The Business Advisory Blog

The Business Advisory Blog

Insight, news and updates from Alliott NZ Chartered Accountants, Auckland New Zealand. The views expressed here are the views of the author and should be discussed in further detail should an article be relevant to your individual circumstances.

While every effort has been made to provide valuable, useful information in this publication, this firm and any related suppliers or associated companies accept no responsibility or any form of liability from reliance upon or use of its contents. Any suggestions should be considered carefully within your own particular circumstances, as they are intended as general information only.

Vanessa Williams
Published on
In August Greg and I went to Xerocon 2014 in Sydney. What did we learn? There are Xero Add-ons for everything these days. If you can think of it, there’s an Add-on for it.

In fact there are so many Add-ons out there that the Xerocon iPhone App had them and their exhibitors listed by category. For example: farming, inventory, invoicing, payroll, property management, share management, point of sale, media, CRM, benchmarking, financial reporting, cash flow, budgeting software, project management, and the list goes on.
 
Create efficiencies at a fraction of the cost of your biggest competitor
We’d totally understand it if you found the whole thing a bit overwhelming. Or were even wondering what impact, if any, an Add-on could really have on your business. After two days at Xerocon in Sydney last month, we believe Add-ons provide a way for you create the same efficiencies in your business that your biggest competitor has, for a fraction of the cost.

In fact everything at Xerocon was efficient. Even our Visitor badges. Step up to a stand, press them against the Exhibitor iPad and we were emailed the product brochures and company contact information for that exhibitor. They automatically got our details too. No bags of paper to sift through and bin when we got back to the hotel. We could read everything off our phones, in between talks.

It seems that even the tradeshow industry is using technology to be more efficient. Like businesses in other industries, some conference organisers have embraced it to create a real point of difference to their competitors. These organisers have become more streamlined, more automated and use less manual processing and deliver a better show experience to their customers.

Perhaps now is a good time to revisit the Xero Add-on Marketplace. There are over 350 Add-ons to choose from, browseable by Category and by Industry specialisation. More come online all time.

With so many Add-ons around we weren’t surprised to see an increase the number of Cloud software integrators at this year’s Xerocon. (These businesses have entered the market to recommend, advise and implement Add-ons for Xero users). What was different was how much more specialised they had become. They still exist to help businesses maximise the benefit of using Xero and its Add-ons. But now they focus on a small number of Add-ons and maybe a specific industry segment. In real terms, this means they know what works for their target market and are better at matching Add-ons to business needs, and at designing solutions for their clients.
 
Small Business can do anything Big Business does
There really is nothing Big Business does that Small Business can’t do too. And with Xero providing closer banking integration so business can pay directly from Xero, perhaps they can become even more efficient.

For more information on Xero and which Add-on apps are right for your business, please email either myself or Greg, or phone us on +64 9 520 9200. We can discuss what you want to do and recommend one of several specialist Cloud integrators that we work with.

Topics: business efficiencies customer experience small business Xero Xero Add-on