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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Sprache: Englisch
Learn to use Xero to make bookkeeping tasks simple and gain valuable business insights effortlessly
About This Book
- Explore the process of setting up and using Xero
- Concise step-by-step instructions to teach you best practice bookkeeping
- Discover performance enhancing add-ons to reduce your daily work
Who This Book Is For
Intended for those who want to learn how to use Xero to get better insights from their business data and learn the best practices of bookkeeping using Xero. Perhaps you have never used Xero, or perhaps you want to migrate from an existing accounting application to Xero. In either case, this book will get you up and running quickly. It would be useful to have a bit of familiarity with basic bookkeeping concepts, but no prior experience of Xero is required.
What You Will Learn
- Configure Xero from scratch and fine-tune it ready for use
- Set up bank feeds and automate the bank reconciliation process
- Create workflows and segregation of duties for sales and purchases
- Run payrolls, giving employees the ability to request time off and generate their own payslips
- Produce reports to gain a better understanding of your business data and make better quality decisions
- Import and export data ready for analysis
- Use the power of a mobile device to run your business from the palm of your hand
- Manage your inventory with fully automated transaction processing
In Detail
The book begins by tackling the initial set up of Xero to ensure optimum configuration for success. From there, the next logical step is to set up the automated bank feeds, which is the best innovation in bookkeeping in years. Now that your bank data is ready for importing, we will tackle the most common transactional items, being sales invoices and purchase bills. Despite these being largely transactional, we will work through ways to automate the process where possible, save time, and avoid potential human errors along the way. Then we will start checking reports and analyze what is working or not and make changes to workflows and setups. The end result is that you will have a fully configured system ready to use and years of experience offering best practice solutions to what have been, for years, unnecessary roadblocks in your business.
Style and approach
This book contains easy-to-follow, step-by-step examples, explaining from start to finish how to set up and use Xero while implementing best practices of bookkeeping.
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Seitenzahl: 216
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
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Table of Contents
Learning Xero
Learning Xero
Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: February 2016
Production reference: 1250216
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham
B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78588-376-7
http://www.packtpub.com
Credits
Author
Jon Jenkins
Copy Editor
Merilyn Pereira
Reviewer
Amy Harper
Project Coordinator
Bijal Patel
Acquisition Editor
Vinay Argekar
Proofreader
Safis Editing
Content Development Editor
Onkar Wani
Indexer
Rekha Nair
Technical Editor
Vivek Arora
Production Coordinator
Conidon Miranda
Foreword
Until quite recently, software had undergone a rather pedestrian process of evolution from the earliest personal productivity tools of the PC era, to enabling team collaboration thanks to the emergence of low cost networking in the 1990s, and then lastly through the era of the first internet-aware software, which enabled organizational software like CRM. But around the mid-point of the last decade, something very interesting began to happen in the world of software that went on to create an unprecedented explosion in form, function, and sheer volume of choice in the world of software that we live in today.
In 2011, Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape (the world's first web browser), insightfully encapsulated the factors behind this new era of software in his Wall Street Journal article, Why Software Is Eating The World—"Six decades into the computer revolution, four decades since the invention of the microprocessor, and two decades into the rise of the modern Internet, all of the technology required to transform industries through software finally works and can be widely delivered at global scale."
There has never been a time when we've had more choice in software nor has the capability and usefulness of software ever been greater.
What's possibly even more interesting about this new world is that the biggest beneficiaries will not be the mega-corporations who possess the huge amounts of capital necessary to benefit from the earlier generations of software, but the millions of small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) in the UK.
The productivity of our SMBs matters a great deal more than you might realize. SMBs contribute to more than half of the UK's national gross domestic product every year and account for almost three quarters of employment. And it's among this vital economic community that modern, powerful software has finally found a home in the village shop, the five person design studio, and the small town roofing contractor, which makes me incredibly optimistic about the decades ahead when we'll finally see millions of great British businesses unlocking their true potential with great software.
Of course, software on its own isn't enough and so before the UK's millions of business owners and managers can hope to benefit from this new era, they first need to grasp what it means practically, and how they might approach harnessing it. And it is in this regard that the author of this book, Jon Jenkins, is well qualified having helped hundreds of small businesses adapt to and embrace cloud software. As managing director at Xero, I first met Jon around 5 years ago and was struck by both his passion and his clarity of vision about the potential cloud software had for transforming the productivity of small businesses in particular and it has been a pleasure to observe Jon go on to help, coach, and advise many hundreds of companies since that time.
This book is the distillation of Jon's own expertise and ability together with countless practical insights gained through working with all those companies and business owners.
Gary Turner
Managing Director, Xero
About the Author
Jon Jenkins graduated from Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, United Kingdom, in 2007 with a bachelor of science degree in applied accounting. He has been a certified chartered accountant since 2006 at the age of just 25. Jon began working in 1999 with Allied Leisure PLC and quickly rose up the career ladder using passion and drive to improve processes, procedures, and systems. Seeing the difference small incremental changes could make to businesses, each subsequent job has been all about improving processes, procedures, and systems, and it is these experiences that have culminated in him writing this book. In 2011, he founded a company called Smart Accountancy Systems focused on client care and a wider range of services using cloud accounting software. Jon holds regular seminars for businesses wanting to explore or discover the possibilities of how the cloud can increase productivity, profitability, and provide better job satisfaction. He is also the cofounder and CEO of Hindsight, a new software development and Xero add-on, which enables advisors to get even better business insight into client affairs so they can raise their service level yet another notch.
I would like to thank Packt Publishing for enabling me to publish this book. I never thought that I would be in a position to do such a thing.
I would also like to express my gratitude to Emma Chen and my children for their love, patience, and support, not just during the time I have taken away to write this book, but in the many late nights and long weekends that have been given up for me to follow my passion. I hope that one day I am able to repay the favor.
Finally, a big thank you to Amy Harper for reviewing the book and pointing out my errors sometimes! Without her support, we would not have gotten this over the line.
About the Reviewer
Amy Harper has been working in accountancy for a number of years within the industry and in practice roles. Her main focus has been working with small- to medium-sized businesses helping them grow and develop using current and accurate accounting data. She believes the introduction of Xero has dramatically changed the way accountants now works and it has enabled clients to be much more in touch with the actual performance of their businesses.
Amy currently works at Smart Accountancy Systems as a finance manager delivering management accounts, cashflows, and budgets to a portfolio of clients.
I would like to thank my husband for supporting me in my career and for being a great sounding board for my ideas.
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Preface
The way in which we work is changing beyond all recognition and this change is unlike anything we will see again in our working lifetime. The change is being driven by technology and software. You can embrace it and use it to your advantage or you can be swallowed up and spat out.
The idea behind this book is to give you an insight into how you could be working and saving yourself a whole bunch of time to get your life back. Do you really want to spend your life chained to your desk? I don't think so.
Throughout this book, we will guide you through the way in which you should do your bookkeeping using Xero and how to get the best from the system. Whether you are an experienced bookkeeper or a business owner, we hope to enlighten you to the possibilities that online accounting software offers you.
There is only one constant in business and that is change. Use this book as a catalyst to change the way in which you work.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Setting up Xero for Success, guides you through how to set up Xero correctly to get the most from the system from day one.
Chapter 2, Breaking the Bank, introduces the reader to the joys of automated bank feeds which some say is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Chapter 3, Using Xero to Excel at Sales, walks you through how to get those invoices out of the door in the most efficient manner.
Chapter 4, teaches you how to manage your suppliers' bills and keep on top of paying them on time.
Chapter 5, Processing Payroll in Xero, introduces you to the latest edition of the Xero product enabling you to pay your employees and deal with autoenrolment pension obligations.
Chapter 6, Xero Expenses and Xero Touch, ensures there is no excuse for losing receipts and missing out on claiming back your tax-free money.
Chapter 7, Managing Inventory, helps you to keep track of all those widgets you buy and sell in your business and maintain accurate accounting records effortlessly.
Chapter 8, Real-Time Reporting, concludes that it is possibly one of the greatest inventions of modern time. No more waiting until the end of the month or year to see where you are today.
Chapter 9, Supercharging Xero with Add-ons, states that if Xero is the greatest thing since sliced bread, the add-on ecosystem is the butter and jam. Accounting is no longer a dirty word in most offices with seamless integrations to other products.
Chapter 10, Xero Tips and Tricks, tells you that a party's not a party without a few things to wow your audience. I guarantee there will be something you can all learn from this last chapter.
What you need for this book
The great thing about SaaS products is the essence of their simplicity for an end user. As such, all you need to get the most from this book is a subscription to Xero and the Internet. It really is that simple.
Who this book is for
It is intended for those who want to learn how to use Xero to get better insights from their business data and learn the best practices of bookkeeping using Xero. Perhaps you have never used Xero, or perhaps you want to migrate from an existing accounting application to Xero. In either case, this book will get you up and running quickly. It would be useful to have a bit of familiarity with basic bookkeeping concepts, but no prior experience of Xero is required.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "I would recommend using the Xero Help Guide and searching Import a Bank Statement to get the file formatted correctly."
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "At this point, you may as well complete the Setup Guide by clicking on Next and then Finish."
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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Downloading the color images of this book
Downloading the color images of this book We also provide you with a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. The color images will help you better understand the changes in the output. You can download this file from: https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/LearningXero_ColoredImages.pdf.
Errata
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Questions
If you have a problem with any aspect of this book, you can contact us at <[email protected]>, and we will do our best to address the problem.
Chapter 1. Setting Up Xero for Success
Throughout this chapter, we will cover the Xero core settings to make sure you are getting the most from Xero. Setting Xero up properly will save you time in the long run and ensure you get the best out of it from day one. Think of this book as a concentrated version of the instruction manual. You'll get to know about the best bits without the hard work. We'll begin by running through the Xero Setup Guide, each section in this chapter also doubles as help for that section within the General Settings. So, if you have already completed the Setup Guide, you can still work through this chapter using general settings within Xero. It also means you can refer back to this chapter at a later date should you wish to edit your settings.
These are the topics we'll be covering in this chapter:
Initial configuration
This initial section covers what to do when setting up your Xero organization, so if you have already completed this, well done. Please do not ignore this section as you may find something that needs tweaking, and it is better to get it right now than when you have started posting transactions.
When going through the initial configuration, you will be asked some basic information, such as the name of the organization and where you pay taxes. You will be asked to choose a plan that relates to the functionality you need. You can upgrade or downgrade at a later date should you find your existing plan no longer fits your requirements. Finally, you will need to enter your debit or credit card details for payment purposes. You will be billed monthly, and the amount will be taken by your provided card. If you have other Xero subscriptions already at this point, you will also be given the option to add the bill to your current billing account, which means you will get one invoice and make one payment per month covering all Xero organizations you have.
Setup Guide
We have devised this chapter to walk you through the Setup Guide, but please note that each section of the Setup Guide is included in the Xero settings in its own right, so you can work through the entire process by yourself. Or, if you have already done the initial setup, you can just refer to the individual section in this chapter that relates to the Settings option you need.
At any point, you can update or amend the Organisation Settings using the top menu within Xero. Just go to Settings | General Settings | Organisation Settings. It is worth taking a look at this after completing the Setup Guide as there are other options available that are not completed during the Setup Guide, such as adding your business logo. There are also several other options as to what contact details you can add, such as Skype and DDI.
For settings that you wish to use on a regular basis, you can attach them to the Settings submenu as a Favourite by clicking on the star icon next to the setting you wish to appear as such. To remove the favorite, simply click on the star next to that setting option as depicted in the following screenshot. This makes navigation a bit quicker.
If you are setting up a new organization, you will be ready to enter the Setup Guide, which looks like this:
As you can see, there is a series of settings to tackle as depicted by the menu, but don't worry, you do not have to complete this all in one go, and some of it will not be relevant to you.
From the start screen, you will see an option to watch a guide to the setup process, and we recommend that you watch at least the The Quick Start Guide video before starting:
There are links to other frequently asked questions that you can read, but we would suggest at this point you dive in as you will be guided through each part of the Setup Guide in this chapter.
When you are ready, click on Next to carry on. You will now see at the bottom of the page you have the Back and Next buttons, and you can also Save and Quit, so you may come back to complete the Setup Guide later. You do not have to complete the process in one session, but you do have to complete it before you can start processing data.
Should you wish to move a bit more quickly, simply click through Next to get to the end and start using the system. You can update the settings later, but just remember that what you are asked for in the Setup Guide is the bare minimum for getting Xero ready. If you have the information at hand, you may as well go over it now rather than miss something important.
Organization Settings
The first section is all about your organization's details, and you can complete as much or as little as you like. At this point, please note that what you enter here will appear on an online invoice generated by Xero, so if you are a limited company and it is a legal requirement to have the registered office address and company registration number on your form, do it here.
The social links at the bottom of the Organization Settings page will also appear on online invoices that are linked to your profiles, giving customers the ability to follow, share, and connect.
You are guided through each section in the Setup Guide, and the part you are in is highlighted green. This also refers to the section headings in this chapter and what the items are called in the Xero's General Settings for ease of use. After entering the Organisation Settings and clicking on Next, you will be asked if the business is VAT registered before continuing to enter the Financial Settings. Click on Yes or No to continue.
Financial Settings
Financial Settings are where some of the more serious stuff sits, so please be careful what you touch in here. We highly recommend that you are cautious and make sure you understand the implications of changing Financial Settings before doing so. In the following sections, we highlight a few of the major ones to watch out for.
Financial Year End
Select the Financial Year End for your organization using the dropdowns provided. It is important to get this right as this will drive the reporting side of Xero in terms of calculating your year-to-date figures:
If you don't know what your financial year end is, we suggest taking a look at your latest set of accounts or checking with your accountant. You can change this under Financial Settings later as it is not uncommon for a company to change its financial year end.
