Xero unveils new capabilities to simplify tax compliance and help small businesses manage cash flow

Cape Town — 11 August 2025 — Xero, the global small business platform, has unveiled a suite of product innovations in South Africa that introduce greater automation, AI enhancements and new mobile capabilities for accountants, bookkeepers and small businesses. The updates will streamline the tax filing process, and enable small businesses to better manage their cash flow and achieve operational efficiencies so they can spend less time on manual processes.

“The South African Revenue Service (SARS) is moving forward with its digital transformation, and we’re also seeing a growing demand from entrepreneurs for mobile services,” explained Colin Timmis, Regional Director EMEA at Xero. “These new features will help small businesses and their advisors become more productive, efficient and resilient so they can thrive.”

Streamlining the tax filing process

To simplify tax submissions and increase efficiency, Xero now offers an integrated practice management and tax solution. This new capability enables accountants to prepare provisional and VAT tax returns, which clients can review and approve in a few simple steps. It automates tax job management, filings and payments, helping practices increase productivity and accuracy.

Key features include:

• Xero Practice Manager connects directly to SARS via Gatekeeper, a bridging tool, which allows for simple and seamless tax filing and approvals
• Tax jobs are automatically created, reducing manual admin and enabling practices to stay ahead of client tax obligations
• On-the-go tax approvals: Using Gatekeeper’s mobile app, business owners can approve tax returns that have been filed electronically by their accountant or bookkeeper, in just a few taps
• A new Tax Payments feature then automatically enables a credit push to SARS, once the accountant or bookkeeper submits the return
• A provisional tax tool reduces manual calculations and forecasts income and expenditure using Profit and Loss (P&L) and budget data to pre-populate IRP6 returns that can be submitted directly to SARS
• A client insights dashboard provides advisors with a snapshot of clients’ financial health and deeper understanding of where they need support

“Managing tax obligations across a number of tools can be time consuming and lead to errors. So we’ve added more features to simplify the tax filing process - from the initial inputs, to preparing a return, right through to automatic approval and payment,” added Timmis. “By getting accountants and bookkeepers set up with the right practice and tax tools, it gives them precious time back to spend on increasing profits and supporting small businesses in other areas like financial forecasting and digital strategy.”

New features to help small businesses manage cash flow

To enable small businesses to benefit from operational efficiencies and better cash flow management, Xero has made a number of improvements to streamline key workflows, including:

• Smarter bill management to improve efficiency and reduce human error - when a bill is uploaded, artificial intelligence (AI) creates a draft bill with the key details, reducing manual data entry. Duplicate bills are identified and flagged to prevent fraud and payment mistakes, for instance if a supplier has sent the same bill twice. A new ‘quick view’ option means businesses can review and approve multiple bills at once from a single screen
• Deeper insights into business performance - updates to the Xero Accounting App include an enhanced Profit and Loss (P&L) view, with new drill-down functionality to easily navigate from summary P&L figures directly to the underlying transactions. The app has also been updated to include smarter bank reconciliation tools with sort, search, and filter options to save customers even more time
• Easier inventory management to save time - small businesses with physical products can easily duplicate inventory items, saving time and reducing errors when creating multiple similar products in inventory lists. When creating an invoice, businesses will be able to view available stock levels when adding an item, allowing them to keep a close eye on stock
• Enhanced mobile experience for managing finances on the go - there are a number of enhancements being made including an improved sign-up process for businesses to start using Xero from their mobile to meet a growing need to access financial data on the move

To stay up to date with new features in Xero, visit innovations.xero.com.

ENDS

Media Contact

Xero Communications South Africa | Sophie Whitney | sophie.whitney@xero.com

About Xero

Xero is a global small business platform that helps customers supercharge their business by bringing together the most important small business tools, including accounting, payroll and payments — on one platform. Xero’s powerful platform helps customers automate routine tasks, get timely insights, and connects them with their data, their apps, and their accountant or bookkeeper so they can focus on what really matters. Trusted by millions of small businesses and accountants and bookkeepers globally, Xero makes life better for people in small business, their advisors, and communities around the world. For further information, please visit xero.com.