The main things I learned at XeroCon London 2019
/By: Irelene Hampton
Being old school, I am quite set in my ways of processing information / filing and reporting on client finances. XeroCon challenged my way of thinking and doing by asking me to evaluate what I spend my time on.
Old school spends time on manual entry from bank statements and supporting docs e.g. receipts and supplier invoices. Manual means human and human means errors. Human also means spending time to file paperwork in a file and spending more time to retrieve it and space to store it.
I have recently moved a client onto Xero and started using ReceiptBank. Visiting the stands at XeroCon I have seen the potential of AI (Artificial Intelligence) processing and how it will benefit my client and myself.
In Xero I can set up a pull only bank feed that pulls the bank statement into Xero and I can set rules for regular transactions. These rules will allocate transactions to the expense account and determine whether the transaction is liable for VAT.
I have started using ReceiptBank; here I upload the invoice and once the data has been extracted (supplier, date, amount, VAT) I can allocate the expense account and “import” that into Xero. The great thing here is for regular invoices, e.g. rent, next time I import the invoice the expense account and VAT is remembered and applied automatically.
I still have the final say to accept the invoice before importing the information into Xero. A PDF of the invoice will then also be kept in Xero so my “filing” is done at the same time.
All this automation frees up more of my time to look closely at processes, policies, procedures and this will benefit my client’s running of the business.
There are other partner apps to help with stock management and cashflow tools that I am researching.
So, I now have time to do what I enjoy and add value to my client because I am generating accurate accounting records quicker than before and have time to research and suggest ways to improve business efficiency.
This is Xero’s motto of “Rewire the world of small business, making it seamless, simpler and smarter” in action and I am loving it!
