App Partners of the Month: Xerocon Sydney 2022 special edition

Xero connects with over 1,000 apps that help small businesses and their advisors succeed, check out the Xero App Store. Each month we celebrate an app partner who stands out for helping small businesses thrive. Find out more about becoming a Xero app partner here.

In September, Xero was joined by thousands of accounting and bookkeeping professionals at Xerocon Sydney. It was an opportunity to reconnect, be inspired and learn about the latest product developments across Xero. 

Attendees also had an opportunity to hear from our ecosystem app partners, who are an essential part of Xero’s small business platform vision and enabling small business success.

In the final instalment of our Xerocon App Partners of the Month series, we’re bringing you a snapshot of the Xero app partners that exhibited at Xerocon Sydney (7-8 September).

Unlocking cutting-edge financial insights for small business

There’s been a significant shift in the tools available to accounting firms and as a result, the services they are able to provide to small business clients. Apps such as Modano, enable high quality business advisory services based on investment banking quality financial modelling.

“Five years ago, most firms at Xerocon didn’t even know what a three-way financial model was. Now they’re realising that this core skill set is a necessity if their goal is to empower their clients and maximise their growth potential,” said Michael Hutchens, Founder and CEO of Modano.

“Modano transforms Xero data into a three-way financial model with custom forecast drivers, scenario analysis, dashboards and monthly performance reporting. This is a major step forward in empowering advisors with strategic insights previously only available to larger businesses with bigger budgets.”

Financial data is everything. One difference between a business that stagnates and one that thrives is the way they use data. However, not every business can afford a team of data analysts.

“WorkGuru bridges the gap between spreadsheets and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, and lets small business clients stay in the Xero ecosystem when complexity used to mean a migration to a larger ERP,” said co-founder and CEO, Tony Harcourt at WorkGuru. 

“We integrate with Xero in a way that allows best of breed financial reporting, combined with job profitability data that gives small businesses insights that were previously only available to large companies, and those who could afford dedicated analysts.”

Seamless and secure practice management 

At Xerocon, BGL unveiled its new two-way integration with Xero Practice Manager (XPM) to manage client and contact data across apps in a single database. This makes the management of client investments, particularly in the rapidly-growing self-managed super fund space, more compliant and efficient. 

“If a client’s details change in BGL’s product suite, this change is automatically updated in XPM, providing seamless practice management integration for professional firms,” said Ron Lesh, Managing Director at BGL. “In addition, when client or contact details change in any of the apps, our company compliance software, CAS 360, will prompt clients to prepare all the relevant ASIC compliance documents.” 

Technology a panacea for managing the talent shortage 

The talent shortage is a persistent challenge for many industries across Australia. Smart tools like AccountKit are helping bookkeepers and accountants plug the gaps.  

“In a world where recruiting is difficult, leveraging technology to fill the gaps is a must. With every practice having different app stacks and their own unique way of doing things, the idea is that they can pick and choose the tools that resolve pain points specific to their practice,” said Paul Murray, Founder at AccountKit. 

“With the ability to create tasks through repeating templates or directly from client meeting notes, phone calls (soon emails), or literally any tool in AccountKit, this is going to bring some real joy to advisors’ workflow management.” 

Beating burnout with better prioritisation 

No matter how efficient you are, there’s only so many hours in the day. Tools that allow advisors to spend their limited time in the most valuable way are helping to ease the burden. 

“Aider‘s new ‘Advisory Intelligence Platform’ is designed to help accountants and bookkeepers save time with compliance, and then scale advisory services and revenue across the client base,” said Brendan Robert, Founder at Aider.

“By connecting Aider to Xero, Aider imports the clients and pre-analyses the data to help advisors see which clients need their help today and why. Aider also converts insights into a simple email that can be sent to the client with the click of a button. This saves time and allows advisors to be exactly what their clients want – proactive.”

A smarter way to model cash flow 

In uncertain times, businesses need to plan for a variety of outcomes. With a cloudy economic outlook, it is essential that business leaders can accurately forecast their cash flow under multiple scenarios. 

“We are seeing more advisors working with their clients to map multiple scenarios and model the cashflow effects,” said Mick Devine, CEO at Calxa. “This helps the business owner make vital decisions on the best action to take to survive and prosper. 

“Where Calxa really excels is in amplifying Xero’s tracking categories. It enables budgets and reports for these sub-divisions of a company. Whether this is delivering insights on one activity, some, or all, or simply grouping departments or locations across multiple Xero files. Even reporting at the intersection of two tracking categories across multiple years is made possible.” 

Congrats to our app partners

That’s a wrap! Congratulations to our September App Partners of the Month from Xerocon Sydney and thanks to all our app partners who made Xerocon 2022 so special. See you next year!