With Xero-DBS direct bank feeds, SME can now have real-time visibility of business cashflow. Business owners can have a comprehensive view of finances and business performance to make a smarter decision.

With this strategic partnership, cash flow management are made more transparent and simplified. In order to enjoy bank feed, company need to have a bank with DBS and must be Xero’s subscriber. If you are not using Xero, you can try it for free or check out our pricing page. Connect your Xero account to DBS today!

How to connect Xero to DBS Bank Feeds 
1. Go to Accounts, then click Bank Accounts. Click Add Bank Account.
2. Start typing 'DBS', then select DBS Bank from the list.
3. Click Login & Connect Accounts.
4. Enter your Organisation ID, User ID, PIN and Security Access Code, then click Login To Authorise 3rd Party.
5. Select the checkbox to confirm that you've read the Terms and Conditions, then click Authorise Xero.
6. Next to each bank account, click Connect to a Xero bank account. Then select either the matching bank account in Xero, or New bank account in Xero to create a new bank account.
7. Click Connect.

* Once connected, your bank transactions will take 24 hours to import into Xero.
* You can connect extra DBS accounts at any time. Add a new bank account in Xero, then log into DBS online banking, select the new bank account you'd like to connect, and then match to the bank account in Xero.

​“Cloud computing is a general term for delivery of hosted services over the internet”. Cloud computing allows user to store and access data over the internet instead of your computer’s hard drive.”

With advancement of Cloud technology, it's not surprise to see more business moving from conventional accounting software to cloud accounting. Other than storing data over the internet, here are the reasons why everyone is moving.

1. Real Time Data 
With real time data, companies have a clear overview of your current financial position. Also, with cloud base accounting, data capture is more accurate as duplicate entries and discrepancies is reduced.

2. Multiple User Access 
Collaboration between teams and advisors are made easy. Sharing of information will be more efficient and effective as there is only one centralized data. Unlike traditional method, there will be less overlap.

3. Upfront business cost are reduced 
Server, system upgrades, maintenance and administration cost will be reduced as these cost are managed by the cloud service provider. Plus, many cloud service provider offers pay-per-month plan for small medium enterprise which makes starting up easier.

4. Ease of Access 
Cloud accounting allows user to have ease of access to financial data. Business owner can access the data on the go and increase productivity.

5. Secured Data 
Unlike traditional accounting software where data security can be expensive, data security are included in most cloud accounting service provider.

The long awaited moment for Xero Bank Feeds to work in Singapore has finally arrived albeit for UOB bank customers. Xero clients with UOB Corporate Bank Accounts can now link their statement directly to their Xero Account to facilitate monthly bank reconciliation. 

The Xero Bank feeds let you automatically import account transactions into Xero from your bank or other financial institution. Once bank feeds are up and running, you'll no longer need to download and import bank statements to get transactions into Xero. This effectively reduces the hassle of downloading excel bank statements and changing the format to one suitable to update in the past.

This would help businesses using Xero with the reduction of some of the administrative work.

How to set it up to work?
To begin, update your bank account in Xero and the bank account type to check that the feeds is available. Then download the ​

Today, Xero Accounting rolled out some exciting new features that the Xero community has been asking for.

First on the roll out is Smart List, an advanced search over your existing customer base, using the accounting platform as the search engine. This search lets you generate highly targeted lists that you can then use to sell to, chase for payment, gather information about, or basically anything else you want!

Many small businesses don’t have Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. With Smart Lists, you’re able to communicate with organisations that are already your customers, using the data you’re updating everyday – it’s far less hit and miss.

You can use Smart Lists to create a targeted list for a campaign by filtering by people who have bought a certain product, or who have been invoiced for a certain amount.

Here are some ideas:

• Identify customers who have purchased a product from you, who may be interested in a new product you now have available.
• Find all those customers who haven’t paid an invoice in the past few months, so you can follow-up with them and improve your cash flow.
• See how many customers you have in a particular city or region, helping you understand your customer base and use as the basis of a targeted marketing or sales effort.

Once you have created a list of customers you can export it to a CSV file (at which point you can do whatever they want with it, such as sending the customers an email from your email system), or directly push it to a third party email engine.


This new function will bring Xero Online Accounting to a new level featuring a basic integrated CRM function which few Online Accounting and solutions includes. 

Second on the roll out is the support for 4 decimal place unit pricing. This will allow you to create invoices with items priced to 4 decimal place, providing more precision for pricing.

Come 23 June 2014, Xero will be able to support up to 4 decimal places unit pricing on invoices. This should help companies dealing with products that requires multiple decimal places. 

For Xero Users that uses the .docx template to customise their template, some minor update will be required for the additional decimal places to appear. Xero users can make the adjustment based on the following guide - Update your DOCX templates so the unit price shows 4 decimal places.

Below is the guide on how to update the DOCX templates to reflect 4 decimal places.

How to update your DOCX templates so the unit price shows 4 decimal places.

1. Go to Settings > General Settings > Invoice Settings.
2. Locate the theme you want to change. Use the Download button to download the ZIP file that contains the DOCX templates.
   
3. Open the template you want to change from the ZIP file.
   
4. Highlight «UnitAmount». Right-click and select Toggle Field Codes.
5. Change "#,##0.00;(#,##0.00)" to "#,##0.00##;(#,##0.00##)" by placing your curser on the text and typing.
6. Save the file to your computer.
7. On the Invoice Settings screen, click the Upload button to upload your changed file.
8. Repeat the process for each (sales invoice, credit note, purchase order) template if you need to.

Astab being a Xero Singapore Partner is glad that the addition of this function will make Xero one of the few cloud accounting software that supports up to 4 decimal places. To learn more about Astab Xero Online Accounting Services, please visit our Xero Accounting Service page at http://www.online-accounting.astab.com.sg.

Xero is rolling out a number of updates planned to introduce a brand new method of running reports in Xero. These new reports are designed from scratch taking into consideration the feedback received by the Xero team and they’re looking wonderful.

For a start, a brand new set of Aged Reports are launched and the Xero team is currently working on a new Depreciation Schedule, Disposals Schedule, Account Transactions, and Profit and Loss reports.

Where are the new Xero reports?
As the new reports are being rolled out throughout this year, they're going to become available from a whole new report centre, accessed through the existing report centre.

It will be made easier for navigation between the existing and new reports, until then, usage of the new reports is provided at the earliest opportunity.

What’s new with the Aged Reports?

These reports are actually rebuilt from stratch to ensure that Xero can provide you with more comprehensive features. There are five reports, a summary and detailed report for each ledger – receivables and payables. A separate Expense Claim Detail report is also created.

But the real magic is in what Xero users be able to do using these reports. Check out each of the options available when you open up the report settings section.

Let’s have a closer look. Remember, while the first reports you see will be the aged reports, all of our new reports will have these sorts of  features available on them.

More data, and more ways to control it
One of the first things you’ll notice is the ability to control how how many ageing periods to include and whether to age monthly, weekly or daily. This is particular useful for industries where short payment terms are common, so if four ageing periods of a week is a better way to manage your suppliers – well your Xero reports just got a lot better!

Convenience dates
Most reports require you to select a date or date range. New reports will have a preconfigured set of convenience date settings for you to select from. They are clever too – if you save a template (see below) where the date is set to ‘End of Last Month’, the date automatically changes each month you run the report.

Columns – selecting, sorting and reordering
All new reports will have a selection of predefined columns for you to select from. Check the ones you want to appear on the report, press update and voilà!

Not only that but all columns are sortable (just click the header) and if you don’t like the order which they show in, you can drag the column header to where you want it to appear.

If you want to keep the selected columns and sort order next time you run the report, make sure to save a template.

Grouping
You can group data on these reports in many different ways, so for example if you want to group a collection of receivable invoices by their reference, you now can!

Saving drafts, publishing and templates
As with existing reports, all new reports can be saved as a draft and accessed at a later date from report centre. You can publish reports for a permanent record of a report and there is a new publishing screen which allows easy renaming of reports as well as controlling the appearance in pdf form.

A new option is to save a report as a template. Once you have a report which suits you, which could be the dates it runs for, the columns it shows or any of the other configurable elements, simply save as a template and next time you run the report it will use these settings. Unlike, drafts, saved templates change based on dynamic parameters like convenience dates.

What’s not available yet, but coming?
Xero is still working on a few things that will be added to the Aged and future reports over the next few months. These include,

Filtering options – to restrict the information displayed in a report, Xero will allow you to create filters. For example, you will be able to filter records by tracking or by invoice amount so you only see invoices of a certain value.

Saving templates by name – in today’s release, you can save one template and it will be the default each time that type of report is run. In the future, you will be able to save multiple templates, giving each a name, and these will appear in the report centre under the associated report. For example, you could create a template called “Aged Payables – weekly with contact details” or “Aged Payables – grouped by region”.

Favourites – you will be able to favourite both existing and new reports shortly
Footnotes – a new clearer way of footnoting information in a report is coming
Text sections – you will be able to add blocks of text to any report, similar to the summary blocks available currently, however you will be able to move these and have more control over the presentation of them on new reports.
 What reports are next in line?

Xero is currently working on a new Account Transaction report with the ability to report on multiple accounts at once. Xero is working on a pair of new depreciation reports and a completely redesigned Profit & Loss with an improved layout editor. The P&L has lots of great new features that will apply to all other account based reports (Balance Sheet, Movements in Equity and Trial Balance). Xero will save this for a future post, but to whet your appetite a little, it will include things like:

• Formulas – ability to create your own formula rows – for example EBITDA or Gross Profit %
  
• Header groups – you can create top level groups to get detailed breakdowns of accounts
  
• Improved layout editing – much simpler to use and with lots more options
  
• User set timeframes – be able to run the report for nonstandard periods such as after a change of settlement date
  
• This release is a foundation release, it establishes the platform which will support all new reports. Moving forward Xero can start to release reports much quicker than previously in the past so you can expect to see more and more reports showing up in the report centre this year. The end goal for this work is to release a new version of report packs which allows you to capitalise on all these new features in your templates.
  

Vend is a point-of-sale, inventory and customer loyalty software that makes it easy to set up, manage and grow your business. It's simple to set up, works with a wide range of point-of-sale devices, and operates on any web capable device with a browser. Vend also seamlessly integrates with other fantastic business apps such as Xero, Timely and Magento.

Launched in late 2010, Vend now has more than 10,000 active users in over 100 countries and is seeing continued rapid global growth right throughout 2014.

Astab is a certified Vend Advisor in Singapore. We are also certified parter for Xero, Unleashed, TradeGecko and Shopify. Our staff are able to provide Vend setup, training, support, conversion, hardware support and integration with Xero, Unleashed, TradeGecko and Shopify. As a leading accounting service provider, we are committed to provide accurate, timely and cost efficient services use Vend and our suites of cloud solutions. Being an advisor, our staff are certified yearly to ensure we are up to date with the newest development in Vend so as to provide the best POS solution for our clients using Vend.

You can now conduct your bank reconciliation on your Android phone and Xero will be further extending the features of the new apps in the near future at a must faster pace.

You can download the new app from the Google Play store right now.

With Purchase Orders you can:

• Create fully customisable purchase order documents
• Email these documents to your suppliers
• Easily generate bills by copying existing purchase orders
• Copy purchase orders to new purchase orders and even to new sales invoices for on-charging
• Follow an approval workflow in the same way you do for invoicing
• Manage and search your purchase orders from their own dashboard

Watch the video below to understand how the Purchase Order function can help you in your business process.

Today cloud accounting moves beyond transactions and reports to include files and documents as part of the full financial data picture. Welcome to Files in Xero.

Traditionally, the files you create and receive as part of your business have been stored away in filing cabinets, shoe boxes or in some hidden folder on your computer. While many of these are directly related to your business, it’s not always easy to locate them when needed. With all your business data in Xero, it no longer makes sense to store your financial data and files separately – and this will make collaborating with your advisors even easier.

Files lets you attach multiple documents to almost anything in Xero and have them right at your fingertips, exactly where you expect to find them. Files can be associated with invoices, transactions, expense receipts, fixed assets, contacts, chart of accounts, bank accounts and even manual journals.

Xero has had single file attachments on bills and receipts for a while – but that was really only the beginning.

How will Files change the way you work?

• What about attaching contractual documentation associated with one of your clients, loan documents for a bank account, or a picture of a fixed asset. Or even attach a photo of a client?
• Store company incorporation documents for easy access by your accountant or bookkeeper.
• If you’re a startup looking for funding or to be acquired, why not create a contracts register so you’re always ready for Due Diligence?
• Accountants with not-for-profits, how about encouraging them to upload their source financial documents for you to make the audit process more cost effective?
• Bookkeepers – win new clients by making Accounts Payable processing central to your service offering.
• If you’re a franchisor, ask franchisees to upload their full business reports each month so all performance information is available.

We knows you’ll find plenty of reasons to bring all your important business documents into Xero.

Xero will let you store 1GB to begin with – that’s about 20,000 typical Word docs and enough to keep the average small business going for many years. We’ll provide for increased storage in the future.

Behind the scenes we’ve worked with leading providers to deliver the same security, reliability and availability you’ve come to expect from Xero. Your files are fully encrypted and using geo-replication, are stored in multiple locations so you can rely on them being available when you need them – anywhere, at any time.

You can also look forward to being able to email files directly into your Files inbox – for example, you will be able to create a forwarding rule whenever any of your suppliers email you an invoice to have this automatically appear in your inbox from which you can quickly create a bill. We’ll be adding email support over the next few weeks.

Files is one of a growing list of features that make cloud accounting compelling. Like Bank Feeds, when you see Files you’ll wonder why it hasn’t always been this way. We think eventually all online accounting software will work like this. If you know people that are still working in a desktop disconnected fashion, show them Files.