Hi, I’m Andrew

25 June 2009

I thought I should introduce myself again – its been over three months since I last posted on this blog.  A lot has been happening – the highlight of which was a 5 week trip to the UK to visit friends and spend some time with my wife and two boys.

Since March, we’ve also been flat out at Xero working on one of our biggest releases ever: multi-currency.  There were a few ways we could have done this and, of course, we opted for the hardest – but the most powerful option.  For the first time – small businesses can now track their FX exposure (realised and unrealised) automatically and have their foreign currency invoices & bank accounts revalued live.  There’s no reason to be looking at out of date numbers and there’s no need to spend hours making adjustments to your accounting system.  To make multi-currency seamless in Xero, we built FX support deep into the transaction engine and general ledger and updated our report framework to natively support foreign currency reporting with automated rates, footnotes and currency codes.

Here’s a short interview I did with Stephen Nicholas from Openside.  Yes, I’m nervous.  No, I’m not being held hostage.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/teamxero/videos/148/

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Posted by Andrew

Entrepreneurialism

29 March 2008

What defines an entrepreneur? Wikipedia says, “An entrepreneur is a person who has possession over a new enterprise or venture and assumes full accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome.”

Technically, this is true, but its also meaningless. I think that a true entrepreneur is someone who is able to see a pain that is shared by a lot of people, then identify and deliver a solution to that pain. Entrepreneurs are motivated by creating value and serving people.

Most companies start off being entrepreneurial, but plenty gradually become the opposite – exploitational. Exploitational businesses (and people) are interested in their own gain above their customers. They are looking to make money without necessarily creating value and without serving people.

I’ve seen some companies where the culture was exploitational (and culture always comes from the top) and this came through in every facet; the way staff were treated, the way sales were made, the way priorities were set, the way customers and suppliers were treated. No value was created – it was only taken.

Xero is a good example of a company that is led by an entrepreneur and has a culture of entrepreneurialism. Everyone at Xero, whether they’re building the software, selling it or providing service (or most likely all three) are all entrepreneurs in the sense that we’re motivated to find, solve and deliver solutions to the pain that small businesses and small business owners experience today.

We know that we can’t create value for our customers and shareholders until we deliver innovative software and exceptional service and actually resolve that pain. Its a pleasure to be part of a team that is so motivated by creating value for the ~25% of the work force whose life revolves around their business.

BTW: Xero are currently hiring.

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Posted by Andrew

Now’s a good time …

22 January 2008

… to upgrade your small business accounting system to Xero.

Xero have just released their 19th update within the last 12 months and its only getting better and better.

To make it even easier, Xero will also get you up and running from your existing accounting system for $NZ199, so now’s a perfect time to get setup in time for the new financial year.

Shameless Xero advertising follows …

matthewxero.jpg
How can you resist? Sign up here.

1 Comment | Business, Finance, SaaS, Software, Xero | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Its worth opening a bank account for

13 September 2007

I’ve just done my first bank rec using Xero’s brand new bank rec screen (released today) and its so good that I want open more bank accounts and spend more money just so I can reconcile it in Xero. Ok, so you think I’m probably just saying that because I work for Xero – so have a look at this short demo and see for yourself.

I’ve got two hints which aren’t mentioned in the video:

  1. If you import multiple statement lines that are similar, code the first, then hit F5 to refresh the page and the others will be automatically coded.
  2. Work from the bottom of the page – not the top, because this way you get to admire the way a new statement line will slide up onto the page from nowhere every time you click OK.

If you don’t know what Xero is … have a look at www.xero.com or XeroTV.

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Posted by Andrew

Reporting made easy

6 May 2007

The Xero Report Centre went live to accountants on Friday (see the Xero blog for the official announcement). We’ve had a team working on the report centre since Jan this year and a lot of the initial concepts came (unknowingly) from users of Imprint, the website reporting package I built (now being sold as Silhouette).

The concepts were quite simple: what most systems call a ‘report’ is just a pre-formatted dump of data. Typically, a user has to take this data and massage it into a presentable report before it can actually be read and actioned. This means grabbing the relevant data from different reports and combining, adding charts, adding executive summaries and analysis and notes and then making it all presentable.

The Xero Report Centre allows accountants to do all of this within the app itself and then present a completed management report, board report or annual report to their clients – users of Xero. The report will then always be stored within the app, so future users can always access historic reports.

Its as easy as:

  1. Start from a default report – ie a mgmt report including executive summary, cashflow, P&L, balance sheet, aged reports
  2. Use the drilldowns to examine the information more closely
  3. Export to Excel if you want to try some ‘what-if’ scenarios (all calculated values have formulas in Excel – allowing quick and easy analysis)
  4. Write your summary, highlights, lowlights, explanations, action points, etc directly into the report
  5. Annotate individual pieces of data directly with footnotes
  6. Add additional pages with information that is relevant for the month
  7. Add charts to highlight the most relevant info (coming soon)
  8. Publish to Excel, PDF or live within Xero

While other systems are focusing on providing customisable “report builders” – I think a lot of them are missing the point. All they’re doing is allowing people to customise the “data dump”, not actually build a presentable report. Data doesn’t become a report until it has been analysed and this is something accountants are trained to do, which is why using an online collaborative accounting system like Xero makes so much sense.

1 Comment | Business, Finance, Technology, Xero | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

3.2.1. Xero

6 March 2007

Sir David Tweedie (Chairman of International Accounting Standards) once said, “Accounting is a primitive subject still. There are lots of things we haven’t got right. Much decision making and many businesses sit uncomfortably in the framework of the traditional accounting model, which is a creation of the manufactoring era … balance sheets are like haggis, if you knew what went into it you wouldn’t touch it”.

So what’s the solution? Should all business owners go out and take a degree in accountancy so you can run your business on valid and relevant info? No, its simple really – we just need smarter business tools and this is where Xero comes in…

http://www.drury.net.nz/2007/03/06/xero/

“Xero is an online accounting solution for small businesses, delivered on a Software as a Service (SaaS) basis. I believe it is one of the biggest market opportunities out there and a global opportunity we can credibly go after from New Zealand.

We’ve been heads down on this for some time. We have a number of beta customers on board and will soon move into a limited release. A challenge for SaaS offerings is building out operational capability. As the software is getting to where we need need it we are now beginning to now ramp up that investment so we can deliver a customer experience in line with the quality of the software. For that reason we’re bringing in customers in small batches, learning where they need guidance, rinse and repeat.

Xero is all about people. Making a difference to the people that run small businesses and providing an opportunity for our best talent to build a world class company. The next step in my career is to build a long term company and culture that attracts and fosters talent, to earn export revenue.

Xero is design led. We recruited early some of the top interaction designers we could find Philip Fierlinger and Grant Robinson.

We’ve put an awesome technical team in place with Craig Walker, Kirk Jackson, Andrew Butel, Fletcher Brown, Adam Burmister and Jeff Wegesin.

We’ve invested heavily in product management and customer care with an exceptional group of customer advocates: Michelle Perera, Andy Leeb, Catherine Walker (Orange Girl), Catherine Robinson, Donna Wylie, Larissa Paris and Louise Roebuck.

We managed to attract Kate McLaughlin from the National Business Review to run Xero marketing and communications and the very talented Darryl Gray is in house brand guy.

Small business accounting identity Hamish Edwards brings the domain expertise to ensure what we deliver is not only technically world class but really does improve the performance of a sector that makes up 95%+ of all businesses.

It’s early days but we think we’re doing something special. “

Check it out: www.xero.com

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Posted by Andrew