Xero automates high integrity accounting for small business

MEDIA RELEASE

Xero automates high integrity accounting for small businesses

New Xero Assurance Dashboard makes it easier for advisors to monitor the integrity of their clients’ financial data

WELLINGTON, Wednesday 20 April, 2016 — Available today, for more than 600,000 small businesses using Xero globally, the Xero Assurance Dashboard helps advisors monitor the accuracy and integrity of their clients’ financial transactions with inspections that are now targeted, faster, and easier, saving time and hassle.

The growing importance of real-time data in businesses means protecting its accuracy and integrity is vital to determine a company’s true performance metrics and mitigate financial risk. Yet, it is labour-intensive and time-consuming. Accountants have to manually inspect every single transaction a small business makes, sometimes long after the transaction has occurred. The Assurance Dashboard is a new feature in Xero that allows advisors to:

• Monitor their client’s use of Xero to identify any errors or anomalies in their client’s financial records. Advisers can use this information to help identify and rectify errors in Xero, or potentially uncover activity which may not be in the interests of their client. Accountants and auditors can easily identify transactions that need to be investigated and can fix issues early, before they become a problem.

• Establish security best practice. The assurance dashboard provides a heat map of user activity highlighting their client’s Xero permissions, last login date and a heat map that enables advisors to check for bank account transactions that have been altered, deleted or manually reconciled.

• Complement the traditional audit. The advantage of the Assurance Dashboard is that it surfaces items that need attention in real time, rather than months afterwards.

Cloud technology, along with the automated transfer of data, creates possibilities for automation and control that have not existed before. With automated bank feeds and coding rules, bank transactions can be processed in an accounting system without human intervention or error, improving the transparency and security for small businesses and their financial data.

Xero Assurance Dashboard does the manual work so accountants can provide meaningful, value-added advice and services. This means that Xero gives better quality data than small businesses have ever had access to, and accountants can provide continuous assurance and make decisions based on high integrity data that is secure.

Comments on the news:

• "A small business’ financial data provides important context and clarity over how it is performing,” said Craig Walker, Chief Technology Officer, Xero. "If the data is accurate, the business can make more informed decisions. Butmaintaining data integrity is an ongoing process. Limiting the risk of human error, bank transaction data flows straight into the platform via secure, electronic connections. Small businesses, their customers and their suppliers can transact directly with one another on the platform so the data stays clean. Xero’s Assurance Dashboard allows advisors todetect anomalies in their client’s data, at scale, and perform continuous assurance across their clients’ financial transactions."

• "Xero has, and always will, advocate for the importance of small businesses investing in bookkeepers, accountants, and assurance practitioners to provide business expertise critical to their success,” said James Solomons, Head of Accounting, Xero Australia. "The skilled advice and experience they bring to small businesses cannot be replaced by technology — but the value they add can be enhanced by it. Continuous assurance helps them add value by using high-integrity accounting systems to enhance reporting and decision-making."

• “If my client’s accounting data isn’t 100 per cent correct, I can’t trust it and I can’t use it,” said Timothy Munro, Director and CEO, Change Accountants. "Fortunately, I’m a Xero Accountant. Xero’s new Assurance Dashboard helps me to instantly confirm on one screen that all of the data I use is correct and can be relied on. This means I have more time to help my clients grow their business instead of checking numbers.”

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