With our 6th Xerocon just a week away, we wanted to share with you our top 10 Favourite Xero Apps, and why we love them so much.
But firstly, what’s all the fuss about Xerocon? It’s a conference for accountants right?
Well yes indeedy it is, but oh so much more than that. I take the whole team, as it’s the best place for finding out new developments in the Xero and App world, but also and equally importantly catching up with our peers in our online accounting world. To share ideas, catch up, and make the future a reality.
“It’s the world’s most beautiful and innovative conference for cloud accounting leaders”.
Our 10 Favourite Apps
We’ve been using Xero since 2012, and because we do visit every Xerocon we can keep up with developments and talk to the App developers. We couldn’t keep this gold dust from you, so without further ado, here’s our App Top 10:
1. Xero
Of course it’s number one. It’s changed the way we and our clients do business. With over 1 million users worldwide, it’s regularly updated and has the coolest features to help you manage your business online. From the app you can raise invoices on the fly, create expense claims, and check your bank balance.
New features like Xero Projects and Xero Expenses mean that anything is possible for your small business. Find out more here.
2. Receipt Bank
Receipt Bank is a no brainer for saving you time, and claiming more money and VAT back. Gone are the days of crumpled receipts. Simply snap a photo and chuck the receipt! It will find it’s way to Xero in the blink of an eye! Read more here.
3. Chaser
This app is revolutionary. It connects to Xero and manages your credit control for you by automatically sending chasing emails (which you can completely customise!) to clients with unpaid invoices. It also makes reviewing your credit control function a breeze, with all chasing emails and all following replies logged in its CRM. I swear those emails go out with magic fairydust! This app will get cash in the bank quicker and save you hours of time! Read more about it here.
4. GoCardless
If you’d rather not have to chase your customers, get GoCardless involved! This app allows you to set up direct debits with customers, so you control when they pay! It looks at Xero for invoice due dates and collects payment. Funds are in your account in 4 days! What’s not to like? More here.
5. Practice Ignition
Now this is a favourite app of ours for sending out proposals and engagement letters, which we can do in about 5 minutes (instead of the usual 4 hours to pull everything together!). It’s designed for accountants but perfect for any business offering a service and needing to onboard their clients. Find out more here.
6. Tripcatcher
For anyone making business trips, have a look at Tripcatcher. It effortlessly records your business trip via GPS, and you can manually enter trips too. It calculates the VAT you can claim, and keeps an eye on the 10k mileage threshold. Then you push it to Xero. This means more VAT can be claimed back and more expenses claimed through your business. and it’s a huge time saver! Read more here.
7. Curve Card
The future of business cards. Link all your cards to your Curve card via the App, you can add business and personal cards. And then you only need to take one card out with you! You choose which card you’re Curve card is paying with via the App. But if you’re not that organised, their Go Back in Time feature is amazing! Just click on the card payment, and choose to move it to another card! Simples! Find out more here and use our referral code OAB8H to get £5.
8. Zapier
Zapier is a clever little app we wouldn’t be without. It automates processes in the background between your different apps, by creatinge a “Zap” between each app. For instance if a calendar booking is made in Google Calendar you can make a zap to create an invoice in Xero. Basically if this happens here, do that over there. We use it loads to automate our workflows and save heaps of time. Try out a zap now!
9. iZettle
For any small business wanting to take card payments, iZettle is the perfect choice. The only upfront cost is the card reader (currently £29) and then you’ll have transaction charges of 1.75%. No need for hefty merchant service fees and terminal hire.
For small retail businesses it’s even more perfect as it comes with a free EPOS App. Record all your sales through the day (card and cash) and at 10pm every night it sends all this info to Xero. No bookkeeping required! Cool hey?
10. G Suite
G Suite is the backbone or the engine room for any online business. With its suite of apps you can work seamlessly and securely anywhere, anytime. G Suite takes care of your communications, calendar, storage and document creation, and also integrates with many online apps, including Xero. Your whole team can work remotely and still collaborate online with no fuss, and no time wasted. We’d be lost without it!
One to Watch: Soldo
We promised you our Top 10 Favourite Apps, but we couldn’t let you go without sharing the future of employee expenses. Soldo is our one to watch. It’s a prepaid card, which will make managing employee expenses a breeze! Also very useful if you need employees to be able to make card payments without using your business card. Geo Control is one of their cool features so that you can control where your employees are able to use the card, and when. Watch this space as Soldo is developing all the time!
See you on the other side!
As always, thank you for reading! We’ll see you after Xerocon, with even more exciting developments to report! Please be aware that KP offices will be closed while we’re at Xerocon (13 to 15 November 2018).
Sharon
Kinder Pocock are an approachable cloud-savvy firm of accountants based in Herefordshire but supporting businesses on the move.
We specialise in Security, Design and Indie Hospitality businesses.
01432 273400
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