QuickBooks-Blog

Fill Xero Gaps

The best QuickBooks add-ons use limited proprietary access methods, subject to increasingly higher charges. QuickBooks long ago stopped all development on its free, limited and buggy access methods. I also have long heard that Intuit was planning to drop one or more of its free access methods.

The fastest and easiest way to fill Xero gaps is as good as the best way to fill gaps in any accounting program. It certainly is much better and less expensive than the best way to do so in QuickBooks.

Xero has long had a free industry-standard "RESTful" web interface. It not only does not charge for this, but it gives developers substantial free help. This is helping to fill Xero gaps quickly. Over the last year, the Xero Add-on Partner program has more than doubled. Over 90 certified solutions now integrate directly with Xero. They are from all over the world, from startups to large corporations:

Most big-picture stuff is complete, with regional representation across a range of categories. However, many small business customers do not have integration between Xero and key applications they use or need to run their business. Many software developers have not yet woken up to the fast pace of change that now dictates the industry. However, their customers have. The result is there are gaps in niche areas like:

• Childcare: childcare management systems
• Education: student management systems – regional specialists: NZ, Australia, UK & US
• Farming: farm management software
• Tourism: reservation and property management systems

These gaps mean opportunity for the right people. Whether you are an established player, or are just working on your first version, our global customer base is creating a market for industry applications that work seamlessly with Xero. You can tap into that market if you move fast.

If you want help with Xero Add-on Partner opportunities, to fill Xero gaps, Xero would love to hear from you. Please get in touch. Xero has customers waiting for you.

 

Fantastic Small Business Accounting Reports, Daily, Weekly or Monthly

We can now give you any combination of fantastic small business accounting reports. We can give you these fantastic small business accounting reports daily, weekly or monthly. We can even give you these reports whenever you want them, in text or graphic form.

You can run these reports yourself or have any or all of them sent to you very soon after you request them. All the reports will contain completely updated data. That means they will include every transaction your bank, credit card and other financial institutions had last night, or at other dates you wish.

We can do this with the new custom Report Fields in Xero. These fields let us insert placeholders that Xero automatically replaces with data, when it runs reports. This is like a mail merge. This means we (or you) can now create your own fields, which Xero populates with the current data you want, when it runs your reports. It also lets us include (or exclude) our CPA practice fields, such as our 24/7 firm contact information. Nothing like these fantastic daily, weekly or monthly small business accounting reports has ever been available to small business owners before.

You can now get an extended free trial of the very inexpensive Xero and these automatic small business accounting reports. You can get this without a credit card and without learning anything about Xero or accounting.

Continuous Computer Monitoring, Discounted QuickBooks, Xero and Computer Support

Would you like continuous computer monitoring and discounted QuickBooks, Xero and computer support?

Would you like this continuous computer monitoring and discounted QuickBooks, Xero and computer support for $9.95 a month?

Many clients have been getting this continuous computer monitoring, with discounted QuickBooks, Xero and computer support, for a long time. This is all we charge for the GFI Software program that recently won the 2012 network buyers "Product of the Year" award. It includes the cost of monitoring the many instant email alerts (to clients, to my very long-time computer experts and to us) from this very low-overhead program. This often lets us fix problems before you know you have them. It also lets us provide GoToMyPC or Logmein type-support, without making you log in each time you need help.

I am writing this because I just heard that my computer experts charge half their regular rates (and avoid travel time charges) by using GFI. We can do even better, if you contact our very inexpensive CPAs and bookkeepers, 24/7.

QuickBooks Online: I would rather spend an hour at the dentist; Xero

I recently added a comment, QuickBooks Online: I would rather spend an hour at the dentist; Xero to a Quickbooks or Sithbooks ZDNet blog post. I agreed with a reader comment on QuickBooks Online weakness, compared to QuickBooks desktop.

I said:

QuickBooks desktop IS far better than QuickBooks Online, but both are very outdated. Why import entries from each bank and credit card separately, while we wait? Why manually enter them? The online Xero, Zoho Books and others automatically load AND CLASSIFY all entries nightly, from up to 12,000 banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions. They use read-only encrypted feeds from Yodlee, which are completely safe. More than half of the 300 largest banks use Yodlee, to give 35 million customers balances. For 28 years I was a QuickBooks and Quicken star. Now I am #2 for Xero in the U.S. (List View), @ $12/month.

I did not mention that this $12 Xero price was only available from Xero Partners like me. I also did not mention that we offer:

• Extended free trials
• 20% discounts on expanded Xero packages (which few need)
• Terrific automated payroll, for as little as $12 a month
• Very inexpensive CPA assistance

We do this despite my best QuickBooks CPA background. 

 

Twitter Message Privacy, Facebook Message Privacy

There is no Twitter message privacy. This probably means there is no Facebook message privavcy or message privacy on other services. This is a from a ruling by New York State Criminal Court Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr., specifically about Twitter message privacy. 

 The widely believed (though mistaken) notion that any disclosure of a user's information would first be requested from the user and require approval by the user is understandable, but wrong. While the Fourth Amendment provides protection for our physical homes, we do not have a physical "home" on the Internet. What an Internet user simply has is a network account consisting of a block of computer storage that is owned by a network service provider. As a user, we may think that storage space to be like a "virtual home," and with that strong privacy protection similar to our physical homes. However, that "home" is a block of ones and zeroes stored somewhere on someone's computer. As a consequence, some of our most private information is sent to third parties and held far away on remote network servers. A Twitter user may think that the same "home" principle may be applied to their Twitter account. When in reality the user is sending information to the third party, Twitter. At the same time the user is also granting a license for Twitter to distribute that information to anyone, any way and for any reason it chooses.

This post on Twitter message privacy came to me from Greg Kirkpatrick, a very good Microsoft Small Business Specialist at greg@ComputerMagic.CC (561-212-6094). Greg is a South Florida computer professional in flait@googlegroups.com. This message board, and our monthly meetings, are very worthwhile. I especially like Greg's email footer,

"Like other states, Florida has a tax on stupid people. 

It's called "The Lottery".