In a recent 2 minute takeaway, I spoke to my top two Xero tips. In this blog, I wanted to take a little more time looking at some of my favourite tips and tricks for Xero. You may be familiar with some of them but hopefully you’ll learn something new.
#1: Starring your important accounts for the dashboard
You can flag some of the most important (or scary!) accounts from your general ledger (GL) so they always appear on your dashboard in the top right hand corner. The balances in these accounts are shown both for the month and the year to date. I always flag the GST; PAYG; Super payable; Revenue and Wages expense accounts at a minimum for my clients’ dashboards. The reason is that they give you an up to date view on what is owing or what you have earned to date. So no more wondering about the mystery of your next BAS return or what super is payable. It’s all there in black and white!
#2: Getting your supplier invoices and receipts into Xero – before you pay them!
I’m a firm believer in utilising Xero and Hubdoc as your source of truth and this starts with your financial records. Keeping them all in one place makes things easy for all involved – you; your CFO; your tax accountant; the ATO (worst case!). Data entry is minimised and by having invoices in there, you get to schedule your payments. Bank reconciliations become much quicker as tax receipts are sent through once you snap and send. No more questions about what was that cost for from your bookkeeper! This also assists in reducing duplications as they are flagged by both Hudboc and Xero
#3: ABA files
Xero has a great function where you can batch up supplier invoices and create one payment for them with an ABA file. You may be familiar with this for your payroll processing. The ABA file is then loaded into your bank portal and approved there. They can be dated in the future so you can knock over some admin in advance, if you won’t be around when bills fall due. The benefits are no more jumping into the bank all the time to pay individual bills and it reduces the chances of paying someone twice. Bank rec time also goes down as there is one payment going out, not many.
#4: Automatic superannuation
Utilising the auto super function, available from certain plans upwards, saves much time and headaches. Assuming your payroll set up is all correctly done, this pays super and ensures you’re compliant literally at the touch of a button. No more using clearing houses or making individual payments or wondering who was paid. Good governance is also covered as different users can create and then approve the payment.
#5:Find and recode
This little beauty gives you the opportunity to move transactions around your accounts without using messy journals or undoing bank payments. I use it a lot when I’m tidying things up for clients. You can use it for changing account codes; tax codes; job codes; contacts. Its quick and easy and a great tool to keep your accounts in tip top condition!
If you want to find out more ways to get the most out of Xero or to enquire about a Xero health check, please contact me.
