U.S. market focus for Xero this year

Radio New Zealand News writes: Xero's major focus this year will be on expanding in the United States while its major competitor there, Intuit, is now marketing aggressively in Australia.

Figures released by Xero on Friday showed its North American customers tripled to 18,000 in the 12 months ended February.

However, that number is tiny in comparison with 102,000 in New Zealand, 109,000 in Australia and 47,000 British customers.

Mint Asset Management senior analyst Greg Fraser said US firm Intuit appears to be trying to counter the threat Xero poses to its business.

He said Intuit has substantially lowered the price of its product in Australia, probably a strategy to ensure Xero is kept busy in its own area and distract it from its main goal of expanding in the United States.

Mr Fraser said the figures from Xero have been very pleasing, and it looks like an interesting stock at this point.

Xero founder and managing director Rod Drury is confident about his company's prospects in America.

He said Xero has focused its product in its big growth markets, Australia and the United Kingdom, and the company's goal is now to ensure it has enough product for the United States.

The compay has about 750 staff and aims wants to add 300 - 400 people by next year After that, the growth rate is likely to slow, Mr Drury said.

Xero had $210 million in cash at the end of March after losing $35 million in the 12 months ended March.

Japanese accounting startup Crowd Cast introduces its expense reimbursement app on Android

The Bridge writes: Our readers may recall back in December when we mentioned that Japanese startup Crowd Cast was planning to release a mobile app for expenses, intended to help office workers save time in corporate expense reimbursements. Following the launch of its on iOS back in January, the company introduced an Android version last week.

If an administrator at your company sets up a corporate account on the service, you and your colleagues can access it through the mobile app. The application also lets you attach photos of receipts for expenses paid, making it easier to submit proof of payment to administrators.

There are three monthly fee options depending on the size of your company: $4 (390 yen) for up to three users, $7 (690 yen) for up to ten users, and $10 (980 yen) for up to 20 users. Interestingly they provide all features for free to non-profit organizations and entrepreneurs attending or doing business with a university or a business school.

Visit Crowd Cast Here

via TechCrunch Japan

Where to Find the Web's Forensic Accountants / Two Websites, one of which also runs an ETF, are designed to highlight companies' hidden accounting strengths and weaknesses.

Mike Hogan for Barron's writes: Every corporate Website, quarterly financial report, and earnings call is packed with numbers and ratios, industry terms of art, acronyms—even, it sometimes seems, the CEO's hat size. Unfortunately, the many marginal pieces of data frequently obscure the gem or two of truly valuable information. Often, the people whose job it is to track the company—insiders, institutional investors, and Wall Street analysts—are the first to divine the real drivers of corporate growth. Two outfits, however, claim they are about to bring this knowledge to small investors.

The first is New Constructs (newconstructs.com), a new Website founded by David Trainer, an investment strategist who's on the investors technical advisory committee of accounting watchdog FASB. The site provides an all-around long/short investing/trading advisory service, whose recommendations are based on forensic accounting of the 3,000 U.S.-listed companies it covers. Its analysts dig through reams of mostly mind-numbing SEC filings and comb the Internet, seeking telling details sometimes hiding in plain sight.

"All too often, we find significant data hidden in the footnotes that reveal the risks companies are trying to hide," says Trainer, who has been providing the same services to institutions for years.

Retail investors can subscribe to New Constructs' coverage of stocks or 400 exchange-traded funds, or 7,000 mutual funds for $50 a month per service by clicking on the a la carte tab on the Website. Most popular are the Most Attractive and Most Dangerous lists, which contain at least 20 fresh long and short stock recommendations, plus detailed investing theses for them.

THE HAYSTACK OF SEC FILINGS and accrual-based earnings reports do more to obscure financial prospects than to reveal them, Trainer insists. "Accounting data must be translated into economic earnings to understand the profitability and valuation relevant to equity investors," he says. "Respected investors like Ben Graham have repeatedly emphasized that accounting results should not be used to value stocks."

New Constructs converts the data into measures of true cash-flow potential. For example, Chinese media company SINA (ticker: SINA) made the most-dangerous list in October 2013 after Trainer discovered one-time, nonoperating items glossing over the impact of operating expenses that had been growing four times faster than revenue for two years.

By Trainer's calculations, SINA's reported $32 million in 2012 profits papered over an $18 million net-operating loss after taxes, or Nopat, his preferred measure of real value growth. After more analysis, he shorted SINA at about $86 a share. It has since fallen to around $61.

Trainer recommended buying AutoZone (AZO) in February, after finding what he considered understated growth projections in its SEC filings. While AutoZone has traded at about $536 recently, Trainer's discounted-cash-flow analysis suggests a per-share value around $850 if after-tax profit climbs only 6% a year going forward. If Nopat continues to grow at its 11% average annual rate since 1998, Trainer maintains that the value of a share will be $1,000 by February 2015.

THE SECOND TRACKER OF financials for the little guys is the Forensic Accounting ETF (FLAG), which offers investors an opportunity to make multiple long bets in one trade. It's one of a growing number of not-quite-active ETFs whose investing strategy is captured by an index—in this case, the Del Vecchio Earnings Quality Index.

Index creator John Del Vecchio is a long-time forensic accountant and heads Index Deletion Strategies, a specialized research firm focused on financial-statement analysis. He's also the author of a book, What's Behind the Numbers? Forensic Accounting buys shares of S&P 500 companies with high-quality earnings, while avoiding those with aggressive revenue-recognition practices.

Reflecting its newness, Forensic Accounting has just $9 million in assets. Its Website is flagetf.com.

Both the New Constructs and Forensic Accounting sites let retail investors take advantage of very specialized skills without doing the heavy lifting. [END]

The author Mike Hogan's   Years of reporting has afforded him to view into how successful companies reduce costs and maximize cash flow and profits.  These methods are summed up in  Accounting for Nonfinancial Managers,  published by Barnes & Noble.  It illustrates ways proactive managers tap their financial records for insights into improving operational efficiency and profitability. The book also can help investors with valuation analysis -- outlining the key leverage points in any business, and how cash, margins, earnings and profits are interrelated

AppleTell’s surprising finds of Macworld / iWorld 2014 / xTuple is an open source ERP Quickbooks Alternative / "9 Reasons to Move from QuickBooks to xTuple"

David Temple for TechnologyTell.com writes: It doesn’t matter in what hall of Moscone Center Macworld / iWorld is held, It doesn’t matter when it starts and ends or whether it’s big or small, there are always some exhibitors and products that catch us off guard. For the most part, we know what’s in store for us from conversations with PR reps and from early press releases, but we can always count on a few surprising finds each year. At Macworld / iWorld 2014 that included an open source ERP, a photo recognition app, and an infra-red camera for your iPhone.

David Temple: xTuple open source ERP

For the cognoscenti, what follows will make sense. For the casual reader, this will be rather business nerdy—you have been warned.

xTuple is an open source ERP or Enterprise Resource Program. If you work on a computer in an office setting, an ERP is very often referred to as simply “the system” and is the program which runs every aspect of a company’s operation from warehousing to order entry to accounting, to production, etc. While I was not surprised to find some accounting software, finding two full ERP packages at the same show was, well, surprising. xTuple is taking this particular honor due to a few factors. First is the scope of function. The following modules are all available: AP, AR, CRM, Distribution, General Ledger, Inventory, Manufacturing, Purchasing, Sales, and Reports (with plenty of details in each module). Second, the software is capable of handling well over 100 users, so as your company grows your ERP will still be there with you. Lastly, xTuple is open source, so custom development is possible for those things not already covered in the extensive options listing in the program.

The program interface is user friendly and capable of executing a desired task as well as gathering information in either a formal or ad hoc reporting format. As most ERP users know, getting the information in a format you can use is a large part of the battle, and xTuple makes it easy to specify what information you really want.

If that isn’t enough for you, check out xTuple on their website. They even offer a free trial so you can get first hand experience with the program before taking the plunge. [snip], the article continues at TechnologyTell.com, click here to continue reading.

When QuickBooks No Longer Fits, xTuple Offers Solutions and Value

It’s exhilarating to watch your company grow. The joy of witnessing something flourish that you helped create and nurture is unparalleled in the world of business.

With the excitement of productivity and profits comes the challenge of financial management, though. Up until this point, like most other small businesses, you have used simple desktop software like QuickBooks for your accounting needs. However, your robust successes have pushed your organization’s software needs beyond the capabilities of QuickBooks, and you find yourself in uncharted waters.

Your business is no longer a startup—and it probably doesn’t feel small anymore either. It’s time for you to tap the Collective Brainpower of xTuple.

Learn more and download the white paper "9 Reasons to Move from QuickBooks to xTuple" atThe QuickBooks Alternative.