance” but to help people improve their business. 

Big thanks to Xero for providing such a great tool for doing this.

After the success of the Inner West Small Business Expo a few weeks ago we have decided to attend another one, this time the Sydney Women's Network Expo at Castle Hills.  So if you want to see the cause of the buzz around Xero come along to the Expo and check out our stand.  We'll have a range of "show specials" - if you've been thinking about implementing Xero for your busines visiting our stand could be well worth your time.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

If you want to see more of Xero right now, here is a neat video

A release of Xero came out a few weeks ago that I am only just finding time to blog about (end of year being such a busy time).   This release includes a really nice feature that has been on the wish list for a while, greater flexibility in designing invoice layouts.  As always Xero have come up with a really neat solution that applies to both invoices and statements - they call it "branding themes".  Users can create multiple invoice (and statement) layouts by applying a branding theme which controls layout, logos, payment terms and so on.  Very easy to use but also very powerful.

Here is a brief demo of how invoice branding works

Lots of other good features in this release, some of the ones that grabbed my attention include the ability to import Fixed Assets (ok so I am an accountant, this is the sort of thing we get excited by), ability to create bank rules to include negative amounts (such as receipts that are net of tax or commissions) and bank reconciliation comments.  You can see more details of this  and other new features in Xero here.

If you think any of this would be useful in your business and need help implementing this please contact Viridity.  As usual any comments or feedback are welcomed.

There is a great small business event taking place all day tomorrow (July 2nd) in Ashfield (NSW for those of you in far flung parts) - the Inner West Small Business Expo.  There are a lots of interesting speakers, dozens of exhibitors, and - the reason I am blogging about it - Viridity will be there telling small businesss owners why Xero is such a great solution for them.  If you want to come along you can still get in, although you do need to pre-register - click here

If you do make it, come along to Viridity's stand and take a look at Xero!

If you want to see more of Xero right now, here is a neat video

A recently released review by the independent Software Shortlist has placed Xero top of a list of 10 small business bookkeeping products.  The Victoria based business specialises in reviewing software across a range of areas including bookkeeping and CRM.

Xero was the only product reviewed to get a 5 star rating with a range of other well known products being awarded either 3 or 4 stars.

The areas where Xero scored highest included ease of use, quick to set up and powerful reporting. 



If you want to see more of the great features of Xero check out these other posts on this blog:

Xero Accounting

Reporting with Xero

If you found this information useful please leave a comment below.

For those of you who haven't seen this before, the video below gives a very brief overview of how easy Xero is to use.





Live bank feeds make it so easy to keep your accounts up to date, and being able to access your accounts any time, anywhere - the future of accounting, with the world's easiest accounting software.

If you want to see what Xero can do for your business, please contact Viridity for a free appraisal.

Without wanting to sound smug I am on the whole pretty pleased with this website.  It is not perfect and it is certainly not complete, I have lots of plans on how to improve it so that it is of more use to you, the visitor but overall I am happy with it (and if you think there are areas the site could be improved please click on the "contact us" link and post suggestions, I will take on board all and any feedback received).  And what I am not happy with is almost entirely down to me (the writer of the content), not the development team that worked on the site with me. 

But it wasn't cheap, I could have paid far less to some other developer, or I could have done an open source / DIY site.  But I didn't.  Because I wanted a site that would be of value not simply cost little.  I suddenly thought about this when I came across a quote today from John Ruskin (I have a whole stack of his quite wonderful quotes, but had somehow missed this one).  It goes like this:

"It's unwise to pay too much but it's unwise to pay too little.  When you pay too much you lose a little money, that's all.  When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.  The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot.  It can't be done.  If you deal with the lowest bidder, it's well to add something for the risk you run.  And if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better."

I think that perhaps this quote also applies to some of the lower price offerings available more broadly in the business world.  Whilst there are often some great deals available in a variety of areas, there are some that are so cheap I have to question the quality of the product / service on offer.  Food for thought for all of us when choosing between service providers.

UPDATE: Check out this more recent post for an update on MYOB LiveAccounts

The countdown to the release of MYOB’s online accounting software – LiveAccounts – is now well and truly on.  With a release dated set for May 31^st (as I write just 18 days away) I am getting lots of users enquiring about what will be in the product, how it will compare to MYOB’s small business AccountRight range, and how it will compare to the other online solutions already available in Australia (such as Xero, Saasu and others).

MYOB Certified Consultants have had a couple of previews and MYOB have in the last few days unveiled the product to a wider audience, but as yet most dealers have not had a chance to test the product for themselves.  I for one have the 31^st of May booked out in my diary to do just that!

So check in here in early June for a review of the product.  Screen shots of the home page and the invoice page are shown below.