RA Business Advisors

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Mid-Market to See Xero and Intuit Enter Arena

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Xero and Intuit to enter mid-marketAs the roll-out of Single-Touch Payroll sweeps across Australian businesses, MYOB Premier have decided against adding relevant services to their platform. This has given Xero and Intuit incentive to enter the mid-market, but is it worth your time?

Hang on, what is the mid-market?

The mid-market consists of the 50,000+ businesses in Australia with more than 20 but less than 200 staff. As well as more than $3 million turnover and three or more users of the core business system. This is a market currently dominated by MYOB, but soon to be contested by Xero and Intuit.

Why would I want to use Xero or Intuit anyway?

These platforms have been game changers for small businesses, offering a cloud-based platform which is constantly updating to include support for the future. Technologies such as machine learning, bank feeds, as well as well optimised user interface are huge selling points of Xero. However, to many these options are only available to small businesses with Xero or corporate level businesses with Workday. This is where the mid-market jump for Xero and Intuit comes into play.

Why isn’t the mid-market using these platforms now?

One of the main reasons cloud software hasn’t penetrated the mid-market is because of fear and cost of change. The majority of companies using MYOB do so because they doubt smaller software can perform, and fear the cost of corporate platforms. But this is not the case, as more businesses are realising Xero can match and exceed the performance of MYOB, as well as offering more features at a lower price point.

Security – The Endless Dilemma

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Internet security

 

In this day and age, nothing takes precedence more than security. When I say security, I’m not talking about locking your front door or installing a home security system. I mean keeping your account and business information secure and encrypted.

Attention-grabbing headlines relating to online scams, hacks, or viruses are endless, we are constantly trapped worrying that our secure data is being uploaded to someone halfway around the world. Despite these endless stories, the internet is still safe for businesses – provided you take necessary precautions.


Information Matters

No matter what hard drive you use, IT guy you’ve got on speed dial, or how locked tight you keep passwords; your valuable information is NOT safe. From accidentally spilling your morning coffee, to a virus infecting your system and stealing all your valuable information.

Viruses have been plaguing computers well before illegal downloads occurred. In fact, computer viruses (or worms) first began in 1971 with ‘The Creeper Virus’. The first worm was simply an experimental program that became self-replicating, and an anti-virus program was created to remove it. Whilst virus and anti-virus are considered quite yin and yang, security packages just won’t cut it when a hacker wants your information.

To defend against these notorious criminals you don’t need to hire a professional anti-hacker for combating worms, you simply need to move your accounting to the cloud. The cloud replicates your data in different locations to make sure it’s both secure and available when you need it. Not even a natural disaster can affect your accounting data.

Your decision

If you’re thinking about moving your accounting the cloud, look no further than Xero. Security is the top priority and Xero takes every measure to ensure your information stays safe. You won’t need to research what cloud company to join, as Xero has done their due diligence and already utilize a secure and reliable company.

Make Technology work for you

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Your small business

Running a small business seems great in theory; you’ve got the benefits of being your own boss, extra income, flexibility – the ‘Australian dream’.

When in reality you’ve got hours of administration work, constant pressure of cash flow, and endless hours working on the small minute financial details of you business. With revolutions in technology like the famous ‘cloud’, how come you still have hours of bookkeeping, payroll and the like?

The cloud isn’t the be all end all

Great, you’ve setup your business and transitioned everything into the cloud. Have those hours of painstaking work dialled back? Or has it just gotten worse? The cloud isn’t user friendly and unless you’re prepared to take up another university degree or spend hours reading through multiple guidebooks on bookkeeping, payroll, and marketing. When you’ve got inventory, cash flow, supplies, and clients/customers to worry about, how can you spare the time?

The cloud, bookkeeping applications, payroll software won’t save you time, it’ll just increase your workload.

By now you’re thinking, why did I ever start this small business, will it ever succeed? Don’t worry; you don’t have to handle all of this paperwork on your own. Luckily, there is a major time-saving solution just one phone call away.

 

The truth about the digital age

Going digital isn’t all that, sure it’s great in some aspects but sometimes you really need a human element. This isn’t new to the technological world either. Many major companies such as Apple and Spotify use ‘real human beings’ to create popular playlists.

Not to mention those little food apps like Foodora and Uber Eats that combine technology with real human beings. Would you trust a robot delivering your weekly order of Mexican? It doesn’t even begin with these guys, full stack businesses have been around since smart phones came into existence!

But this article isn’t about your food delivery needs, so let’s get back to the topic of your business. Apps won’t make your professional life easier like they do with your personal. You need a REAL solution; well don’t worry reader that’s where professionals come into play.

And by professionals I mean, accountants and business advisors. Don’t worry you won’t need to open a new tab and scour the internet for a business advisor that actually makes sense. We’ve got you covered!

 

Xero: The beginning of the end

Xero is definitely a life changer, as we’ve discussed before but it can also be a hassle if you don’t know what you’re doing. Small business owners enjoy using Xero as it makes accounting fun but in the long run some are making a mess of things. I mean, if you join a bookkeeping Facebook group, you’ll see what I mean.

Enter: a Xero-savvy business advisor with a free one hour training session. Now before you go rummaging around for your keys, you’ll need to book as everyone knows time is valuable.

 

What if I still can’t get it right?

You’ve gone through your free training session, maybe you’ve booked a few more but you still can’t quite get the hang of it? Lucky for you our tech-savvy advisors know Xero inside and out, so you don’t have to!

And here’s the absolute kicker; choosing a business advisor over a DIY can not only save you time but it’s less risky and less expensive than hiring an in-house bookkeeper. So if you aren’t up to the task of sorting out your payroll, taxes, accounts receivable, and accounts payable, then I advise you to give us a call or book a consultation.

 

Small Business Booming in the Burbs’

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Small Business Insights

Xero has recently launched Small Business Insights, which provides a monthly snapshot of Australia’s small business sector – courtesy of data aggregated from Xero’s hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Xero has decided to provide these insights with the aim to “help policymakers and large enterprises make more informed decisions that benefit the small business economy” (Xero SBI). On top of metrics that give insights to the small business environment in Australia; KPMG, small business owners, business journalists provide commentary on the small business sector.

small bus

A New Trend

One interesting trend that has been observed by Xero is the increase of small business employment in more suburban locations in major Australian cities. Bernard Salt of KPMG has reported this pattern being evident in Brisbane, as small business employment increased in the period of January – September this year. Nearby CBD suburbs Red Hill (woo!) and Clayfield experienced a 17% increase in small business employment. More suburban areas such as Camp Hill and Bridgeman Downs also had an increase of small business employment, going up 23% & 18% respectively.

This suburban small business employment trend is also replicated in other large Australian cities such as Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. It seems that middle suburbia in Australia is acting as an incubator to nurture new small businesses, says Bernard Salt. It is important to note that whether our economy is performing well or poorly, middle suburbs in our large cities still flourish and experience growth in employment. These small business employment patterns that have been uncovered by Xero’s Small Business Insights give a new perspective on Australia’s modern economy. This pattern provides evidence that small business is as vital as ever to Australia’s economy.

We as small business advisors are excited about these findings, as it displays Australia’s evolving economy – and more importantly outlines the importance of small business to our evolving economy. All information was gathered from the “Small business beats in the heartland” article by Bernard Salt – read the full article here.

small business booming in the burbs

Post Contributor:
Andrés Pascoe

Introducing Xero Projects

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September was an exciting month for Xero partners and small business owners in Australia, as Xero held their annual Xerocon conference in Melbourne. Xero utilised the event to announce an abundance of new apps and features, along with some changes arising in the cloud accounting system. One exciting new feature announced was Xero Projects, which is a tool that will give small business advisors like us the ability to collaborate even more closely with our clients. Projects will give business owners the ability to track their jobs more precisely, ensuring easier planning and budgeting and more efficient resource allocation. The essential goal for Projects is to help drive business efficiency and profitability.

Xero Projects Features

Xero Projects is a new simple time and cost tracking tool that:

• Focuses on the financial side of project management.
• Integrates with key Xero features, including contacts, invoicing, and very soon bills and bank reconciliation.
• Provides flexible, easy project invoicing.
• Supports fixed price and time billing.
• Monitors project budgets and financials.

It has been designed especially for small businesses with simple costing needs, allowing for collaboration with Xero accountants who will be able to provide live informed decisions and allow small business owners to manage their business more efficiently.

xero projects

Pricing

For businesses working with Xero accountants such as ourselves, Xero Projects is going to be free to use for the rest of 2017. Following 2017, this feature will initially be priced at $7 per month in the introductory period, then $10 per month thereafter.

We love this new addition from Xero, tools such as Projects are making Xero’s software an even more attractive proposition for small businesses owners – further expanding the platform to achieve efficiency and profitability.

If you are interested in learning more about Xero Projects or any other Xero add ons, our Xero experts are always available for a chat. Get in touch with us on (07) 3367-0852. or schedule a free Xero Consultation session below:

Post Contributor:
Andrés Pascoe

How Agile is Your Business?

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how agile is your business

It is widely known that successfully operating a small business comes with plenty of challenges. The long hard days of trying to manage every activity within your business everyday can be extremely time consuming and tiring. Thankfully, we live in a day and age where there are readily available tools specifically curated to help a small business owner overcome these challenges, and importantly present them with a platform to grow. These tools have all been made possible by the continual marriage of technology and business within the last couple of decades. We can think of technology and business as a relationship that started off rocky, but now the connection is stronger than ever, to the point where the two have become interdependent. And there are no signs of them breaking up anytime soon.

The importance of technology

Stepping back from the view of a small business and glaring into the landscape of the general business environment, we can make one obvious assessment: technology is the number one factor that is influencing today’s business climate. It is important to note that tech affects all businesses, regardless of whether your business is directly concerned with technology or not. Although this evaluation is an obvious one, few business owners realise how quickly this implementation of technology has to occur. The rate of digitisation of business is accelerating, as organisations try to keep up with the rapid technological changes occurring within each industry.

Innovate your business model

In order to keep your business relevant in today’s age, you not only have to improve on a competitor’s business model, but continually think of how you can improve your own business model! This sense of continual innovation within your business can enable you to be adaptable to change. We believe that small business owners can utilise cloud accounting software such as Xero to alleviate the stress of time consuming activities such as book keeping, giving you the time to complete more dynamic tasks. We also believe that using a tool such as Xero allows us as advisors to collaborate effectively with small business owners to make your business more agile. By agile we mean that we can analyse your business’ real time data, from which our advisors can directly propose where decisions can be made, creating more value, efficiency and ultimately more revenue for your business.

Contact us on 07 3367 0852 for a free consultation, and we can present to you how collaborating with us through the use of Xero can make your business more efficient, and free up more time for you to utilise on other necessary revenue building ventures within your business.

Post Contributor:
Andrés Pascoe

Make the Change to Xero

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With 30 June on the horizon the end of this financial year is fast approaching. If you have been struggling with old accounting software or Excel worksheets why not try eliminating these struggles before the new financial year? Why not change? Xero is beautiful online accounting software that is both easy and affordable to use, so much so that thousands of small businesses have made the transition. Utilising the power of the cloud Xero holds many advantages over other accounting software.

The cloud is, in basic terms, the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product over the internet. The software and data are hosted by a provider on their servers off site which we can access via the internet through a web browser. We already utilise the cloud checking emails, online banking, social media applications and many more. However, the cloud has consumed the way we live because of the power of mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets, the ability to access information anywhere and at anytime. For more information directly relating to the cloud please refer to our previous blogs.

Traditional desktop software carries a multitude of problems and with it brings unnecessary stresses:
• Data and system isn’t up-to-date
• Only works on one computer and data bounces from place to place
• Only one person has user access
• It’s costly and complicated to keep back ups
• It’s expensive, difficult and time-consuming to upgrade software
• Customer support is expensive and slowThe benefits of Xero speak for themselves:
• Cloud security is world class (same security as online banking)
• Clear overview of current financial position, in real-time
• Multi-user access makes it easy to collaborate online with your team and advisors
• Worry-free maintenance
• Everything is run online, so nothing to install and everything automatically backed up
• Upfront business costs are reduced – version upgrades, maintenance, system administration costs and server failures are no longer issues
Many of our clients have made the move and loving it.  So if you want to avoid the software induced stress of the next financial year now is the time to change. If you have any queries in reference to changing to Xero please do not hesitate to contact us, as we will be more than willing to help you change over.