6 Key Xero Questions

April 28th, 2021

As you might know, it’s not good enough to just ‘barge’ in and start using something like Xero. And just knowing lots of shortcuts won’t help you get the most out of it.

Have a think about some of the following issues; answers to these questions will help you get the most of your Xero service.

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1) Chart of Accounts: 

• Can you keep your chart of accounts concise? (try to avoid examples such as General Expenses, Miscellaneous Expenses, etc.)
• Have you set up or do you know how to set up ‘tracking’ for different parts of your business? (this can be simply done).
• What about your accounts numbering system? (keep the same as in previous accounting programs you may have used).

 

2) Cash Drawer:

• Have you set up a CASH DRAWER account? (Xero doesn’t provide one but you can set it up).
• Have you set up an UNDEP FUNDS ‘dummy’ bank account? (Again, Xero doesn’t provide one but you can set it up).

 

3) Items:

• Have you set up the products/services you sell as items? (This will make sales invoicing easier).
• What type of stock reports do you need? (Xero is not real good at this but can be done).

 

4) Sales & Purchases:

• Have you worked out how to use Xero’s Draft, Unapproved and Approved transactions?
• Have you worked out how to use transaction templates? (Draft transactions can be used for ‘templates’).

 

5)  Customer Payments:

• Have you worked out when you will enter customer payments via direct debit, EFTPOS, CC, cheque and cash.
• Have you considered how to reconcile overpayments, underpayments, etc at the bank feed stage? (There are lots of tricks here).

 

6) Supplier Payments:

• Are you using batch payments (with an ABA file) to pay bills via direct debit? (This will save lots of time and errors).
• Have you considered how to reconcile overpayments, underpayments, etc at the bank feed stage? (There are lots of tricks here).

 

Answer these and other similar questions, then you can ‘barge’ in and start using Xero better – hopefully with our help!!