First Xero Partner Advisory Council takes off in Canada

Canada is becoming one of the fastest growing communities at Xero. In order to learn more about the market, and what is most important for local accountants and bookkeepers, we recently hosted our first Xero Partner Advisory Council (XPAC). The initial Canadian XPAC class consisted of seven accounting professionals from across the country. They joined us online to create an open dialogue about where they think Xero is going and where we can improve. As users of Xero, along with operating their own firms daily with competitive accounting tools, their insights and feedback are immensely valuable in shaping our product roadmap and ensuring we’re keeping up with the ever evolving business landscape.    

Throughout the day, various members of our Xero team led discussions on our current product roadmap, ecosystem, workflows, partner journey and marketing strategy. Connecting with XPAC is an important part of ensuring that Xero meets the Canadian market with a product that is catered to its specific needs. This is why the relationships we forge with our partners are of utmost importance to allow for transparent and open dialogue. 

What was clear and well articulated by the end of the day was that holding this session was not only valuable for Xero, but also for our XPAC members. It was a chance for them to speak to their peers from a variety of firms about problems they all encounter. They then worked through solutions together.

Connecting for a common goal 

Many accounting professionals today don’t integrate or connect, preferring to keep to themselves. There’s fear around having conversations with their peers; revealing their practices, performance and ideas, which may place their revenue stream at risk. However, not sharing experiences, ideas and vision has left many traditional accountants stagnant in a fast moving world. Through XPAC, Xero partners integrate and connect to educate themselves, encourage others and build the community, with small business owners being the ultimate beneficiaries. There is a common goal among all XPAC members: to help small business clients succeed and to better the services they provide – which is where Xero comes in.     

Let’s meet the inaugural Xero Canada XPAC team: 

• Chad Davis from LiveCA 
• Daniel Mallett from Maddocks and Mallett LLP
• Helina Patience from Entreflow Consulting Group
• Jeremy Jackson from BDO Canada: Guelph
• Lora Johnson from Grant Thornton LLP Cloud Accounting
• Thomas-Louis Lafleur from LeChiffre
• Varun Sehgal from Think Accounting

We believe that through activities like XPAC we are going to continue to grow our connections within Canada and serve our clients, our partners and our community better.

To learn more about similar events or opportunities in Canada to connect with peers in the industry, visit your Xero community page or connect with your account manager today.