Efficient Accounting with Xero

Efficient Accounting with Xero

by Jay Kimelman, Liz Mason
Released April 2023
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781801812207

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Book description

Maximize the capabilities of Xero to achieve timely and stress-free accounting for your business

Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Key Features

  • Become well-versed with the latest features of Xero to confidently manage all your bookkeeping tasks with ease
  • Master the use of Xero and implement best practices to avoid costly errors
  • Learn techniques for recording and managing financial data efficiently

Book Description

Xero empowers business owners to gain insights into their business and performance and collaborate seamlessly with their accountants and tax professionals. This book goes beyond the basics and explores the more advanced Xero features, techniques, and best practices for managing sales taxes, budgeting, and reporting.

You'll begin by diving right into Xero, setting up a bank feed, and exploring its power while experiencing just how easy it is to use. The book will guide you in setting up Xero the right way to ensure that you succeed in each of your transactions. As you progress through the chapters, you'll learn what spend money and receive money transactions are and be able to easily send invoices and collect receivables or payments, collect and pay bills, and even track your business assets with Xero. Toward the end, you'll be proficient at producing powerful reports, giving you the keys to running or advising any business.

By the end of this Xero book, you'll have gained the confidence to add a company to Xero, set up the bank feeds, reconcile the transactions, send invoices, and pay bills, ending up with beautiful financial statements.

What you will learn

  • Understand why Xero is the best choice in accounting software for your SMB
  • Easily set up or convert to Xero for a service- or product-based business
  • Reconcile cash and related transactions effortlessly
  • Track and depreciate capital assets purchased by and used in the business
  • Produce customized reports tailored to your specific need
  • Use Xero to make informed and timely decisions and become a better business owner or advisor

Who this book is for

This book is for small and medium business owners (SMBs) and bookkeepers or accountants who want to learn how to properly use and master Xero. Little to no knowledge of Xero is assumed. However, prior understanding of basic bookkeeping and accounting principles is required.

Table of contents

  1. Efficient Accounting with Xero
  2. Foreword
  3. Contributors
  4. About the author
  5. About the reviewer
  6. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. To get the most out of this book
    4. Download the color images
    5. Conventions used
    6. Get in touch
    7. Share Your Thoughts
    8. Download a free PDF copy of this book
  7. Part 1: Hitting the Ground Running
  8. Chapter 1: Xero Basics – Subscriptions and When to Use Them
    1. A bit about Xero
    2. Business subscription plans
      1. Business subscription plan comparisons
    3. Partner subscription plans
      1. Partner subscription plan comparisons
    4. Summary
  9. Chapter 2: Exploring Bank Feeds – the Heart of Xero
    1. Why bank feeds?
    2. Setting up your bank feeds
    3. Balancing the bank feed
    4. Summary
  10. Chapter 3: Setting Up Your Organization’s Financial Settings in Xero
    1. Why are settings in Xero so important?
    2. Your first major Xero decision – the COA
      1. Importing your chart of accounts
      2. Maneuvering through the Chart of accounts screen
    3. Tracking categories
      1. Setting up tracking categories
    4. Other settings that require attention
      1. Organizational details
      2. Let’s add a user
      3. Subscription and billing
      4. Financial settings
    5. Summary
  11. Chapter 4: Restarting with the Fresh Start Method
    1. When to use Fresh Start
    2. Where do we find our beginning balances?
    3. Importing your beginning balances
      1. Importing using the COA
      2. Data entry using conversion balances
    4. Bank feed time
    5. Summary
  12. Chapter 5: Conversion to Xero Made Easy
    1. When to convert versus using The Fresh Start method
    2. Automating your Xero conversion with Jet Convert
    3. Preparing for conversion by looking into the prerequisites
      1. Preparing your QBDT file
      2. Preparing your QBO file
    4. Time to start the conversion
      1. Converting your QBDT file
      2. Converting your QBO file
    5. Summary
  13. Part 2: Handling the Day-to-Day Processes
  14. Chapter 6: Recording and Reconciling the Bank
    1. The bank feed basics
    2. No bank feed? Not a problem – import it
    3. Rules, rules, rules
    4. Using Xero to your advantage
    5. Cash coding
    6. Reconciling that account
    7. Summary
  15. Chapter 7: Invoicing and the Sales Process
    1. Products and services
    2. Setting up invoices (and other forms)
    3. Quoting your opportunities
    4. Time to send the invoices
      1. Repeat
      2. Void
      3. Copy to
      4. Edit
      5. Add Credit Note
      6. Share invoice
    5. Getting paid in Xero
      1. Applying payments from the bank feed
    6. Summary
  16. Chapter 8: Managing Bills and Purchases with Procure-to-Pay in Xero
    1. Exploring the Purchase Order
    2. Processing bills and the purchase process
    3. Paying bills is super easy
    4. Summary
  17. Chapter 9: Using Xero on the Go
    1. Xero mobile on the go
      1. Xero features on the go
    2. Battle of the apps in different operating systems
    3. Summary
  18. Part 3: Closing Out the Accounting Period
  19. Chapter 10: Managing Fixed Assets in Xero
    1. Exploring fixed assets
    2. Adding assets to Xero
      1. Depreciating those assets
    3. Disposing of assets
    4. Summary
  20. Chapter 11: All You Need to Know about Manual Journals in Xero
    1. The manual journal
      1. Xero’s rules for creating manual journals
      2. Getting into the manual journal
    2. Creating manual journals
    3. The repeating journal entry
    4. Importing your journal
    5. Summary
  21. Chapter 12: Correct Your Mistakes with Find and Recode
    1. The basics of Find & Recode
    2. Find, the ultimate Xero search tool
    3. Correcting mistakes with Recode
    4. Summary
  22. Part 4: Reporting – Knowing About the Performance of Your Business (KPIs)
  23. Chapter 13: Running and Customizing Basic Reports in Xero
    1. Reporting in Xero
    2. Saving reports in Xero
    3. Summary
  24. Chapter 14: Business Analytics with Business Snapshot and Short-Term Cash Flow
    1. Analytics in Xero
      1. Short-term cash flow
      2. Business snapshot
    2. Summary
  25. Chapter 15: Creating Custom Reports in Xero Using the layout editor
    1. Exploring the layout editor
    2. Customizing the basic report
    3. Starting from a blank slate
    4. Saving your reports
    5. Summary
  26. Part 5: For the Advisor
  27. Chapter 16: Run Your Practice with Xero HQ
    1. What is Xero HQ?
    2. Clients in Xero HQ
    3. Explorer details in Xero – what is it exactly?
    4. What is Ask, you ask?
    5. Staff in Xero HQ
    6. Practice
    7. Summary
  28. Chapter 17: Exploring Practice-Wide Report Templates
    1. What are Report templates?
    2. Editing Report templates
    3. Assigning report codes
    4. Using Report templates
    5. Summary
  29. Chapter 18: Exporting Your Data and Reports Out of Xero
    1. Exporting Xero reports to expand their role
    2. Exporting accounting data to make your life easy
    3. The Schedule C report for sole proprietors
    4. Using Trial Balance apps to make tax time easier
    5. Summary
  30. Chapter 19: Increasing Your Powers with Apps and Xero
    1. What are apps that are built for Xero?
    2. Why use apps with Xero?
    3. Connecting apps to Xero
    4. What apps should I use with Xero?
    5. Summary
  31. Index
    1. Why subscribe?
  32. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Packt is searching for authors like you
    2. Download a free PDF copy of this book

Product information

  • Title: Efficient Accounting with Xero
  • Author(s): Jay Kimelman, Liz Mason
  • Release date: April 2023
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781801812207