Xero Blog

As more people around the world embrace digital technologies, the number of cyber attacks continues to increase. One of the most common types of cybercrime is phishing, designed to access your online accounts and steal your personal and business information.

It’s been Xero Education Month in the UK and I was the most excited about the sneak peek of our personal tax module for Xero Tax.  If you missed it, you’ll be able to watch the sneak peek of personal tax session on-demand until the end of March here.

This month, we’ve focused on enhancing our existing products on the Xero platform. Our teams use the ‘test, learn, refine’ principle to continuously improve the features you use every day, so you can streamline your accounting work and grow your business.

The pandemic has forced businesses and individuals to adapt quickly to constantly changing rules and regulations. There are still many unknowns ahead, but there are some things small businesses can start to plan for – these include a number of developments set to impact payroll in 2021. 

William Duncan & Co is a long-established accounting and compliance firm in the UK that has built strong relationships with its clients that go far deeper than the numbers. From the firm’s five offices in the west of Scotland, they process payroll for over 300 small to medium-sized businesses across all sectors including agriculture, healthcare, tourism, and education.

We know that partnering with the right accountant or bookkeeper can make a big difference to your small business. In fact, a UK survey of 1,500 small businesses found that those with an advisor work an average of six hours less every week and enjoy their business 7% more than those without.

Our product teams have hit the ground running this year to bring you a stack of new features across the Xero platform. The ongoing challenges with COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns hasn’t been easy on our teams, and continues to impact our customers and partners around the world.

When I reflect on the single biggest technology change in 2020, I think of the way that small business owners around the world rose to the challenge and adopted digital tools at a speed and scale unlike anything in living memory.

The new year is bringing Hubdoc and Xero even closer together. You’re now able to navigate directly from Hubdoc to the corresponding transaction in Xero to streamline your workflow.  All documents published to Xero from Hubdoc have a link in Hubdoc under the ‘publish details’ that allows you to click directly through to the transaction in Xero from the published document in Hubdoc.