Melanie J. McFarland Absolutely agree. Empower the field worker to focus on their core responsibilities AND support the streamlining of back-end operations toward analysi
Jonathan Frei I like how straight forward the process is.
TROY Sounds like a good idea but how is that better than just getting a pda solution for guys?
Bert Hermanus Great article. There's a lot of good information here, though I did want to let you know something - I am running Redhat with the circulating beta of
Sandy Naidu Looks good - the digital notes can also be transferred straight on the computer, right ?
Brad Hi JDW - yes it would be a great tool for any kind of business that needs to invoice from the road. If any of your clients are contractors or service
Spencer Is this real? I need that for my new plumbing company for the lads. But we will use sage for this is there a sage pen?
JDW Interesting - as an accountant I think that would be a great tool to use for busineses of any size that I deal with.
Any ideas on when it might be
They have also made a nice little video, I must admit that the Xero team are excellent at make very succinct videos that give enough info to whet your interest without going too deep into details, something we need to learn from.
If you want more detail on the Xero online accounting and simPRO online estimating, job management and invoicing solutions, please see below:
If you are looking for an estimation or project management package that gives you flexibility and delivers real productivity benefits then you can’t afford to miss the pairing of simPRO Enterprise and Xero – web based solutions at their best.
I attended the Xero session at the beautiful ICAEW building at 1 Moorgate Place London this morning and met Gary Turner (UK MD) and Rod Drury (Kiwi Co-Founder of Xero).
They gave an excellent presentation as to the where Xero came from, the entire philosophy of their business model and where Xero is going.
It was aimed at accountants and bookkeepers as Xero tries to encourage them to become partners and bring on new clients under the Xero Partner Edition which allows practises to really get active in managing and supporting their clients.
As a Developer Partner (and a Xero user for Acorn Software), I was most interested in hearing where Xero is heading. Here are some of the highlights that I noted down:
By September this year there will access to automated bank feeds to many thousands of banks globally thanks to an integration with some financial aggregator that pretty much all the banks use. That means for the UK that there will be approximately 80 financial institutions with direct feeds into Xero. Can’t wait for that.
Also it is expected that by about September that Xero will be able to produce final accounts – making another compelling reason to go Xero.
As part of the above change, online filing with HMRC will become available. I’m not too clear on the dates of that coming into play – but I hope that it will in the same sort of roll out time frame.
One thing about Xero that I wasn’t previously aware about was the fact that it manages both Cash & Accrual based accounting simultaneously. All the data is in the system, you choose which reports to run and it prepare the figures accordingly. What a breath of fresh air considering the tortured process of sending these details from simPRO to Sage that we have been experiencing.
It was also interesting to hear Rod talk about coming up with the business concept for Xero and how it came from the “fundamental shift” to cloud computing being driven by the `mass’ of consumers. But for a traditional business model it is hard to create a web based business for consumers as these consumers generally want everything free (think Gmail, Facebook, Twitter etc etc). So the next largest market to target was the small business (Gary mentioned that there were 4.7 million businesses in the UK, 2 million of them with very small often with only 1 employee). There is a mass of them out there with a decent percentage of them willing pay some money for a product that either
We are very pleased today to say that the full Xero Accounting link is live and running in simPRO Enterprise bringing all the simPRO family into line.
You can now run simPRO Enterprise, simPRO Lite and simPRO Mobile with direct links into Xero to create and update invoices.
simPRO Lite & simPRO Enterprise
With both Lite & Enterprise you can now easily create your invoices, receipt invoice payments, create credits, add new clients, suppliers and contractors all directly to Xero from your simPRO system.
As both simPRO & Xero are web based applications, all the grunt work happens in the `cloud’ and you get real time feedback on each transaction for success or failure to post with explanations on why a failure may have occurred so you can rectify the error before it is part of the accounts system.
With simPRO’s powerful operational system, even functions that Xero cannot perform on it’s own like CIS and stock control, can all be managed making the combination of simPRO & Xero the ultimate solution for contractors and service companies.
simPRO Mobile
simPRO Mobile is our powerful Anoto based digital pen solution for service companies and contractors. We have made simPRO Mobile even more powerful now with a direct integration from paper invoices to your Xero accounting package.
Learn more about the simPRO Mobile Digital Pen to Xero integration on the Xero Blog.
We are very excited today to announce the release of our full integration of the simPRO Mobile Digital Pen with the online leader in accounting systems, Xero.
Put simply this new integration from the simPRO Mobile Digital Pen (that we internally nicknamed the Xero Pen) allows field based staff to complete an invoice sheet using a pen and paper and to have that instantly and electronically able to be updated into Xero.
Imagine the small trade service business completing their invoices at the clients site and having that invoice instantly available for a book keeper to update in Xero. Imagine a catering business delivering to their client and getting a signature on the invoice sheet before it is electronically sent and updated into Xero.
Delays in invoicing, late nights catching up on paper work and double entry of forms is now a thing of the past! Anyone in the business can now complete an invoice and have that available instantly for Xero.
The simPRO Mobile > Xero Digital Pen system works by utilising the Anoto based digital pen & paper technology to create invoice pages (either loose single sheets or duplicate sheets in pads) that are filled in using a digital pen. Once an invoice sheet is completed it is sent via Bluetooth to the users mobile phone and routed through the internet to the web based simPRO Mobile form portal.
In the form portal, the original invoice form is displayed in a PDF format showing all original handwriting and signatures and is also converted into a data file using powerful handwriting recognition software. The form is checked for accuracy and any errors can be fixed and additional items can be added if required. The form is then submitted which archives a copy in the simPRO Mobile form portal and then sends the data file to Xero where it is added in as a draft invoice.
We currently have a generic invoice form available in $, £ and € that is freely available to anyone (although it is designed to fit a service company). We plan to add other generic forms to the system over time.
Of course we can design, build and integrate any customised forms for any type of business. Forms are not just limited to invoices though, they can also be expense claims, asset registering or for any other function within Xero. And because the simPRO Mobile Digital Pen system can also send photos attached to the forms, you might be able to send copies of receipts, suppliers invoices, images of the assets being recorded etc into the simPRO form portal to accompany the forms for faster processing.
Below is a quick video showing the “Xero Pen” in action.
The simPRO to Xero and simPRO Digital Pen to Xero integrations have now officially been released!
Absolutely agree. Empower the field worker to focus on their core responsibilities AND support the streamlining of back-end operations toward analysi
I like how straight forward the process is.
Sounds like a good idea but how is that better than just getting a pda solution for guys?
Great article. There's a lot of good information here, though I did want to let you know something - I am running Redhat with the circulating beta of
Looks good - the digital notes can also be transferred straight on the computer, right ?
Hi JDW - yes it would be a great tool for any kind of business that needs to invoice from the road. If any of your clients are contractors or service
Is this real? I need that for my new plumbing company for the lads. But we will use sage for this is there a sage pen?
Interesting - as an accountant I think that would be a great tool to use for busineses of any size that I deal with. Any ideas on when it might be