Xero Conference 2012

I attended my second Xero conference a couple of Friday’s ago, and it did not disappoint with the offering of a taste of things to come, and plenty to be excited about for Cloud Accountants.

What I enjoy the most about Xerocon is the chance to not only hear about what is on the horizon with the system and add-on’s, but to rub shoulders with like minded accountants that are using technology to provide a better and smarter service to our existing and potential clients.

[Although far too many are still coming up with excuses with why they have not embraced Xero and other online systems, shame on you!!]

It was a surprise to be awarded the Partner Innovation Award, with the calibre of nominations in the category – very proud to say the least! Congratulations to all of the winners and nominees, you are leading the charge!

I enjoyed presenting in the Modernise stream alongside Margaret from the Engine Room, Brad from Wise Advice, and Guy from Interactive Accounting in Australia. It is great to give some insights into the way we operate in an online accounting firm. Also a Q & A with Xero co-founder Hamish Edwards around agreed monthly fees.

There was plenty to take away from Xerocon this year, but these are the 3 that we are most excited about at Cloud Accountants:

Workflow Max practice management + Tax

With the announcement just prior to Xerocon (good timing!) that Xero had purchased Workflowmax, Rod proceeded to announce that accounting firms would receive it free for their practices for life! We just need to add a few clients to Xero. Very cool! We are in the process of moving all of our clients to the Tax system and are looking forward to a tighter integration between Xero and WFM.

Xero Report Packs

We are looking forward to having new and improved year end reports straight out of the Single Ledger in Xero. Better notes, and the ability to customise and standardise across our client base will be excellent! We do use the reports for our end of year statements currently, but it will be a big advantage to have standard reports that all of our team members will have access to, to apply to each client. We will also be able to upload custom spreadsheets or text straight into the reports for making each unique with external data when required.

Spotlight Workpapers

This was a ‘Wow’ moment for me! We continue to improve our internal processes at Cloud Accountants using technology to do things smarter and more efficiently. Old crappy checklists and excel workpapers are archaic and clients despise them. We have used an online information grab in the past which has filled a gap, but seeing Richard and team demo Spotlight Workpapers with a full integration with Xero was awesome! We are looking forward to the roll out for March 2012!

You can see Xero’s wrap of the event here.