Well, Xero’s February Roadshows are now done and dusted. And there was certainly a lot to take in. The first thing I noticed was the number of attendees. More and more people seem to be moving to the cloud every day, with attendance records being smashed at almost every venue.
It was interesting to observe the bookkeepers and accountants at February’s round of Xero Roadshows. I’ve been to a number of roadshows and Xerocons, but this year I was there as an exhibitor, and got to talk to a lot of the attendees.
Implementing a completely new system across your practice is a major decision. We became painfully aware of this when we first moved the Poole Group from one accounting platform to another. To cut a long story short we got burnt, and so when we decided to adopt the Xero cloud-based platform we took a much…
With Xero bringing out its tax modules, a lot of practices want to move their management systems to the cloud and enjoy the same efficiencies as cloud-based firms.
It all started with two phone calls in the same week. Prospective clients called us to discuss becoming clients, and they were already using cloud-based accounting packages. One of them was using Xero. As the discussions unfolded, I was instantly out of my depth in relation to cloud accounting.
During Xerocon I was fortunate to be on a panel session during the Developers Day that was discussing the relationships between accountants, integrators and add on partners.
We all have our favourite presenters, and I was excited to see one of mine presenting again at Xerocon. I’ve seen Michael ‘MC’ Carter of Practice Paradox at several conferences now, and was keen to hear what he had to say this time. His concepts of the “conveyor belt” and the “gradient of the decision…
Well, Xerocon is over for another year. And it certainly didn’t disappoint. Mind you, when you have a CEO riding around on a skateboard and an MD at home belting out a rock tune and playing lead guitar, you know it will be a conference with a difference.
One of the major benefits of using Xero is the vast ecosystem of add-on partners. Xero add-ons are software applications that can integrate with Xero to create an integrated IT solution for a business to generate efficiency and productivity improvements that flow through to the bottom line.
It’s great to see more and more accountants now starting to embrace the cloud and, in particular, Xero. Unfortunately many don’t step back to take in the bigger perspective of ‘the cloud’, with Xero being just one element in the mix for their clients and their own firm.
I often shake my head when I hear people sing the praises of Xero as being the greatest accounting package. I don’t shake my head because I think they’re wrong. I shake my head because they’ve missed the much bigger picture. Xero isn’t merely an accounting solution. It’s actually a new generation business platform.
