This was my first Xerocon and day 1 was a great experience.
I have been to accounting conferences before, but have never been to one hosted by a single software vendor. The reason for this is probably because, in the ten years I have been an accountant, I have never found a software provider that matches my ethos in business until now.
The theme of day 1 seemed to me to be all about helping small businesses. Helping them to improve efficiency, increase cash flow, to take control of their finances and avoid business failure.
Xero recognise that small businesses are the back bone of this country and the economy and I am 100% on board with that.
The conference was held at a stunning venue at Battersea Park, London and there was around 1,300 people in attendance.
It was clear fom the day that Xero continue to go from strength to strength with over 600,000 users worldwide and 100,000 in the UK. Apparently Sage 50 only has 120,000 users and they have had a bit of a head start.
Xero have opened their product to some 500 add ons, which opens up no end of possibilities for small businesses.
Gary Turner, MD of Xero UK, focused his talk on Xero in the UK and highlighted the fact that the UK is the 7th least efficient in terms of GDP of the G8 economies. Meaning we have room to get a whole lot more efficient.
As part of his speech, he pointed out that 91% of all invoices, on the whole of the Xero infrastructure, are overdue which means the efficiency of cash flow is ripe for improvement. Xero want to address this by making it easier to get paid, they will achieve this with features such as automatic invoice reminders, instant payment options on invoices and early payment discounts.
One feature I feel Xero lacks is the ability to highlight customer credit limits and effectively put customers on hold. I was told, by Craig Walker, head of the development team, that this is a feature in the wings but it is way down on the list. It’s a shame, as this is something Sage has had for years. I am sure they will get around to it but this feature is surely there to prevent these bad payers getting credit in the first place!
As far as I can gather, Xero have an interesting development model which was partly explained by Angus Norton who talked about the way Xero was internally structured. This internal structure is broken down into teams which all release updates constantly. This may account for the fact they seem to release some seemingly lower priority updates before some core functionality has been released. But is clearly drives the development forward and has meant they have managed an incredible update program over the last 12 months.
One non-Xero speaker who impressed and inspired me was Dave Coplin who has the interesting job title of chief envisioning officer for Microsoft – his talk was about trying to think outside of the current work methods and free yourself from email. Email is not work we were told, it’s a tool and we are all tied to it too much. I have to say I was inspired to rethink some of my own work practices.
Other Non Xero speakers included Charles Counsell, from the pension regulator and Brigid Mcbride, OBE from HMRC who is in charge of the transformation of HMRC from a backward paper based disparate organisation to a connected digital one. Best of luck Brigid.
Next up was Angus Walker, Craig Walker and Oliver Furniss who went through payroll as a feature of Xero and introduced a number of exciting product updates such as time sheets, the personal ‘my Xero’ app for employees and other payroll features.
Time sheets looked great but there isn’t an option of allocating times to customers and translate that to invoices. This rules this feature out for quite a few of my clients.
Two upcoming features that really struck me as being useful was the ability to integrate with email, Office 365 and Gmail and tools to help find bank differences.
The way email integration works is that Xero searches your inbox and pulls through any emails it thinks relate to the contact in Xero. You can then pin these permanently to that contact. Only you will be able to see the emails until you actually pin them and then all users can see them.
Secondly, the tools to find bank differences are going to be a much welcomed addition. At the moment, if someone deletes a bank statement line or if the bank feed throws a wobbly and decides not to feed in a few statement lines it’s very difficult to track down the differences. Xero are addressing this with a few welcomed tools so watch this space.
All in all, I had a great time at Xero and found the insight very useful. I would like to see the return of the more regional roadshows but that’s mainly because I have a hatred of trains and the commute to London.
If you have any questions you want me to ask the Xero team, let me know by email or Twitter.
You can follow my tweets on my feed or by searching #xerocon.
Another blog post will follow about day 2.
