Annual Reports…all in one

Next week we’ll be releasing some major functionality that will see accountants use Xero for Annual Reporting across all their clients without having to export to an expensive disconnected solution. We believe this is the next big revolution in accounting software.

It’s a project we’ve been working on for the best part of a year and the next big step in our Single Ledger vision. What it means is accountants will be able to complete Annual Reports on exactly the same ledger their customers are using. We’ll start with New Zealand Differential Reporting and next year we’ll release the equivalent reports for other countries.

Watch this video to get a preview:

So what’s the guts?

Xero already has standard templates for Exempt Companies, Trusts, Partnerships and Sole Traders. This new template makes it easy for New Zealand accountants to meet what are fairly complex reporting requirements for a reporting entity, and which qualify for the differential reporting exemptions.

We’ve been working with the technical team from Grant Thornton to make sure all the reports and the notes to the accounts meet the current Financial Reporting Standards (FRS). The beauty of SaaS is we’ll be able to make automatic updates in line with future FRS changes.

You may remember earlier this year we released Report Codes, which allow you to map your clients’ chart of accounts into a standard format or taxonomy. Our release of the NZ Differential Reporting template allows you to apply the mapped Report Codes against this template for qualifying clients, and also prepares your practice for when we release a further enhancement early next year, Report Packs.

Where to next?

Report Packs will help you meet the specific needs of any particular entity type, industry type or subsets of your clients. It’s an important step because you get to define a reporting template and apply this across general ledgers with different charts of accounts. Together with Report Codes, you’ll then have the ability to push any ledger data through the template and get the same report format every time. That saves lots of time and frustration and allows your firm to create its own valuable IP.

We never stop working to improve accountant-side reporting and as always welcome your feedback so we can refine this core part of Xero even more.

For our accounting partners in markets outside of New Zealand, we’re working on releasing templates for the UK and Australia. If you’re in other regions the Report Packs (in next year’s release) will allow you to create templates specific to your needs.

Stay tuned.