Xero launches Connected Accounting, partners with Citibank
At its recent Xerocon Atlanta, online accounting software specialist Xero announced the first wave of new features, dubbed Connected Accounting, designed to automate many basic daily business tasks, reports David Penn at Finovate.
VP of products and partnerships for Xero Americas, Herman Man, says that in addition to automatically categorising accounting data, Connected Accounting gives businesses insights that can help them better understand their finances.
“With the features introduced at Xerocon Atlanta today, we’re delivering connected accounting so accountants and bookkeepers can help their clients ask the big questions, on cash flow, profit, and revenue,” Man says. “It is these kinds of capabilities working seamlessly together that enables small businesses to pursue their passion, be successful and do beautiful business.”
Initially, Connected Accounting will enable Xero’s platform to capture and automatically populate data from PDF bills to make bank reconciliation simpler. Xero Projects, a job tracking solution for small business now available to Xero’s US customers, is now connected to the platform in a way that allows businesses to combine contact, invoicing, billing, and reporting information with the rich data existing on the platform. The Xero Projects app has also been improved, making it easier for workers to track project work on the go and giving business owners more control over access permissions.
Xero also announced coming enhancements to its query solution Ask and a to-be released solution for Xero HQ, Relationships, that will make it easier for businesses to maintain contacts and sync data across the Xero platform.
In addition to product announcements, Xero also shared news of a new partnership with Citibank. Via the agreement, joint Citibank-Xero customers will get access to direct bank feeds from within the Xero platform. This will give businesses real-time visibility of their finances, including cash flow and overall business performance. The deal with Citibank builds on the relationships with banks that Xero has already forged this year, including National Bank of Australia (NAB) and the Development Bank of Singapore.
Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand, Xero announced its Canadian launch earlier this month, partnering with Deloitte Private’s financial collaboration platform ctrl by Deloitte.
In February, Xero teamed up with IT management solutions provider Kaseya, providing direct integration between the company’s business management solution, BMS by Kaseya, and Xero’s platform.
Xero is publicly-traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and has a market capitalisation of $5 billion. Rod Drury is CEO.
