XERO & MYOB / Accounting software rivals in a race to find soft landing in the cloud

Hamish Fletcher for the NZ Herald writes: A struggle is raging for the hearts, minds and pockets of New Zealand small businesses and their bookkeepers.

In one corner is Rod Drury's Xero, a firm whose rocketing share price turned many a head last year.

In the other is MYOB, an Australasian company set up in 1991 by Craig Winkler, who in 2009 joined Xero's board and bought $18 million of its shares.

Both companies specialise in accounting software, a universe which is increasingly unplugged from desktop computers and where the books are balanced in the cloud.

Cloud computing, a buzzword for at least the last half-decade, involves information being stored and applications being accessed over the internet rather than from just one machine, device or network.

Xero is a cloud native and from its 2006 launch has offered only online-based products.

It has since snared more than 90,000 local customers.

MYOB came later to the game and only 35 per cent of its paying customers in New Zealand are on cloud products.

However, more than 50 per cent of new customers are picking the web-based option, and a piece of MYOB's software, which about 40 per cent of its customers use, is also launching into the cloud in May.

"We've really crossed the chasm from being a desktop provider to a cloud-accounting provider," MYOB boss Tim Reed said this week, giving the company's annual result.

While MYOB is making fresh forays into the cloud, Drury says Xero has proven it has beaten this regional rival.

"MYOB hasn't really delivered on the cloud and we're well ahead," Drury said of the company last month.

Reed, however, insists his company is not playing catch-up.

"We've been in this market for two and a half decades we have always had competition, and we always will," Reed said last month after the MYOB Roadshow in Auckland.

"In terms of how do I see us against Xero? We have a more complete solution that covers the needs of more businesses and more fully covers the needs of accountants in practice."

Xero's focus is on smaller businesses, while Reed says MYOB has software for those from micro-businesses to small-enterprises.

MYOB's small-enterprise accounting product is not yet in the cloud, but this is in the pipeline.

"Stay tuned", was all that Reed would say on the timing. Reed's view is that all companies will eventually use cloud-based products, even though right now less than 20 per cent of small New Zealand businesses are using them.

"What we've seen is the adoption start with the smallest businesses. Cloud accounting is something which is led by small businesses and is progressing up into larger and larger businesses. Our view is in time, all businesses will run cloud-based applications for most of their business solutions," he said.

Who will dominate this brave new world of cloud-accounting? Technology entrepreneur and investor Lance Wiggs says MYOB has "upped their game", but fundamentally couldn't cope "with the fact Xero has completely disrupted the industry".

"Xero is just a different way of doing business and cloud-accounting is the tool they're using to do business but I'm not sure MYOB understand that [Xero] really completely changed the game ... it's very, very hard for MYOB to catch up," says Wiggs, who does not own any shares in NZX-listed Xero.

Wiggs says it's not just Xero, but the whole eco-system that has built up around it which is ahead.

"If you're a developer developing a new point-of-sale system ... you link to Xero and MYOB is an afterthought. If you're a new business setting up, it would be an extraordinary decision, in my experience from the new businesses I know, to choose MYOB. It would be seen as quite bizarre," Wiggs says.

While Xero did have a weakness with larger businesses like manufacturers, the company's partners were working on sorting that out.

"I think if I was MYOB I would be feeling like I'm being attacked from all corners. Realistically they're three to five years behind a very fast-moving player and no matter how good they are it's just going to be extraordinarily difficult to catch up," Wiggs says.

"So they may end up with a piece of the market in New Zealand, but I think it's pretty clear that Xero's going to dominate in this space."

Technology investor and commentator Ben Kepes - who has previously advised both Xero and MYOB - said it wasn't "game-over" for the Melbourne-based accounting software company.

"But it's hard to see Xero's growth not continuing apace. And what that means on a corporate basis for MYOB in terms of its private equity owners remains to be seen," Kepes said.

"They're not going to want to keep investing in something that they might consider a dead duck."

Asked if MYOB's small-enterprise software EXO going to the cloud could change things, Kepes said: "Potentially. The problem is there's not a huge mid-size enterprise market in Australia and New Zealand.

"Not enough to prop [MYOB] up as a business ... it's hard to see how they're going to keep up with Xero's momentum, to be honest."

Plans for the NZ market in 2014

• Xero

Xero's New Zealand general manager Amanda Armstrong says one of the company's focuses in New Zealand this year is farming.

"We're going to be launching 'farming in the cloud'. Xero's going to be focusing on accounting and driving better industry collaboration ... there's a lot of farming software out there, our aim is to partner as many of those [products] as possible," Armstrong says.

She says farmers will have their own software and the data and financial information from this will be a different version to what banks or accountants can view.

The aim of farming in the cloud is bringing that information "together in real-time and really lift the rural sector", she says.

Armstrong says this year Xero also wants to strengthen relationships with "big corporates" and Government.

"For example, a service provider like Mercury Energy, what we see is an opportunity to have those invoices flow straight through to Xero and pay out of Xero," she says.

"It's just about creating better efficiencies and making sure that we're connecting businesses in a away that have never been connected before."

• MYOB

MYOB chief executive Tim Reed says the company is focused on making "cloud-accounting easy for every business".

"With [cloud-accounting] penetration where it is - some 10 per cent in Australia, some 20 per cent in New Zealand - what's holding it back? What will really accelerate the growth of the market is making it easy," Reed says.

MYOB is also putting its attention on mobile products and has a number of launches lined up this year, including mobile software for accountants and a mobile payment option for business.

MYOB PayDirect is a mobile app that enables businesses to take payments and send receipts from a smartphone.

This involves connecting a card reader to a smartphone or tablet to take credit card payments, with Eftpos integration expected later this year.

The company is also rebranding and relaunching existing products.

You can learn more about Hamish Fletcher here.

Recurring revenue recognition: Channel grapples with cloud accounting complexity

John Moore for Search Cloud Provider writes: How to make money is the channel's traditional financial challenge, but some partners face another quandary: how to count it.

Deciding when to record income as revenue -- the accounting task of revenue recognition -- was fairly straightforward in the traditional value-added reseller or independent software vendor (ISV) business model. The reseller sold some combination of hardware and software and realized revenue on shipping and delivery.

That tidy scenario is disappearing amid the growth of cloud services and other subscription-based recurring revenue models, such as managed services. One obvious difference: The cash doesn't arrive all at once, but incrementally over the months of a service agreement, and it must be recognized accordingly. But there are subtler considerations, such as when to record installation fees and other ancillary services surrounding a cloud-based offering.

Another wrinkle stems from companies with multi-threaded revenue streams. On any given customer engagement, an IT solutions provider may generate revenue through cloud services, managed services, and time-and-materials-based project work, as well as through traditional product reselling. It's up to a provider's accountants to unravel those streams and assign revenue to the proper buckets.

"I think the way people are bundling and selling their offerings and going to market is just more complex than the license-plus-maintenance model," said Chris Smith, a partner withPwC's Capital Markets and Accounting Advisory Services.

The situation calls for closer communication between the front-office staff, who devises and rolls out new service lines, and the back-office personnel, who have to keep track of the resulting sales. Revenue recognition may also call for a dose of IT support. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and specialized revenue recognition products can play a role here.

Cloud accounting

The cloud, in particular, complicates accounting matters. The revenue recognition job is particularly tricky for a company in transition, such as a traditional ISV migrating to an X as a Service business model. Smith said software companies evolving into cloud providers experience greater complexity from an accounting and reporting perspective.

The accounting becomes more complex as the relationship becomes more complex with the consumer.

Mark McCaffrey, Global Software Industry Leader, PwC

Channel companies must apply a different set of accounting rules to the new services they sell.

"Businesses that have not been in a recurring revenue environment ... are now having to support these regulations they haven't had to work with and probably aren't familiar with," said Kevin Roberts, general manager of platform and alliances for FinancialForce.com, which provides SaaS-based back-office software.

Guidance regarding revenue recognition comes from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), which establishes generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP)in the U.S., and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Roberts pointed to a few examples of rules that channel companies embarking on new service lines may not have previously encountered: AICPA Statement of Position 81-1 (now included under FASB Accounting Standards Codification Topic 105), the SEC's Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 101, and the FASB's Emerging Issues Task Force 00-21.

Smith said most of the U.S. GAAP rules regarding revenue recognition have been around for some time and are generally prescriptive. But organizations applying the rules need to exercise significant judgment, he said, noting that the rules were written before the emergence of today's business models.

One area for discernment: the installation services a cloud vendor provides when bringing on a customer. Smith used the analogy of a telecom provider's activation fee for a home phone service. The customer receives an upfront charge for activation and then pays a monthly fee for the ongoing phone services. Smith said the accounting view of such transactions is that the telecom company doesn't provide value when it essentially flicks a switch -- the customer doesn't receive any goods or services. So, the revenue from the activation fee isn't immediately recognized, but deferred over an estimated customer life or contract period, Smith explained.

In the case of the cloud, installation could involve consulting, implementation and configuration services. The question facing the cloud provider is whether the upfront installation service provides value to the customer without the ongoing cloud services.

"That is where it gets a little judgmental," Smith said. "Many companies have concluded that those services do offer standalone value and do recognize them as they are provided. In other cases, they conclude they are more like a setup fee where deferral is appropriate."

Multiple revenue sources

Multiple streams of income presents another revenue recognition complication.

"We are seeing more companies go to these multi-threaded revenue models," said Tom Brennan, vice president of product marketing at FinancialForce.

He noted that such companies could end up with four or five line items of revenue behavior in one transaction. With the time-and-materials component, revenue might be recognized at particular project milestones. Revenue from the product-reselling element would be realized on delivery. Various subscriptions would represent deferred revenue.

"The accounting becomes more complex as the relationship becomes more complex with the consumer," said Mark McCaffrey, global software industry leader at PwC and partner in the company's technology practice.

The accountants must figure out how the multiple-element arrangement impacts revenue recognition, he added.

The accounting department may tap automation to help with the complexities of revenue recognition. ERP systems may be tweaked for this purpose. Some organizations handle revenue recognition via spreadsheet, while software specifically built for revenue recognition provides another option.

FinancialForce, which offers applications built on the Salesforce platform, introduced in November its Revenue Recognition offering. The cloud-based application applies different recognition calculation rules to each line item in a multiple-element transaction. The software links to revenue recognition source data, such as an opportunity housed in Salesforce, a FinancialForce Professional Services Automation (PSA) timecard, or a FinancialForce Accounting invoice, for instance.

Roberts said the revenue recognition system provides a stronger audit trail than spreadsheets. But, he said once revenue transaction data is exported into a spreadsheet or to a separate database, it becomes difficult to get it back to the original source.

Professional services firms and resellers are using the revenue recognition product, Roberts said. Companies already using FinancialForce PSA have been the early adopters.

Other considerations

Channel partners moving to the cloud or managed services have other financial issues to contend with beyond revenue recognition.

McCaffrey pointed to two areas in particular: pricing and billing. He said cloud providers are struggling to understand what customers are willing to pay for a monthly subscription and how to price their offerings for profitability. As for billing, cloud providers are exploring methods for consumption-based billing. In the cloud, companies also must deal with the shift from high-dollar-value, low-volume transactions to a world of low-dollar-value, high-volume transactions. That change will affect a company's IT infrastructure and go-to-market strategy, McCaffrey added.

Aria Systems offers software that aims to help cloud services providers -- and other customers -- manage subscription-based billing and recurring revenue. The company counts cloud provider Verizon Terremark among its clients.

Brendan O'Brien, co-founder of Aria, said his company targets large enterprises grappling with the billing complexity of consumption-based models.

Time to worry about your 2014 taxes / You can't do much about your 2013 taxes, except contribute to an IRA. Maybe.

John Waggoner for USA Today writes: If you, like most Americans, are spending the next few weekends slaving over a hot tax form, you're probably wondering: Can I claim my dog as a dependent, and if I do, would she be able to get Social Security, too?

The answers are no, and no. Also, you should probably not take up a life of crime. There's precious little you can do — legally — to reduce your 2013 taxes. But cheer up. You can do things now to reduce your 2014 taxes.

By and large, the opportunity to reduce your 2013 tax bill went away at midnight on Dec. 31. The exception: You may be able to make a deductible IRA contribution for the 2013 tax year.

The key factor is whether you have a retirement plan at work. Retirement plans include 401(k) plans and other plans you contribute to, as well as pension plans. Box 13 on your W-2 form will let you know whether you're covered in a retirement plan.

If you're not covered by a retirement plan at work, you can make a deductible IRA contribution no matter what your income. But there are income limits if you're married and your spouse is covered by a retirement plan. In that case, you'll need a modified adjusted gross income of $178,000 or less to make a fully deductible contribution. If your AGI was between $178,000 and $188,000, you can get a partial deduction for your contribution.

It's more difficult to deduct an IRA contribution if you are covered by a retirement plan. In that case, if you're a single filer, and your AGI is less than $59,000, you can make a fully deductible IRA contribution. If your AGI was more than $59,000 and less than $69,000, you can make a partial deduction. For people who are married and filing jointly, the limits are $95,000 for a fully deductible contribution and $95,000 to $115,000 for a partially deductible contribution.

If you're eligible, you can contribute up to $5,500, and $6,500 if you're 50 or older. What else can you do to make 2014 a happier tax time?

• Invest in index funds. If you own stock funds in a taxable account, you'll always owe taxes on gains when you sell. But many actively managed funds distribute capital gains to shareholders each year. For example, Fidelity Blue Chip Growth paid out $1.29 per share in long-term capital gains for the 2013 tax year. If you owned 1,000 shares, you had a capital gains payout of $1,290, on which you would owe capital gains taxes. Most taxpayers pay a 15% capital gains tax, so you'd owe $193.50 in extra taxes.

Index funds do relatively little trading, and thus usually pay out very little in the way of capital gains. Fidelity's Spartan 500 Index fund, for example, had no capital gains distribution in 2013. Of course, if you're investing in a retirement fund, you don't have to worry about capital gains distributions. But index funds usually have lower ongoing costs than actively managed funds, too.

• Switch to municipal bonds. Interest from munis is free from federal and, in some cases, state income taxes. Right now, thanks to the woes of places like Detroit and Puerto Rico, muni yields are unusually high. A 30-year municipal bond yields 3.88% now, according to Bloomberg, vs. 3.64% for a 30-year Treasury bond. A person in the highest tax bracket (39.6%) would have to earn nearly 6% to get the same amount of interest after taxes as a muni bond that yields 3.60%.

• Sell your losers. Losing money on a stock is about as much fun as gout. But tax losses are extremely valuable. Let's say you have a $5,000 long-term capital loss, meaning you sold a stock or mutual fund for a loss after holding it for a year or longer. You can use that loss to wipe out up to $5,000 in long-term gains, such as those gnarly ones your mutual funds dole out. If you have more losses than gains, you can deduct up to $3,000 in losses from your income. And if you still have losses left over, you can carry them into the next tax year.

• Add to your retirement account. If you've got Daddy's Trust to see you through retirement, you don't need a retirement fund. Most of us, though, have to save for retirement, so contribute to your company's 401(k) plan. You'll reduce your income, which, in turn, reduces your taxable income. And, of course, you'll have money in retirement.

• Take the retirement savings contribution tax credit. A deduction reduces the amount of income you pay taxes on. If you're in the 25% tax bracket, a $1,000 deduction will reduce your tax by $250. But a tax credit reduces your taxes dollar for dollar. The saver's tax credit was made to encourage low-income people to save for retirement. If you meet the criteria and you put $1,000 into your employer's 401(k) plan, you not only reduce your taxable income, but you get a $500 tax credit.

The drawback, of course, is that people who meet the income guidelines for the retirement savings contribution tax credit rarely have enough income to save for retirement. "I've found few who qualify and who have the money," says Melissa Labant, director of tax advocacy at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Finally, keep an eye to where you hold your investments. Bonds, bank CDs and other investments that throw off lots of income should be in a tax-deferred retirement account. Stocks and other investments that are taxed at lower capital gains rates should be kept in taxable accounts, when possible.

Once you've done your taxes, you probably feel like you should deduct all your pets and a couple of the neighbor's kids, too. Try to resist that. But with a little work, you can reduce 2014 taxes.

Tax filing apps gain popularity / Filing taxes through mobile apps is growing trend

Jenna Martin for the Augusta Chronicle writes: When it came time to file his taxes this year, Dewanta Grice knew there was an app for that.

Grice, who first used the TurboTax SnapTax app to file his 2012 returns, turned to the mobile program again this year.

In 20 minutes, Grice was able to upload a picture of his W2 form, which automatically input most of his information onto the app, and sent off his state and federal returns straight from his smartphone. Within a week, the money from his return was deposited into this bank account.

“It was simple,” he said. “It pretty much filled it out for you. I like to sit at home and do it myself. You can do it at your own pace.”

For those like Grice who have only simple returns to file, the mobile service is becoming more popular.

According to survey results released last week by Taxsoftware.com, which launched an iPad app for federal tax returns in 2011, 40 percent of taxpayers said they are more likely to file returns this year using a computer, tablet or smartphone. About 11 percent of the 5,426 national respondents said they would file taxes by paper and mail the forms directly to the Internal Revenue Service.

Taxsoftware.com is one of several companies or agencies that now offer taxpayers either tax filing services or other tax-related information through a mobile app.

Tax preparer H&R Block rolled out its first tax-filing app for Android and iPhone devices during the 2012 tax season. The app had already registered more than 100,000 downloads since early 2014, said the company’s senior product manager, Chris Jackman.

The IRS also jumped on the mobile movement with the IRS2GO app, created in 2011 and recently updated to feature a new refund status tracker. While the application doesn’t provide an outlet for tax filing, it does allow users to request tax transcripts and can navigate them to the closest tax assistance site.

At Evans-based TaxSlayer, the TaxSlayer Go app was unveiled this season to give clients another way to file taxes. In addition, the company developed last year a free refund estimator that taps into the same calculation engine used in the office, said lead developer Bryan Rhea.

The program is built for about 90 percent of taxpayers who have simple returns. About 100,000 mobile users have downloaded the refund calculator and another 10,000 downloads have been tallied for the tax-filing app, Rhea said.

“We’re trying to take everything mobile here and allow you to do your taxes wherever you are,” Rhea said. “We recognize that everything is going mobile now and we know more and more people get a phone every year. As people get more comfortable doing things like online banking and taking a picture of your W2, we’re trying to leverage our tax experience and our trustworthiness that we’ve already built up to allow them to file their taxes with their phone.”

Any unfinished filing can be saved through the app and later finished on the company’s Web site. The entire process typically takes users about 15 minutes to complete, Rhea said.

Filing federal returns is free, but through April 1, the app will charge $23.90 for the first round of state returns and $12.95 any subsequent time.

H&R Block, which also boasts an iPad app, puts all apps through a rigorous security review by outside vendors, Jackman said.

Any data loaded on the app is stored not on the app itself but in a secure server, he added.

“We use all the most-up-to-date security communication protocols,” Jackman said. “Whenever you shut down and you sign out of the app, that data leaves the phone. So if you lose your phone, someone can’t get in there and get your tax information.”

However, some local residents still prefer the tried-and-true method of getting their taxes done in-person by a professional.

“I’m still worried about identity theft,” said Rhamunda Walters, of Augusta. “I have a problem with that.”

Abigail Danns, too, remains leery of filing over her phone, although she does participate in mobile banking.

“Maybe in a few years,” she said.

Intuit: 550 Enrolled in CPA Select

Bob Scott for The Progressive Accountant writes:  Intuit has 550 CPAs participating in its TurboTax CPA Select program, the company said in a recent earnings webcast. Begun last year, the program is in what CEO Brad Smith this week called a “full live beta” test. Although he did not quantify results during the earnings presentation, Smith said, “We like the early results of this experiment.”

He indicated it will be developed further for the 2015 tax season. Smith described the program as one in which customers start by using Intuit’s TurboTax software and then go to a CPA to finish the return. The satisfaction of customers with the program has resulted in a NetPromoter score that is 25 percent higher than the ratings of the overall category of professional preparers. NetPromoter is a metric in which the number of customers who would not buy a product or service again is subtracted from the number who would.

As described on the program’s website, taxpayers can get estimates on having their returns prepared by a CPA. Consumers answer a series of questions on the web site at https://turbotaxcpaselect.intuit.com before proceeding to chose a preparer. Questions include states in which the consumer earned income, whether that person had many deductions or investment income.

During the webcast, Smith noted the recent report from the Internal Revenue Service that the number of returns filed by professional preparers is off by 5.4 percent for the tax season through February 15 when, compared to last year’s corresponding period. In general, he said Intuit and its do-it-yourself software has gained marketshare over categories that include professional preparers and tax stores. Intuit says the number of TurboTax units sold grew by 7 percent during the period.

The company’s results for the second quarter ended January 31 reflected the impact of the delayed start of the tax season, whose opening coincided with the quarter’s ended. Intuit $37 million in the most recently ended period, compared to net income of $71 million in last year’s corresponding period. Revenue for the quarter was $782 million, off 12 percent from $884 million a year earlier.

However, Intuit said the lost revenue will be shifted to the current quarter as consumers prepare their returns. The company expects $120 million will be recognized during the third quarter, $80 million as a result of the federal delay and $40 million related to state returns received, but no processed before January 31.

Visit the Progressive Accountant by clicking here.

Learn more about Bob Scott here.

Xero’s Road Map Reviewed – Pushing Frontiers, Disappointing on Basics

Margaret Carey for BoxFreeIT writes: Xero’s profile continues to soar. Road shows throughout Australia in February have drawn more than 5000 attendees across 20 cities, and the recent Xerocon in New Zealand  drew more than 900 accountants and bookkeepers. (Reckon and MYOB must be truly envious.)

The company has obviously got something right to continue to excite and interest people from one of the professions perceived to be amongst the most staid (read boring) and conservative.

With 250,000+ customers globally, 630 staff, with $200 million cash in the bank the company could do almost anything.

So what is it doing?

Xero delivers new releases every three weeks, many of which are small tweaks while some deliver substantial functionality such as the long awaited addition of Purchase Orders last November. At the recent Australian road shows product manager Tim Wright gave an overview of what to expect from Xero over the next few months.

In March we can expect to see the start of the new reporting engine being rolled out which will deliver customisation flexibility to the end user, including the ability to sort on columns, change column order and width, etc. First to be released will be Aging Reports in which users will also be able to nominate their aging periods. All pretty neat stuff and certainly welcome especially those who have been used to that level of functionality in Reckon Accounts (formerly QuickBooks).

In April there will be more functionality added to online document storage Xero Files and the ability to lodge employee payment summaries directly to the Australian Taxation Office using the Auskey log-in – R.I.P the Empdupe file. Again very exciting and will save some major administrative hassles at the end of the financial year.

There is also work being done on the Fixed Asset module to enhance the functionality already provided – again excellent work and will enable Xero to deliver a fully functioning module that is not present in other entry level cloud accounting software solutions. (Both MYOB and Reckon Accounts use expensive add ons for Fixed Assets.)

However, the biggest disappointment was the complete absence of dates for delivery of Sales Quotes, Inventory and a fix to the super clunky Payroll to General Ledger integration that has existed ever since PayCycle (a Xero acquisition) was integrated into Xero.

Inventory and Sales Quotes particularly have been on the drawing board for a long time. I realise that developing a full-blown inventory system is a huge task if it is to be both robust and feature-rich, but patience is wearing thin as the ‘coming soon’ refrain is rolled out at each event.

Now it could be that Xero doesn’t want to commit to a date it might miss but at the same time it would be nice to have some idea of when these basic features will arrive. I was sorely disappointed with this omission.

Although it is relatively easy to run Xero with a third-party inventory application, many small businesses baulk at the extra cost and effort involved and often select alternative software such asQuickBooks Online which includes inventory. By adding its own inventory solution Xero will definitely increase its suitability and attract a wider range of small businesses.

It was nearly six months ago when I wrote a post about Xero’s annual Australian conference. CEO Rod Drury then said that Sales and Purchase Orders and Inventory would complete the accounting engine and that it would be “the end of the beginning”.

Looks like we still have some time to wait.

You can read Margaret Carey's Blog Here.

You can read BoxFreeIT Here.

Comments below, visit BoxFreeIT to Comment Here

 4 Responses to “Xero’s Road Map Reviewed – Pushing Frontiers, Disappointing on Basics”

1. Oliver Furniss says:

   February 28, 2014 at 2:50 pm

   Hey Margaret, we understand these features (and others) are highly anticipated. At the roadshow we presented lots of development thats in progress across our global development sites and we’re planning these and lots of other exciting features for release this year. We only release when we’re ready and won’t sacrifice quality so we look forward to sharing lots of exciting news with our partners and customers as we release throughout 2014.

   Reply
   • Tim Retalb says:

     February 28, 2014 at 4:19 pm

     Oliver, that’s not much of an answer. It’s light on details and high on gloss.

     Xero, like everyone, do plenty of things badly (broken Android App, Shoeboxed), so there’s not much point hiding behind the Apple ideal of ‘perfection, only when we’re ready’.

     You could say something more like: we’ve learned from our mistakes in the past. Or, we’re going to bring you something so good it knocks your socks off.

     Cheers, Tim.

     Reply
2. Oliver Furniss says:

   February 28, 2014 at 4:45 pm

   @Tim, I’m not sure what the details are around the Android App issues as we recently released a new version – please let us know at support@xero.com if you are having any issues here so we can help out. Also, I can’t comment on your Shoeboxed comment as they are one of our Add-on partners, so again let know more information via email in what issues you are having.

   We have a mountain of product updates, features and innovation planned for 2014 across all products. Some of the updates shared at the roadshow include a brand new highly flexible and configurable reports, online payment summary report submission from payroll, quotes, inventory, eLearning, new permission roles in Partner Edition, an employee app for payroll, payroll GL integration for Australia, Tax for Australian partners, a new Practice Manager, updates to our help centre and much much more…

   We try and be as open and transparent as possible with some of what we are working on. We constantly update our help centre page to reflect this – http://help.xero.com/#Workingon

   Thanks, Oliver

   Reply
3. Scott Simenauer says:

   February 28, 2014 at 5:37 pm

   I feel with inventory that unless you do it well and unless you have strict controls there isn’t any point. In that case I support that Xero wants to give a complete solution and won’t release it until it ticks all the boxes.

   The time savings with Xero still far outweigh Quickbooks even without inventory management in my opinion.

   Reply

Are Your Social Security Benefits Taxable?

Some people must pay taxes on part of their Social Security benefits. Others find that their benefits aren’t taxable. If you get Social Security, the IRS can help you determine if some of your benefits are taxable.

Here are seven tips about how Social Security affects your taxes:

1. If you received these benefits in 2013, you should have received a Form SSA-1099, Social Security Benefit Statement, showing the amount. 

2. If Social Security was your only source of income in 2013, your benefits may not be taxable. You also may not need to file a federal income tax return. 

3. If you get income from other sources, then you may have to pay taxes on some of your benefits. 

4. Your income and filing status affect whether you must pay taxes on your Social Security. 

5. The best, and free, way to find out if your benefits are taxable is to use IRS Free File to prepare and e-file your tax return. If you made $58,000 or less, you can use Free File tax software. The software will figure the taxable benefits for you. If your income was more than $58,000 and you feel comfortable doing your own taxes, use Free File Fillable Forms. Free File is available only at IRS.gov/freefile.
6. If you file a paper return, visit IRS.gov and use the Interactive Tax Assistant tool to see if any of your benefits are taxable. 

7. A quick way to find out if any of your benefits may be taxable is to add one-half of your Social Security benefits to all your other income, including any tax-exempt interest. Next, compare this total to the base amounts below. If your total is more than the base amount for your filing status, then some of your benefits may be taxable. The three base amounts are:

• $25,000 - for single, head of household, qualifying widow or widower with a dependent child or married individuals filing separately who did not live with their spouse at any time during the year
• $32,000 -for married couples filing jointly
• $0 - for married persons filing separately who lived together at any time during the year

For more on this topic visit IRS.gov.
 

Additional IRS Resources:

• Publication 915, Social Security and Equivalent Railroad Retirement Benefits
• Tax Topic 423 - Social Security and Equivalent Railroad Retirement Benefits

QStock: a QuickBooks Inventory Add-in Instead of an Add-on

Realizing Profitable Potential Through Change writes: QuickBooks can do just about everything numbers based when it comes to your business needs.  Sometimes, you might need an extra boost in an area that you really need to drill down in, for example inventory. The QuickBooks inventory management system begins and ends with an item and a quantity, as well as the associated ‘cost’ and ‘sale price’ of that item and that’s about it when it comes to it’s total inventory capabilities. Add-on’s can add functionality that will make QuickBooks more robust.

What if you need to track inventory with lot or serial numbers, or expiration dates? Even QuickBooks Enterprise Advanced Inventory doesn’t offer this functionality, as it has no inventory expiration date tracking.  In these situations you might consider an inventory add-on. But what about an inventory add-in? QStock may be just what you need, if you want to be in total control of your inventory software and if your needs are more extensive than what QuickBooks can offer on it’s own.

QStock Inventory

QStock is a software that is completely integrated with QuickBooks, making it more of an add-in than an add-on. It can track inventory across multiple warehouses and locations, track serial and lot numbers, expiration dates, and other factors. QStock takes your QuickBooks item and quantity information and then adds associated data like locations, warehouses, barcodes, row/shelf/bin assignments, serial or lot numbers, expiration dates, and the list goes on. When QStock is integrated with QuickBooks, complex inventory management is suddenly made easy and extremely accurate.

Many of the add-on systems only update QuickBooks once a day or so, and some of them only adjust the total for the inventory asset account and don’t affect the item list. This causes you extra work by having to update your item list manually based on the info your add-on has fed your QuickBooks file. Since QStock is fully integrated and works hand-in-hand with your QuickBooks, there is no lull between data updates. QStock updates QuickBooks almost instantly! Another one of my favorite benefits of QStock is not having to learn a new software or way of doing things! It is designed to work exactly like QuickBooks! Its appearance and layout are easy to learn because they mirror the same basic layout QuickBooks has. Could it get any better?