How can I get more from Xero?

With a growing need to diversify, many farms have found themselves venturing into new areas: farm shops, food production for direct selling and dog walking fields to name but a few.

Many manage this through either keeping manual records or running separate systems to their accounting software. However, there are numerous add on packages that sync with Xero to reduce duplication and time. This technological innovation can also increase growth opportunities by providing timely, accurate data and forecasts which help plan for the future and deliver results.

Not only are costs, budgets and margins tracked, but future peaks can also be planned for, such as key times like Christmas.

apps track costs, provide real time inventory and help you clearly see margins for each product. They help forecast demand and assist with planning so that you can work around constraints such as labour availability. One popular stock management package is Unleashed which tracks from input purchase through to sale, provides visibility of stock levels and has automatic low stock alerts. Vend is also well used for inventory-based retail and point of sale.

A good point of sale system is vital for retail. With the growth in online sales, there are also many ways to receive sales payments directly to Xero such as Stripe, Worldpay, Go Cardless and PayPal.

These are useful for the provision of services or accommodation. Sales invoices and payment data can be fed directly through to Xero. This is particularly useful with Making Tax Digital for VAT to ensure that all dates are accurately entered.

For businesses such as farm shops, scheduling apps can not only help with staff planning but also with reviewing efficiency of shift patterns and lengths to minimise costs.

To find a list of apps that officially partner with Xero, click on your business name at the top left-hand side of Xero and select ‘app store’ from the menu. From here you can search for specific apps or refine by category such as ‘inventory’. The apps are listed in the order of usage and ratings combined so that you can benefit from other users’ perspectives.

The apps listed are those vetted and approved by Xero. There is a cost to this for the app providers so as a result, there are many unofficial apps on the market. This doesn’t mean they are not good or effective, but it does mean they have not been checked by Xero so if using an unofficial partner, it is wise to do thorough research prior to commencement. It is certainly a case of caveat emptor (buyer beware) and ensuring points are clarified, such as who would bear the cost if there were any issues with the app working with Xero.

The key piece of advice in dealing with unofficial partners is to ensure that the set up is completed correctly and checked thoroughly at the start before significant amounts of data are fed into the system.

If you would like any advice regarding add on packages for Xero, do contact us at xero@albertgoodman.co.uk