Xero board seeks 70% boost to fee pool in a deliberate strategy to transition from a New Zealand-based company to be a more US-centric company

ShareChat.co.nz writes: Xero's board is seeking a 70 percent boost to its pool for directors' fees, having bolstered its governance team with former Microsoft chief financial officer Chris Liddell taking over the chair in February.

Shareholders will be asked to increase the total pool for Xero's eight directors to $850,000 from $500,000 at the company's July 23 annual meeting in Wellington, according to the notice of meeting. Of that, some $214,000 is expected to be unallocated, to give Xero scope to add another director if needed. Xero spent $280,000 on directors' fee in the year ended March 31 of its $500,000 pool, up from $243,000 a year earlier. That doesn't include the $395,000 salary package for chief executive Rod Drury.

"The proposed increase in the non-executive remuneration cap will enhance the board's ability to attract and retain directors of the highest calibre to help drive Xero's continued success," the company said. "The increase in the remuneration cap also brings Xero's non-executive director remuneration into line with current rates, particularly those in offshore markets such as the US."

Xero last bumped up director fees in 2012, when it doubled the pool to $500,000, its first increase since listing in 2007. That increase was designed to pay for two foreign directors and give it scope for a third if necessary.

Since then, Liddell, California-based Bill Veghte and Sydney-based director Lee Hatton have been added to the board.

Shareholders will also be asked to vote on granting options and shares to Liddell and Veghte rather than cash for their annual directors' fees, which Xero's board set at $220,000 and $176,000 respectively.

"It has been a deliberate strategy to transition from a New Zealand-based company to be a more US-centric company as we expand globally," chief executive Rod Drury said in a letter to shareholders. The board needed "headroom to be able to remunerate our directors in line with US market expectations and be able to grant new directors sufficient equity in Xero to attract them to our business."

Other resolutions to be ratified are the election of Veghte and Liddell to the board, and the re-election of Sam Morgan and Graham Shaw.

Shares in Xero rose 1 percent to $26.01, having slumped from a record $45.99 in March.

BI/Analytics BodeTree Co-Founder: Want to Partner With a Big Company? 3 Important Lessons

Chris Meyers, co-founder of BodeTree for the Wall St. Journal writes: For startups and small businesses, the opportunity to partner with large companies can seem like an easy path to success. Your scrappy little enterprise brings the innovative solution and the sleepy, established behemoth brings capital and distribution. What could possibly go wrong? Unfortunately, there are more than a few roadblocks that can, and often do, interrupt the best-laid plans.

The company I co-founded, BodeTree, serves the small business market by bridging the gap between accounting software and the decision making process. As a result, we’ve had the opportunity to partner with companies that are significantly larger and more established, from major consumer software companies to large financial institutions. Some of these partnerships have been wildly successful, and others failed to get off the ground. Regardless of how they turned out, each and every one taught me important lessons about approaching and managing partnerships.  Here are the top three lessons I’ve learned so far.

1. Lay out your vision. For startups and small businesses, it can be difficult to convince a large company to enter into a partnership. After all, it’s the smaller company that generally has more to gain in the relationship. It’s not enough to have a complimentary product or to serve a similar market; you have to lay out a compelling long-term vision for how the partnership will serve both sides’ strategic goals. At BodeTree, we showed one of the financial institutions we wanted to partner with how we could revolutionize small business lending and helped them understand what that could mean for their organization and the industry as a whole. It wasn’t the features and functionality of our product that convinced them to partner, it was the shared strategic vision we presented. Our approach was heavy on the visuals and focused on boiling down the message into two simple diagrams that illustrated their current market position and where it could be post-partnership. We were careful to present the images digitally at first, introducing the concepts as we spoke so that the partners in attendance were forced to focus rather than skipping ahead in a printed document.  Only after the meeting was over did we circulate a simplified print version of the diagrams to the attendees.

2. Create a sense of urgency. Large organizations have two speeds: slow and slower. If you sit back and let the other side drive the process, chances are that nothing will get done.  Even worse, constantly pestering your contacts on the other side to move forward is annoying at best and potentially damaging at worst. So how do you get your partners to take action? I’ve learned that the only way to get things moving is to create a genuine sense of urgency.  To do this, you have to understand your partner’s organization and culture and find ways to focus on what matters to them.  For BodeTree, we learned this when we realized that many of our partners were facing regulatory pressure to better serve small business. We were able to frame our conversations in the context of this pressure and use that to drive action.

3. Don’t undervalue your contribution. Finally, it’s all too easy to undervalue your company’s own contribution to the partnership. It can be tempting to give too much away when negotiating the economics or workload of the deal. Remember, if you’re having partnership discussions, it’s happening because the other side sees value in what you do. Outlining reasonable expectations and maintaining the value of your contribution not only ensures that the partnership is equitable, it also signals to the other side that the relationship is something that they should be excited about. This doesn’t mean that you have to have a signed agreement right off the bat. Instead, it’s a function of how you present yourself, your company, and your product.  Projecting an aura of confidence and value goes a long way in helping to guide the relationship down the right path. I’ve personally struggled with this in the past, but I’ve come to learn that an over eagerness to appease your partner comes across as desperation and weakens the partnership long-term.

As an emerging growth company, it has been incredibly important for BodeTree to seek out partnerships that can be leveraged to dramatically accelerate our growth. These “moonshot” moments have helped us to refine our product, marketing and customer experience in short order. By defining a shared vision for how to serve small business, we’ve been able to partner with some of the largest organizations in the market today, such as Intuit and Dun & Bradstreet. However, we’ve learned firsthand just how important it is to make sure that the partnership is structured in such a way that it’s mutually beneficial and doesn’t bog you down. Applying the lessons we’ve learned to your approach won’t guarantee a successful partnership, but it will help to make sure that you’re moving in the right direction.

Mr. Myers is co-founder and CEO of BodeTree, a web app for small businesses Business Intelligence, Analytics & Reporting.

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Box Free IT : Intuit’s Plans for QuickBooks Online in Australia: Interview

BoxFree IT writes: Sydney accounting firm Interactive Accounting recently interviewed Intuit’s Brad Paterson, the managing director responsible for selling QuickBooks Online throughout the Asia Pacific (pictured above), as part of a review of the accounting software platforms.

Interactive’s managing director Lisa Callaghan asked Paterson about the roadmap and strategy for QuickBooks Online in the Australian market.

You’re the face of Intuit in Australia. Tell us a bit about yourself and what your mission is for QuickBooks Online in Australia.

First of all, QuickBooks has an amazing team of Aussies going for it. We have some phenomenal talent with a diverse range of expertise and experience. A common thread through the whole team is a shared passion for helping small businesses be more successful.

We’ve hired a local leader, Nicolette Maury, to drive the Australian QuickBooks Online business, in addition to growing our key functions in account management, product, marketing and customer care. Nicolette brings a successful history and deep experience in customer experience, innovation and technology. Plus, small businesses is part of her DNA, having grown up in a family business.

As an Aussie who also grew up with a family small business, I couldn’t be more excited and passionate about enabling Australian small business success with Quickbooks Online as their operating system. We will only achieve this in partnership with accountants, bookkeepers and developers in Australia.

My job is to ensure we stay focused on this mission while creating an environment at Intuit for our team to do the best work of their lives.

What’s the two year goal for Australia?

Our goal is to be the number one choice for Australian small businesses and their advisers. I can’t share specific customer targets as Intuit doesn’t break out our customer numbers outside of the US. What I can tell you is that my team and I are looking for explosive growth earned by delivering the best experience for small businesses, accountants and bookkeepers. Based on our current demand and positive feedback, we’re confident we’re on track.

What’s QuickBook Online’s point of difference compared to the current leading cloud accounting products like Xero, Saasu and MYOB live?

Instead of repeating our marketing messaging, I’ll share what we’re hearing from our customers. Small businesses love QuickBooks Online for its ease of use, the time it saves them and its simplicity, especially on smartphones and tablets. Accountants and bookkeepers love the fact we treat them as partners rather than resellers.

We know Invitbox is a great product but what was the strategy behind the purchase?

QuickBooks Online is designed to make it easier for small businesses and their trusted advisers to get the job done quickly and with confidence. Creating a deeply integrated and powerful ecosystem by partnering with the services small businesses and accountants currently use and love is a key way we’re achieving that.
The Invitbox acquisition is a perfect example of how we’re putting our money where our mouth is to deliver against our promise. Plus, the Invitco team are a great bunch of folks who are exceptionally talented and passionate about creating new ways for small businesses to be more successful. It’s a real win to have them inside the business.

Do you think accounting firms should support one accounting platform or many?

If you are looking to grow your practice and support new clients you need to support more than one platform. We’ve heard from accountants that it’s critical for them to be a trusted adviser to their clients. That means knowing which solutions are best for their client.
Those that support just one product risk missing out on opportunities to win and retain small business customers. Increasingly, business owners are becoming savvy when it comes to knowing what software they want to use.

Your list of add-on partners certainly lacks the depth of Xero’s. Is that something you plan to rectify or are integrations not part of your immediate focus?

Not all ecosystems are created equal. Quantity doesn’t always guarantee a quality experience or integration. QuickBooks Online is unique in the market for delivering a better experience through deeper integration and extensive quality and experience checks. Check out what Forbes.com just wrote comparing us to others.

Creating a powerful ecosystem of deeply connected apps is a priority for QuickBooks Online globally and for us here in Australia. We recently announced the addition of a number of new apps for our Australian customers including InvoiceSherpa, DEAR Inventory, Cloud Cart Connector and Affinity Live.

We have a fantastic pipeline of local and global integrations for Australia, so watch this space for some exciting new announcements.

What incentives will you offer Australian accounting firms to support your product?

We don’t offer incentives to our accounting partners for recommending QuickBooks Online to their clients. Accountants have told us they’re not keen on selling accounting software but they are very interested in training and certification so they can better support their clients and grow their practices.

We offer partners free training and certification when you sign up to our ProAdvisor program, including training for your clients. We have additional training for our ProAdvisors to help them become educators. Some are already building a business out of becoming trainers, creating a new revenue stream.

We also have free conversion of files from Xero, MYOB and Reckon.
We also have a limited offer of $4.99 per month for accountants and bookkeepers, a saving of up to $30 per month. The response has been phenomenal and ProAdvisors who sign up their clients now are guaranteed the price forever.
We launched the offer in January and have extended it to the end of the year.

What resources are you committing to Australia in terms of support, sales and the Australian version of the product?

We’re investing heavily in our Australian team. We now have a team of over 30 in Australia, tripling in size since the beginning of the year. Our local team is growing rapidly and includes people in account management, marketing, product and customer care.
QuickBooks Online in Australia has been built for Australians with all the best elements of years of global development as well as local acquisitions and partnerships. It already has these Australian specific features:

• GST tracking and management.
• Automatic and unlimited download of transactions from leading Australian banks such as ANZ, Westpac and Commonwealth Bank with more on the way.
• Seamless integration of KeyPay payroll service, free for the first 10 employees.
• BAS reports and lodgement via our partner Gov Reports.
• A quickly expanding ecosystem of best-in-class apps for Australian small businesses.

This article was written by Lisa Callaghan, managing director for Interactive Accounting.

Box Free IT is an independent news site covering cloud software for Australian and New Zealand businesses which launched in July 2011. The site is published by Sholto Macpherson, a business technology journalist in online and print media for over 11 years. BoxFreeIT operates in accordance with the MEAA (Australian Journalists Association) Code of Ethics.  The only Australasian site dedicated to cloud software, BoxFreeIT attracts 12,000 unique visitors a month and is adding 2,000 visitors a month. A total 65,000 unique visitors have visited BoxFreeIT in 2012.

Receipt Bank and Xero: Three years on

Ronan Quirke for Xero writes: When I started at Xero just over three years ago, one of the first Xero Add-ons I assisted with certifying was from a small little UK startup app called Receipt Bank. Well, three years on and Receipt Bank are now the most popular add-on for Xero, and recipients of a number of Xero awards.

As much as I love the original blog post (the cheesy background music on the video!), I thought it might be time to do a quick refresher, and cover some of the less obvious, and new features that Receipt Bank provides:

• More than just receipts. In the UK the term ‘receipts’ covers everything – expense receipts, accounts payable invoices etc, but in other parts of the world, it might not be quite as obvious that Receipt Bank supports receipts on expense claims but also accounts payable invoices and spend money transactions.
• Line item extraction. It was a huge leap forward when Receipt Bank recently announced they can now populate Xero with invoice line item details. Receipt Bank automatically splits line item details for original .pdf files – perfect for purchase invoices that need to be split across different accounts.
• Attachments. Receipt Bank creates attachments on all the documents it can in Xero – receipts, bills (accounts payable invoices) and spend money transactions (bank transactions), so you have a complete audit trail.
• Reimbursable and re-billing expenses. Receipt Bank’s integration with Xero enables you to create both an expense report for staff reimbursements and also a draft sales invoice for oncharged costs.

The most impressive development at Receipt Bank over the past three years however, is the unique way they have worked with Xero accounting and bookkeeping partners. Check out just one story here:




As you can see, a lot has changed in three years for Receipt Bank and Xero, but one thing has stayed the same – we are delighted to have them as an Add-on partner. Well done Receipt Bank, can’t wait to see where you will be in another three years! To find out more, check out Receipt-Bank.com.

What to do if You Get a Notice from the IRS

Each year the IRS mails millions of notices. Here’s what you should do if you receive a notice from the IRS:

1. Don’t ignore it. You can respond to most IRS notices quickly and easily. And it’s important that you reply promptly. 

2. IRS notices usually deal with a specific issue about your tax return or tax account. For example, it may say the IRS has corrected an error on your tax return. Or it may ask you for more information.

3. Read it carefully and follow the instructions about what you need to do.

4. If it says that the IRS corrected your tax return, review the information in the notice and compare it to your tax return.

If you agree, you don’t need to reply unless a payment is due.

If you don’t agree, it’s important that you respond to the IRS. Write a letter that explains why you don’t agree. Make sure to include information and any documents you want the IRS to consider. Include the bottom tear-off portion of the notice with your letter. Mail your reply to the IRS at the address shown in the lower left part of the notice. Allow at least 30 days for a response from the IRS.

5. You can handle most notices without calling or visiting the IRS. If you do have questions, call the phone number in the upper right corner of the notice. Make sure you have a copy of your tax return and the notice with you when you call.

6. Keep copies of any notices you get from the IRS.

7. Don’t fall for phone and phishing email scams that use the IRS as a lure. The IRS first contacts people about unpaid taxes by mail – not by phone. The IRS does not contact taxpayers by email, text or social media about their tax return or tax account.

For more on this topic visit IRS.gov. Click on ‘Responding to a Notice’ at the bottom left of the home page. Also see Publication 594, The IRS Collection Process. You can get it on IRS.gov or call 800-TAX-FORM (800-829-3676) to get it by mail.

Additional IRS Resources:

• Tax Topic 651 - Notices – What to Do
• Tax Topic 652 - Notice of Underreported Income – CP-2000
• Tax Topic 653 - IRS Notices and Bills, Penalties and Interest Charges