Master The Art of Bookkeeping for Small Business w/ Xero

Video by Accounting Stuff

Take the fear away from keeping tabs on your business' books out with Xero, the affordable and universal accounting platform of choice that you connect and adjust whenever and wherever.

What is Xero For Bookkeeping?

Xero is a cloud-based accounting software package that helps with bookkeeping and automates many boring tasks, saving you a lot of time. It lives in the cloud, allowing you to access it from anywhere, and it's extremely popular among small—to medium-sized businesses.

Which Version of Xero is Right for You?

In the USA, you have three plans to choose from: Early, Growing, and Established. The Early plan is the cheapest, at $12 per month, and it is aimed at new businesses, sole traders, and the self-employed.

The Growing plan costs a bit more at $34 per month, removes the caps on invoices, quotes, and bills, and lets you reconcile your transactions in bulk.

The Established plan is the most expensive at $65 per month, with features like project tracking, expense claiming, and in-depth analytics.

What Does Xero Look Like?

The Xero dashboard gives you a snapshot of your business's financials.

You can see the balances of your bank accounts over time, your cash in and out by month, your account watch list, the invoices owed to you, a summary of all your expense claims, and the bills you need to pay.

You can customise the dashboard by shuffling things around and hiding the widgets you aren't interested in.

How Does Xero Work?

Let's start with the organisation menu, where you can upload and access important files and update your organisation settings. You can access your organisation details, update your basic information, and add a logo.

You can also enter your line of business, pick an organisation type, add a business registration number, an employer identification number, and an organisation description.

The Users tab allows you to add, modify permissions, and remove users.

If you signed up for the Established plan, you can head into currencies to add more.

Connected apps are where you manage your third-party connections to Xero.

The Features column includes invoice settings, payment services, email settings, and check styles.

You can customise and preview your invoices, manage the payment options available to your customers, and change the look of your checks.

Navigating Xero

The navigation bar includes links to the organisation menu, the dashboard, the business button, the accounting menu, payroll, projects, and contacts. The create button allows you to create new transactions, such as invoices, bills, and quotes. The search function helps you find specific transactions or contacts.

The notification bell shows you product updates and other notifications. The help menu allows you to search for support articles, contact Xero support, and find an accountant or bookkeeper near you.

Doing Business with Xero

The business menu helps you do your day-to-day tasks. You can access your short-term cash flow projection, business snapshot, invoices, quotes, and sales overview. The sales overview summarizes your invoices and quotes, showing you the payments that you're waiting on, what's overdue, and who owes you the most money.

The next three options are devoted to your outgoings: bills, pay, and purchase orders. You can capture your employee expense claims, monitor checks, and manage your products and services.

The accounting menu is where you manage your bank accounts, run reports, and access advanced settings. You can connect your bank accounts to Xero, import your transactions automatically, and reconcile your bank statements.

Reports in Xero

Xero includes a whole heap of reporting templates, including tax reports, income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement.

You can find your tax reports near the bottom, and your financial statements section.

Xero's Advanced Menu

The advanced menu brings up some of the more complex features and settings, including the ability to find and recode transactions, work directly with manual journals, manage the fixed assets register, and your chart of accounts.

Xero's Payroll and Projects

If you signed up to payroll, you'd have a tab for that, where you can manage all your employees and contractors.

Xero projects allows you to quote, invoice, and track job profitability by project.

Contacts Menu on Xero

The contacts menu helps you manage your customers, suppliers, and other key contacts.

You can check out the full list, which shows you what you owe, what you are owed, and you can always add new contacts.

Xero, In Closing

Xero is a powerful cloud-based accounting software package that helps with bookkeeping and automates many boring tasks, saving you a lot of time.

With its three plans to choose from, Xero is suitable for small to medium-sized businesses.

Its features, including the ability to connect your bank accounts, import transactions automatically, and reconcile your bank statements, make it an excellent choice for businesses looking to streamline their accounting processes.

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