Last night we covered off on the following:
Mobile. The tips & tricks to make working on the run so much easier
Buttons. The tricks to make processing faster
Contacts. Making use of groups, lists, notes & activity
Payroll. Leave, Final Pay, Xero Me app, Timesheets
Customising. Everything!
As well as a heap of little hints and tips along the way to not only help you process faster but also to help you surface the information that really matters in your businesses.
Mobile
When was the last time you were without your device?
Mobile is the new black! And Xero certainly understand that. They have made great progress on building out the mobile apps over the last few years. It's so convenient to be able to Invoice on the run, capture your receipts and even reconcile. It's also really helpful to be able to look up contact info, get directions at the click of a button and phone your customer straight from within Xero. Not to mention being able to look at who still owes you money, what your bank balance is and more importantly how much profit you are making while waiting in line for your coffee :)
To get the most out of the mobile experience it's really important you have the following setup:
- Items for Invoicing your customers
- All your customers contact details
- Invoice/Quote Templates
- Email Templates
But don't forget your employees can also benefit from the mobile experience. You can have them submit receipts, invoice on the go, attach photos, files and paperwork.
Below are some helpful videos on the mobile experience with Xero.
Buttons
The less you have to click the better. That's why the new + button in Xero and Global search (/) are so great.
The + button is great for being able to Invoice, Quote etc from any screen.
Date shortcuts are another great way to speed up your processing.
We also love the inbuilt calculator.
But the real magic happens with the global search / shortcut function. For those of you who don't like using your mouse this will be an excellent feature for you. The video below will give you a great overview of the Search Function.
Search in Xero from Xero on Vimeo.
Contacts
It's amazing to see how many small businesses don't have really good information on their customers and suppliers. While contacts won't provide you the information a really good CRM will it is still extremely useful as an interim measure. Not to mention helping you #banadmin when processing.
Unfortunately this is an area we see being under utilised. At the least you need to have your supplier information up to date so you can use Batch Payments. You can create groups for your contacts, produce great reports using smart lists and add files and notes against your contacts.
If you use gmail you can also now integrate email directly to your customer and supplier in Xero!
Payroll
Payroll is a great feature in Xero and just keeps getting better. The biggest issue we see is not having leave setup correctly and not ensuring your employees are using Xero Me or My Payroll.
Your employees can complete their own timesheets, apply for leave, view payslips and leave balances etc straight from the Xero Me app or by logging into Xero. Remember your employees don't get access to your Xero file, just their own employee information.
The app is super simple to use (see video below) and it ensures you have complete employee records without you having to manually transfer data from paper records or another system.
Xero Me - AU from Xero on Vimeo.
Customisation
You can customise everything in Xero. You can customise Invoices, Quotes, Purchase Orders, Email templates, Invoice Reminders. You can have multiple templates for all. This gives you an opportunity to brand your business, to eliminate data entry by having all of your terms and conditions set on your invoice templates etc etc.
Take a look at all of your templates in Xero. What other templates could you have setup? What needs changing on your existing templates?
Wrap
With so many great features in Xero it's great to be able to review what you are using, how you are doing things and how you can improve.
Don't stress though, we make this process painless for you. Each Tuesday we publish a new #xerotip, detailing 1 feature, why you would want to use it and how to setup in your business.
If you have missed any of our previous tips you will find a summary here
As always please let one of the Growthwise team if you are stuck with anything.
