5 Time saving Tips to make life easier for Xero Users

To make your life easier we’ve highlighted 5 top tips that you may not know about – to make working in Xero Accounts more efficient and speedier.

Tip #1 Get the Xero Touch App for free.

This will mean you can see and process your accounts on the go or from anywhere you have an internet connection. But you can also snap a photo of a receipt, upload and process it there and then OR store the phot to Files and deal with it later. No more lost bits of paper, receipts or invoices. If you’re VAT registered keeping an on-line copy of a bill with your accounts will make that next VAT return easier, and you’ll have copies of your paperwork with you wherever you are.

Tip #2 Trip Catcher app for mileage claims and vat reclaim.

If you drive your car on business it can be hard work keeping records that satisfy HMRC and it is easy to forget those small trips because they are just too much trouble. Using a mileage App like Trip Catcher can make this so much easier. With just a few taps on your smart phone you can capture all of the information you need when you make the trip. You can then send it to Xero or to Receipt Bank if you have automated your bookkeeping processes. This will save you time, give you the feeling of control and allow you to check mileage claims from the staff team.

Tip #3 Keep contacts up to date

If you take the time to complete the details in contacts, you’re all ready for invoicing your customers or you can contact suppliers fast, at the click of a mouse. No more logging on to other systems, no more hunting around for phone numbers, guarantee certificates or engineers numbers. You can then use smart lists to create simple CRM lists or export the lot to an Add-On CRM app to do more meaty marketing. Don’t forget you can import a contacts list into Xero as  CSV file too.

Tip #4 Credit Control on Xero

When you e-mail or call a late payer, make use of the “payment due” dates in Xero, and use “Notes” to add a comment about what was agreed. Xero will automatically add the date and the user for you. That way you can keep track of your credit control conversations and follow up as needed. It’s also visible to anyone you’ve given user access to, so anyone of your team can follow the process and make sure you get paid.

There are lots of excellent Xero Add-Ons for credit control reminders, but for a low cost, low volume DIY approach follow our tip.

Tip #5 The very useful Xero to Xero key

If you hate paper invoices, and you get lots of bills and receipts sent to you electronically there are now many solutions to the task of then re-keying a bill into your Xero accounts. If you deal with suppliers who also use Xero, give them your Xero To Xero key number and they can send the bill direct to your Xero draft bills to pay, on your dashboard.

So save yourself time and ask suppliers on Xero to deliver their invoice (linked to their account and coded to the ledger) into your draft invoices in Xero. All you have to do is approve the invoice. You can return the favour by doing the same for your customers and making their lives easier. All you have to do is exchange your Xero Key with anyone who wants to do business with you this way, and setting up some default General Ledger codes for your suppliers. Another time saving feature of Xero Accounting Software.

Throughout this post we’ve added in links to the detailed How To websites for you.