Xero accountants 

What is Xero?

Xero is a cloud-based accounting software designed for small businesses and individuals. It offers a variety of accounting features, including financial reporting, inventory management, expense tracking, and bank reconciliation.

Xero can be accessed from any device with an internet connection, making it easy to manage finances. It also integrates with other software applications to simplify business operations, including customer relationship management systems and payment processors.

What are the features of Xero?

• Invoicing: Xero lets you generate and send branded invoices and statements and track payments in realtime.
• Bank connections: By connecting your bank accounts to Xero, you can have transactions imported automatically, eliminating the need for manual data entry.
• Recording bills: Xero can now fetch data from bills using OCR technology.
• Tracking expenses: Using the Xero tool, you can record and categorise your business expenses and take receipt pictures.
• Inventory control: With Xero, you can manage goods across numerous locations, set reorder points, and monitor inventory levels.
• Payroll: Prepare employee slips, send RTI and pension filings, and much more through Xero's advanced payroll capabilities.
• Projects: Quote, invoice, get paid for jobs now, and track costs and profitability with Xero's job tracker.
• VAT returns: Use Xero's MTD-compliant VAT returns feature to prepare and submit VAT returns to HMRC.
• Multiple-currency support: Xero is the best solution for international organisations because it facilitates transactions in different currencies.
• Integrations: To simplify your business procedures, Xero integrates with hundreds of third-party software and applications, such as payment gateways, CRM programmes, and e-commerce platforms.

Can an accountant help with Xero?

Xero Accountant is a great accounting software with several features businesses can use to expand their business. To fully utilise the features of this tool and ensure compliance with accounting requirements, organisations may need the help of an accountant.

An accountant can assist in setting up Xero software, including importing data from other accounting software, setting up bank feeds and configuring account settings. They can also help with ongoing accounting and bookkeeping duties like handling accounts payable and receivable, balancing bank accounts, and creating customised reports.

Additionally, an accountant can assist firms in making informed decisions based on their financial data and offer strategic financial guidance. They can provide insights, identify trends, and analyse financial data to help organisations improve their financial performance.

How is Xero helpful for startups?

Xero can benefit entrepreneurs looking for a cost-effective and reliable way to manage their finances.

First and foremost, the user interface of Xero is very intuitive and friendly. Startups also benefit from using Xero to speed up routine bookkeeping procedures. The amount of time spent on manual data entry can be drastically decreased with the help of automation capabilities from Xero, such as bank reconciliation, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology and expense categorisation. This gives companies more time to concentrate on other crucial responsibilities, such as expanding their business and cultivating relationships with clients and investors.

This enables startups to create a custom financial reporting stack that works best for their unique requirements. An accountant can help startup companies identify which integrations would be most helpful for their business and provide advice on best practices for using Xero efficiently.

How can an accountant help to manage taxes in Xero?

An accountant offers significant assistance with taxes for Xero. They can start implementing the appropriate VAT tax rates for the business, which is crucial in ensuring that the company charges the right amount of tax on its goods or services.

They can also keep track of the company's tax obligations and deadlines to minimise potential fines. Financial experts can also reconcile accounts to ensure that every financial transaction is accurately recorded.

Additionally, Xero's financial statements can be used to create tax returns, and accounting professionals can generate these reports and give advise on how to interpret them.

How can Xero help businesses with accounting?

Unlimited users

Xero allows you to add unlimited users to your account at each subscription level.

It is an essential aspect of accounting software because lower-tier plans frequently only permit a limited number of users with other software providers, whereas higher-tier programs provide unlimited users.

You can also set authorisations for each user. For instance, you can allow each user to send bills and receipts, allow few to raise invoices, and restrict who can see the firm's complete financial picture. To keep things structured, Xero records every action users make and collects the history of every transaction.

Navigation made easy

Accessing your way through Xero is simple, on the web or the app. To make your experience quick and simple, Xero has created easy-click steps.

The tool's new menu has all the data you require regarding your company's finances. The menu is prominently illustrated and gives you access to the files, organisation information, invoices and bank accounts. Moreover, Xero has created a dashboard that displays all financial information using well-represented, updated graphs and charts.

Track income and expenses

Regular monitoring of your cash flow can be complicated, but with Xero software, it can be handled easily. By streamlining your income and expenditure flow, you'll see instances right as they happen, which will better educate your understanding of your short-term cash flow and long-term income.

You can better understand your business with the most accurate and current information. The data can be used to identify and reduce unnecessary expenses, increasing your company's income and profit.

How does an accountant help in setting up Xero account

An accountant can play an essential role in setting up a Xero account for a small business. First and foremost, an accountant may help select the appropriate subscription plan that meets the budget and accounting requirements of the company.

With their expertise in financial management, an accountant can also help set up the chart of accounts, a critical component of Xero that determines the account structure for recording financial transactions, tracking categories, reports layout, payroll and much more.

How much does Xero cost?

Xero offers a variety of pricing plans to suit different business needs.

• Starter Plan: £15/month
  Suitable for small businesses with basic accounting needs. Allows you to send 5 invoices and quotes, enter 5 bills, and reconcile 20 bank transactions per month.
• Standard Plan: £30/month
  Perfect for expanding companies with more complex accounting requirements and enables you to enter total bills, generate multiple invoices and quotes, and reconcile unlimited bank transactions.
• Premium Plan: £42/month
  Excellent for established firms with more complicated accounting requirements includes extra features like support for multiple expenses and cost management.
• Ultimate Plan: £55/month
  Suitable for larger businesses with more employees and projects.

Apart from these packages, there are many add-ons, like Xero pay with Wise, analytics, CIS returns, payroll, and claim expenses.

Keep in mind that these costs could change based on any promotional deals or discounts that Xero can sometimes offer. The Xero website is the best place for the most current pricing details.