HTML Graphs

For those of you who use Xero on your iDevices you will be pleased to know you can now see the graphs!

Invoice Changes

You can now easily Reorder the line items on your Invoices and insert new lines. You will now see an extra column on the left hand side. You just click, drag and drop to change the order.

Discounts

For those interested Xero now has an easy way of dealing with Discounts check out this video of the new features.

Search Improvements

When searching in the Invoices section you can now search on the line item descriptions as well. You can also seach by Phone Number in the contacts section now as well.

Xero Community

One of the exciting things this morning is the release of the Xero Community. This is a community forum where you can put forward improvements, have a look at other suggested improvements for Xero, search questions that other users have asked from a help perspective and generally get a feel for what’s happening. I suggest you all go and have a look at the community and utilise this to put forward your suggestions http://community.xero.com

As always look out for another Xero update in a few weeks.

Another reason we love the cloud!

For those of you who have not been following our updates on Twitter and Facebook we were flooded on Friday afternoon (and again yesterday!) I know many of you are thinking “but how you are on the 1st floor!” Well the roof collapsed along the side of our building and water poured in to all of our intervew rooms as well as all over reception! Now for some business owners this may spell tragedy. Afterall not only could you stand to loose everything on your computers but also all the physical files in your office! And then how do you work for the next few weeks until the Insurance assessors decide to approve your claim and your IT guys setup the new equipment for you?

But for us other than the issue of not being able to actually use our office its business as usual. Why? Our documents are all stored electronically and we use Cloud based services to run our business.

If we didn’t use Cloud based software what could have happened?

Let’s paint the picture. The office is flooding and we just have to leave. Our server is flooded with water which had all of our software, client files & records. Our physical files are also flooded and now can’t be used. Let’s also assume we have been diligent in backing up our systems to external drives or online. Firstly we would need to have a disaster recovery plan in place for our IT provider to use spare servers or something. We would have to wait until they could be fired up and ALL of our software and information were restored. We would then also need to setup our office somewhere that had access to these servers. Then we would need to get all of the quotes and hope the Insurance Assessor approved everything and that our Insurance Policies covered all of the loss. Then we would need to go through the whole process again when we could move back into the office.

What ACTUALLY happened for us!

We picked up our laptops on Friday afternoon and went out the door with them. Because we can work from anywhere we had not one hour of downtime and have enjoyed working from the coffee shop and our lovely park across the road just to name a few. We didn’t have to worry about ensuring everything had backed up correctly. We didnt have to worry about disks to re-install software on computers. Other than where to see our clients we didn’t have to worry about anything at all.

Lucky for us!

So what are the programs that made this all possible?

Xero (www.xero.com)
Workflow Max (www.workflowmax.com)
Yammer (www.yammer.com)
Spotlight Reporting (www.spotlightreporting.com)
Dropbox (www.dropbox.com)
Google Apps (www.google.com)

What would happen to you if your office flooded today? Would you be as lucky as us?

P.S if any of your are starting to get scared about what would ACTUALLY happen in your business let us know…..we can help implement solutions for your business just like we have for ours

With the wonderful world of technology moving so fast we like to keep up to date with cool tools that not only help our own business but can certainly assist clients businesses as well. And thanks to our awesome friends at Xero we have yet another of those Cool Tools to share with you.

Introducing RightSignature.

How many times do you wish you had a signature on a quote document rather than just a verbal agreement. If you are good and ensure everything is signed for before you start work for a customer how many times do you wish that piece of paper was easily accesible. Ever been on site with a customer and not had all the detail available at your finger tips. Imagine just bringing your iPad or iPhone along and being able to bring up all the signed documents for the job in an instant! Well that’s just one advantage of RightSignature.

In a nutshell you can create any document at all that needs a signature. You can also include boxes that clients need to complete such as the date, name or any other information you are requesting. An email is then sent to the client notifying them they have something to sign. Then you just sign online. This is done by either moving your mouse if you are at your computer, using one of those funky little pens on the iPad or iPhone or just using your finger on a touch screen for example. Which means anyone can sign from anywhere. For those of you who may have old school clients they can even sign with pen and paper and fax back to RightSignature. Once signed both parties receive a PDF copy of the actual document. Then to top it all off RightSignature will even archive the signed documents for you meaning you can come back and search for anything later! Of course you can still save in your files for cusotmers as well.

And not just to leave it at that but RightSignature even integrates with your other favourite tools such as Evernote, Dropbox, Box, Capsule, Highrise and of course Xero.

So lets paint this picture…..You want to ensure that all of your quotes are approved in Invoices. You would normally prepare a Draft Invoice in Xero anyway and have a template setup as a Quote. Instead of having to email that and then request someone print it out and sign it all you do is log into RightSignature, click on the approriate quote you would like to send and start to type in the clients name. As all the data is pulled from Xero the clients email address will automatically be generated. You can even type in an optional message at this step. You press send for signature and the client is sent an email. They sign straight away and the document is then sent back to you with a signature. Its really that easy.

Check it out www.rightsignature.com

Motivating your business is a very simple thing to do. It starts with YOU. It starts with actually deciding what you want out of your business. What are some of your targets for the business? And when do you want to reach them by? Once you have worked the hard part out then it’s just a case of firstly conveying that to the team and secondly setting smaller targets for everyone to reach along the way.

As always I like to look at other Businesses, and learn from them. The motivated ones all have fantastic leaders who are very focused on what they want to achieve….but they also have a team that is just as motivated and dedicated to the cause.

So here are some tips to Motivate your team:

1. Make sure you lead by example
2. Listen to the team
3. Ask them for feedback
4. Ask them what they would change in the business to reach the targets
5. Train them! Be specific here and set a training program for your employees
6. Try a profit sharing plan. Ie have a staff bonus pool of 5% of the Company profits. This then gets divided amongst the team
7. Encourage the team to look for constant improvements. I.e Introduce a weekly or monthly award for the best improvement suggestion – let it be voted for by the team
8. Give Feedback. Both positive and 1 thing to work on for the next month. This is best done over a simple cup of coffee one on one.
9. Try some team building activities. Treasure hunts with clues pointing to an end destination are always fun & help build teamwork.
10. Communicate. Let the team know how they are tracking & how the business is tracking
11. Celebrate. Make sure you actually celebrate the wins

So there are some quick examples of ways you can help motivate your team to in turn motivate your business. Have any other examples of what has worked for you?

Still struggling to decide what it is you actually want to achieve? Struggling with some motivation yourself? Let us know and we can kick-start your thinking.

I suggest that you head over to Video – What’s Changed to watch the funky little video paycycle have put together of exactly what has changed. Alternatively Paycycle are running webinars to cover the changes. You can register here Webinar schedule. If you get stuck though just give us a bell and we can walk you through.

I for one am motivated by data (yes its true I am an accountant!) I have recently starting riding my bike again and although it hurts like hell I still get out of bed every morning and ride to work. I map my route and time everything thanks to the lovely runkeeper app. it tracks my distance, elevation, time, km splits, fastest pace etc etc. So each day there is a new challenge. Beat the last time up the hill, take another minute off the total ride time, get to the 20km mark quicker, go faster down the big hill. Each day when the rest of the Growthwise team get to work I happily share my great news about this mornings personal best. I show them the graphs and can then track my results by week, by month etc etc. Yes I am a competitive person so this works brilliantly for me. But i cant help to notice the amount of other people who use apps like runkeeper & cyclemeter to also track progress. If you jump on twitter or facebook I’m sure you will see someone even sharing their results.

Now granted not EVERY day of the week do I beat yesterdays total time or distance….but I can analyse where I can look to improve or where I slipped up compared to yesterday. I can then set new mini goals for the ride home or tomorrow. But the thing is I’m always focused. Why? Because the data is in front of me. Its visiible. Its real. And if you start sharing your results people start naturally asking you how you are tracking. You automatically become accountable to others. And the motivation circle continues. So I not only get my data from the little lady that talks to me all the way along my ride as well as when I finish but I’m also getting the added benefits of the encouragement and accountability from others.

My end goal is certainly not just merely to ride to work each day. Its a much larger fitness target….but my action to get to that target is simply riding each day. The data helps with that motivation.

So how does this apply to your business?

Businesses also require motivation. Well they certainly do if you want to kick-arse! Which means not only do you as business owners require motivation but so does your entire team. Imagine if your whole team was motivated to go that little bit faster every single day. What do you think the difference to your results would be? Do you think you would have a team that were all striving for the same target? Do you think the chances of meeting your targets would be greater.

Business goals and motivation are no different than your personal goals and motivation. First you need to set them! Then you need to break them down into manageable smaller targets & share these with the team. Better still make the team accountable for hitting the targets. And just like you would for yourself reward them.

So this weeks homework is to have a think about what targets you want to set for your business. Start small and work on some targets for the next 6 months. Next week I will touch on how to motivate your employees to reach these targets.

Happy Planning

But most satisfying of all has been helping our clients grow, learn new things, implement changes and reach their own targets. Now thats rewarding.

All too often though as business owners we forget what we have ticked off the list or acheived in the last 12 months. We dont celebrate with the team instead its bring on the holidays and I’ll think about the new To-Do list post xmas. Our challenge to you this year…..make sure you celebrate before you walk out the door. Then use that motivation to jump back in running at the start of the 2012 year.

This time of year is a fantastic time to sit back review the good bits, review what worked and why, what didn’t work and why and start the brainstorming of how you can step the business up another notch for the next 12 months.

We will be closing the office from Friday 23rd to the 3rd January and look forward to helping everyone kick-arse in 2012. In the meantime let us know some of your achievements in the last 12 months

Merry Xmas from the Growthwise Team

Xero is of course one of those tools. A project over the weekend was to create a video on one of these tools in less than 60 minutes. So of course we choose Xero. Our main focus for our quick video was Anytime, Anywhere. Clearly this was relevant given we were 900km away from the office and still able to do everything we needed not only for our own accounts but for clients as well. Here is the result of our quirky creativeness in less than 60 minutes.

But that then got us thinking more. Why do other people actually love xero. What certain parts of Xero are the favourites? Is it the fact you can Invoice, look up who has paid you, send statements, compare budget to actual results from anywhere at anytime? Is it the automatic bank feeds and intelligent coding of bank transactions? Is it the real time information at your fingertips?

Because we love the feedback and sharing others hot tips for xero with our clients we setup a hashtag on Twitter #whywelovexero Would love your thoughts or use the hashtag on twitter on why you love xero.

We also have a bucket load of fun at conferences and tend to try and cause as much mischeif as possible. This time we organised a flashmob on the organiser and presenter of the conference Michael MC Carter. Who ever said accountants are boring!

Xero the Business but specifically Hamish Edwards (@Hamish_E) & Rod Drury (@roddrury) http://xero.com

It will be no surprise to anyone that Hamish and Rod the founders of Xero are at the top of my list. I am continuously inspired by the Xero vision. Not just because of the brilliant product itself but also the culture and feel of the organisation. When you meet Rod and Hamish in real life first impressions are laid back, mischeivous and fun, extremely smart guys. Well that was the impression I had when 1st meeting both of them. Follow them around for some time and I’m sure you would be exhausted. Hamish and Rod and the entire Xero team are extremely good at listening. But better still they take that back and turn it into action. Forward thinking and challening just seem to come naturally to these boys.

Craig Wilson (@mediahunter) – NLYZR http://nlyzr.com

Craig makes my list for a few reasons. He is passionate, extremely focused and exceptionally creative. He is the guy you want to sit next to at the coffee shop or at the pub. Craig is fantastic at sharing what he knows. He gives away an enourmous amount of information to help businesses. And he is passionate about kicking the boundaries. If you head on over to his Blog site http://mediahunter.com.au you will find some really great reads.  And as with Xero Craig is kicking some goals. His new business NLYZR is going great guns. If you get a chance to sit down with this man and listen to his story and thoughts……take it.

Sholto Macpherson (@sholtomac) – Box Free IT http://boxfreeit.com.au

Not to long ago (thanks to the wonderful Wayne Schmidt @wayne_schmidt from Xero) I was introduced to Sholto. After talking for hours and hours and listening to his inqusitive mind i was hooked. Sholto is a journalist so you would expect he would have the questioning part down pat. However Sholto doesn’t just ask questions. He wants to learn…..and that turns into him challenging you. He makes you ask the questions about WHY you do something this way and whether there are alternatives. He then seeks to find some alternatives and challenges you as to whether or not they coulld become solutions for you. But most of all he wants to learn. He has a thirst for knowledge. And will always challenge the status quo.

Michael MC Carter (@practiceparadox) – Practice Paradox http://practiceparadox.com.au

I have followed Michael’s journey for quite a few years now. He like the guys above is a very passionate person. He is very driven and always looking at ways to improve not only his business but also himself. He also has a thirst for knowledge and loves sharing the cool tools he finds. Scheduled quick 15 min chats with Michael always turn into hour long challenging ideas sessions. a Dinner ends up with us being kicked out of the restaurant when they are closing. Michael makes my list as he has a passion for seeing people succeed. That passion is a fantastic motivator and challenger at the same time.

My peers

By far one of the best influencing factors for me are my peers. There are a group of accountants that i completely admire, for a whole range of reasons. They are challenging the tools that accountants traditionally use, challenging the things as an industry we are known for and in the process having a bucket load of fun. This keeps all of us on our toes. All of us pushing forward. And best of all – helping each other in the process. I challenge you to pick some of your peers in your Influencers list. Then strive to be at the top of that list.

So who is it that Influences you? And who else do you need in your Influencers Group?