Here at Xero we understand that cash flow is a top priority for all small businesses. Knowing that you have money in the bank to pay your bills and staff every month is critical to running a healthy business.
However, our data shows that only 51% of Xero small businesses* are cash flow positive each month. Xero wants to increase that number, and we are always looking for ways to help you get paid faster, including optimizing your invoicing process so that you can have more cash flow certainty.
One of the ways we are doing this is by partnering closely with Stripe, the global payments processor. Together we’re committed to creating a set of experiences that make it easy for all small businesses to bill their customers and get paid faster. We are announcing two new features today, with more product development to come.
Xero data shows that small businesses who enable Stripe payments on Xero invoices are already paid on average up to 15 days faster** than those without any payment services attached. Giving your customers more ways to pay makes it even easier for them to do business with you, and saves time and hassle for everyone.
This partnership between Xero and Stripe is all about helping you spend less time chasing payments, and more time doing what you love.
Auto pay: Get paid on time, every time
We all know that invoicing is boring, and paying invoices is even boring-er… You and your customers can now skip all that with auto pay.
Auto pay allows you to set up and receive recurring card payments for repeat billing customers, directly through Xero. Our data shows that Xero customers are sending over 1.6 million repeating invoices in Xero every month [1]. Imagine if all those invoices that are automatically sent, could automatically be paid. Auto pay has the potential to save both you, and your customer paying the invoice, a huge amount of time and effort.
The Xero community has been vocal about their need for this feature. We understand the time that businesses invest in chasing payments, and the burden that having those awkward conversations about money owed can have on customer relationships. You want to focus on business discussions with your customers, and not chasing them on unpaid invoices. The new auto pay feature is going to help solve these challenges.
Xero customer Jay Kimelman, CPA, Founder at the Digital CPA, says, “Accountants and our clients will be able to bill and collect without the need for any 3rd party apps, doing it more efficiently at a greater profit margin.”
To set up, just tick the ‘Offer auto pay’ check box on your repeating invoice templates. When your customers go to pay those invoices, they can opt in to be automatically billed on the same credit card the next time the invoice is due.
If your customer’s card changes (i.e. they are replacing an expired, lost or stolen card), Stripe will work with card networks to automatically update the saved card details. This lowers the risk of payment failure and reduces the need to collect new card details.
Auto pay will be available globally from the 4th September 2019 and customers will be able to activate from the repeating invoice screen. Auto pay is a new feature for Xero Business Edition customers with Stripe enabled, for no additional cost to the existing monthly Xero subscription.
New improved Stripe feed – every Stripe transaction now accounted for and reconciled with one click
A new data feed from Stripe will make it easier than ever for small businesses to receive comprehensive transaction data on sales and invoices within Xero. In 2017, we announced automated Stripe reconciliation for customers who accepted credit card payments with Stripe via Xero Online Invoices. Now, with the new feed, if you receive customer payments via Stripe anywhere, whether on an invoice or in an e-commerce store, you will automatically see that payment transaction data flow into Xero as individual items, making reconciliation a breeze.
71% of Xero Partners have told us that Bank Feeds and reconciliation are their favourite feature of Xero, so we’re thrilled to be delivering this highly requested feature.
Xero will also be the first major small business accounting platform to offer such a comprehensive Stripe feed, included in the cost of all Xero subscriptions.
The Stripe feed will be available globally from the 16th September 2019 and customers can connect in the same way they connect other bank feeds within Xero. Users who connect Stripe on invoices will see a feed set up automatically on their behalf.
[1] Xero data April 2019.
* Based on aggregated and anonymised data from a large sample set of Xero’s small business customers from 1st January – 31st December 2018.
**Data is for paid invoices that were created in Xero between 1 November 2018 and 30 April 2019 globally.
*** Data is for invoices that were created in Xero in 30 April 2019 globally.
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Fantastic news. When will the Stripe bank feeds be available? Will they handle multiple currencies?
Coming in August. And yes 🙂
In our situation, we calculate invoices in our business system and import into Xero.
Will you be supporting this use case with the auto-bill feature?
Hi Xero, any time-frame for this features to be implemented in New Zealand? Really looking forward
support for automatic billing with eway would be awesome
Hi, Does this mean that ANY invoice I create for the customer will get paid automatically from their credit card? Even if it’s not a repeating invoice? Some customers are querying this and, of course, are very hesitant about allowing this to happen… If they fill out the Autopay form, will their card be debited automatically for the repeating invoice only (which are small invoices around $50 monthly) or will they their card be debited automatically for ANY invoice I generate in xero for them (which could be in the $5000 or above range for larger website projects) ?