Changing the game for small business with our AI-powered platform

Xero set out to change the game for small businesses and their advisors. leader in cloud accounting across New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom, Xero’s world-class team serves customers across 180+ countries, including the US.

Xero is a global small business platform and a trusted financial operating system for the AI era. By unifying core financial operations (including accounting, payroll and payments) and a robust ecosystem into autonomous workflows, we empower millions of customers to move from managing records to taking informed action to help them deliver outcomes and thrive.

Xero’s AI-powered tools streamline business administration by automating routine tasks, delivering valuable insights, and bringing together trusted data, expert advisors and powerful integrations, in one intuitive platform.

Our ecosystem of connected apps and connections to banks and other financial institutions can be integrated with Xero, making it easy for customers to complete other essential tasks, freeing up time to focus on what really matters and empowering them to supercharge their business.

The problem

Underpinning the growth and profit of all small businesses is effective financial planning and accounting.

Xero is based on the principle that small businesses are highly sensitive to shifts in their balance sheet and cash flow. Their ability to monitor financial performance in real-time and plan ahead is crucial. Small businesses make up more than 90% of all businesses by number across OECD countries, so their success or otherwise has a direct effect on the greater economy.

The solution

At its core, Xero is an easy-to-use and powerful online small business platform born in the cloud. Xero provides a growing family of connected solutions as a platform for businesses:

• Accounting and compliance tools for small business that supports data ingestion, simplifies bookkeeping, helps with managing and filing annual taxes, and provides reporting and analytics
• Payroll tools to help simplify paying employees and contractors easily and on time
• Payment tools to help small businesses make and collect payments and manage cash flow. This includes allowing small businesses to invoice their customers, and manage and pay their bills through Xero, bill payments powered by Melio in the US, and other payment services integrated with Xero
• Adjacent tools that support day-to–day operations beyond accounting, payroll and payments, such as employee management, expenses, projects and inventory
• Plus integrations with more than 1000 connected third-party apps

Software as a service (SaaS)

Xero’s software-as-a-service business model, where software is hosted securely on the internet, allows Xero to address the large and fragmented small business sector. Xero regularly releases new features. Additions and extensions to functionality are developed in response to the needs of new customers and new industries.

The market

The size of the small business sector is second only to that of individual consumers. Typically the consumer internet has reverted to non-direct, usually advertising-based, revenue models. In contrast, we believe the small business sector provides the greatest opportunity for monetisation on the internet and Xero is proving itself to be a leading innovator in this sector.

Technology

Xero software is developed using Microsoft’s .NET development environment over resilient SQL server databases, on a Windows application server infrastructure. Our production servers are primarily hosted by AWS which monitors our servers and firewalls 24/7/365 at guarded facilities.

Financial

Founded in 2006, Xero listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange in June 2007 and the Australian Securities Exchange in November 2012. In 2018, Xero consolidated its listing on the ASX and was included in the S&P/ASX 100 index. Xero is used in over 180 countries by more than 5 million customers and integrates with over 1000 third-party apps.

Our leadership

View profiles of Xero’s regional leaders, executives and Board.

Locations

See the countries and cities around the world where Xero offices are located.

Additional resources

Xero blog

Check out our latest Xero blog posts for tips and insights, hot topic articles, and interviews with business leaders and experts.

Who's using Xero?

Read case studies of small businesses and accountants currently using Xero.

Reviewer's guide

Download the Xero Reviewer's Guide to get a comprehensive overview of Xero and our small business accounting solution.

Investor reports and presentations

Visit the investor centre for more information on our investor reports and presentations.

Who to contact

For further corporate company information or media enquiries, please contact Corporate Communications at press@xero.com