7 Tips for Xero Efficiency
As Xero Certified Advisors, a Silver Partner and daily users of Xero accounts software, I and my team know how to work most efficiently with Xero. So here are my 7 top tips.
Bank Feed
The majority of banks will now connect directly with Xero and this will save you lots of time downloading transactions from your bank in a format which can be uploaded to Xero. One or two banks may need you to sign an authorisation and it will take a few days to activate but the majority will connect instantly. This is probably the most time saving aspect of Xero.
Bank Rules
Setting up bank rules for your regular transactions saves so much time and you don't have to remember which nominal account to record it to. If you don't set up rules Xero will remember the detail from the last transaction and you may just be able to say OK - but it is more risky because it may just be a similar transaction. For example you may have two insurance payments to the same company each month but one is for business insurance and the other for vehicle insurance. Xero won't choose different nominal accounts for the same Payee so in this instance a bank rule will work better.
Cash Coding
Ideal to use this if you have a month or more of daily receipts from merchant services or from web sales which aren't allocated to any invoices. Add some detail in the description to identify what the sales are rather than leave any personal details of the Payee.
Hubdoc
Link Hubdoc to Xero (for free) and email your electronic invoices straight to Hubdoc or drag and drop scanned copies. Hubdoc will extract supplier name, the date, the invoice number and the amount (with or without VAT) and will recognise how to code it in your accounts once you have done the first one. Once published the invoice or receipt will be attached to the transaction in Xero. It is quick, easy and efficient.
Purchases or Spend Money
Always add some useful detail in the Description box. Whilst it might take a few more seconds it helps to quickly identify what you have bought. It also prevents the Description box drawing in the bank detail which could give personal information which you don't want to be seen in your account transactions.
Sales Invoicing
Where you can try to copy previous invoices. If you invoice the same company every month or quarter copy the last invoice and change the detail. It will give consistency and be so much quicker than creating it from scratch. If you invoice the same thing to multiple companies create the first invoice and once you have saved it copy it and change the customer name. The only thing you have to be aware of when copying is that Xero thinks we want the previous invoice number as a reference so you will have to delete this.
Credit Control
Xero can send automatic reminders to your customers. Reminders can be set up to go out a set number of days after payment is due or perhaps a couple of days before and then 7 days after if they still haven't paid. You don't have to remember to send them as once they are set up they go automatically. And the email reminder can be set to say whatever suits you and your customer best and can be a different one for each reminder you set. One thing to be aware of with reminders is that you must allocate incoming payments to invoices so that reminders aren't sent out to customers who have already paid.