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Xero announces new features on bank recs, compliance, payments at Xerocon

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Diya Jolly, Xero’s chief product and technology officer, announced several new products and enhancements aimed at the three critical jobs CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy had previously outlined (see previous story). She spoke during Xero’s annual Xerocon event in Nashville today.

One was an enhanced bank feed experience that bolsters the core accounting functionality of the platform. Jolly noted that, over the past 18 months, Xero has increased the number of its direct feeds into US and Canadian banks from 20 to over 700 through partnerships with aggregators like Yodlee and Flinks, and plans for “hundreds more” in the future. These aggregators are important because it allows Xero to set up feeds even for banks that do not provide a direct connection. It also allows Xero to monitor bank feed statuses and notify the user if one becomes unavailable. Further, even if a bank doesn’t allow direct digital feeds at all, users can also upload PDFs of bank statements to Xero, which then extracts line item data that can then be re-imported into the system. 

Another was the new bank reconciliation feature that accounts for the unique nature of such tasks in the North American market. Jolly, in a later interview, noted that the “in other countries you get your bank feed, you get the transactions like your invoices and bills, and you reconcile them and you’re done.” Working in the North American market, though, requires a somewhat different approach because, generally, accountants need to reconcile everything through a specific bank statement, say from the 7th of one month to the 7th of the next month, which means some transactions wind up getting pushed out to another statement. 

“Now you can put a bound across the transactions. Sometimes what happens with your transaction dates is I might pay a bill on the 7th and the credit card statement says the 7th but in the bank statement it says the 12th. You need the ability to move transactions around and adjust them so whatever is on your bank statement [is accurate],” she said. 

The new feature allows accountants and bookkeepers to easily identify discrepancies between bank statements and entries in Xero. This will enable them to verify the accuracy of their financial data and categorize and balance transactions at the end of each month, helping to ensure their data is accurate. 

Xero will also have a new localized chart of accounts and reporting feature, optimized for business types (i.e C-Corp, S-Corp, LLC, etc.) which is intended to help users onboard with standardized accounts set up. Additionally, the company updated financial reports to meet the unique needs of the US market with an enhanced trial balance report that enables users to set custom date ranges. Users can set an opening and closing balance plus a date range and really drill down to adjust the data until everything balances.

Tax and compliance

Jolly also talked about enhanced sales tax and compliance features. For one, Xero has integrated W-9 requests and collection into contacts, which then allows users to track W-9 information throughout the year. This, in turn, can expedite 1099 preparation. 

“You can now request W-9s directly from the Xero contacts page and do it in bulk. We also revamped the workflow for completing W-9s, so now it is much easier for your clients’ vendors to be able to fill them and get them back to you faster. But that’s not all. In the pst, you had to manually exclude third party payments from your 1099s. But in the next few weeks, Xero will automatically filter out those payments so you can save time during the busy season,” she said. 

Further, through its partnership with Avalara, Xero has expanded state-based reporting to all invoicing users, which means businesses can automatically generate sales tax reports for each state and filing period. 

“We launched comprehensive sales tax reporting within Xero, auto-created and auto-populated with client data for each state and filing period, so now you have everything you need to calculate client sales tax and consolidate it and have it go in one place. We also built a new sales tax home page [to track everything like due dates in one place.] As you can see, we’re investing heavily in sales tax and reporting in the US,” she said. 

Jolly also discussed a new dashboard that will soon be available in Xero Practice Manager and Xero HQ which provides advisors with visibility into their clients’ key metrics and financial health. Currently in beta, this feature provides a snapshot of both metrics and trends for all business clients, “so you can not just see what needs to be done right now but also how your clients are tracking overall and what might be in store for them in the near future.” 

Payments

Jolly also elaborated on new features concerning payments, both making them and receiving them. When it comes to accounts payable, she said the intention is for users to conduct the entire process from within Xero. Through leveraging a strategic partnership with payments solutions provider Bill, Xero has developed an embedded bill pay solution that does just that. Users will be able to manage and approve their bills directly from within the platform using ACH transfer, credit or debit cards or even having a check mailed. This feature will be available to US users in beta starting next month. 

Xero has also added new capacities for accounts receivable as well. The goal, she said, is to equip users with customization tools that allow them to get professional invoices out the door. To this end, she said, they have developed a new site-by-site preview function that lets people customize invoices to fit their specific brand and see exactly how it will look to the customer. Users, further, will also be able to send invoices via text messages; once this happens, people will also see a new revamped checkout workflow that allows them to pay with the click of one single button. In partnership with Stripe, Xero is also enabling more new payment types including direct bank transfers and ‘buy now, pay later’ options, in addition to existing options for credit cards, debit cards, and digital wallets. 

Along similar lines, mobile users will also have the ability to “tap to pay.” There are many times where a client needs to accept payments in person or, at the very least, by getting out their laptop, often in their free time on nights or weekends, which means “you’re left chasing them so they can get paid.” Tap to Pay, however, allows clients to set up an invoice in the app and take a payment right then and there using their mobile phones. 

“I am really confident this will help you and your clients reduce the number of late payments they have,” she said. 

JAX

Jolly also talked about the company’s new generative AI assistant, Just Ask Xero or “JAX.” While she said Xero is “no stranger to AI” as “it powers a range of our products,” JAX uses generative AI to automate tasks and provide guidance through a plain language interface. 

“JAX is our smart AI business companion that will help you and your clients complete tasks whether here or in Xero… You and your clients can now Just Ask Xero and JAX will not only five an accurate answer, but provide follow up suggestions on what to do next, like addressing an overdue payment or paying a bill.

These features are only the beginning. Jolly said that JAX, over time, will be in more and more of the Xero platform where it might be able to do things like check for anomalies or find specific types of transactions. She acknowledged, though, some of the concerns people have about AI and noted that Xero takes them seriously. 

“This is the future we’re working towards. And with this great opportunity there is also great responsibility. We will adhere to our responsible data use commitments [for privacy]. JAX will [also] feature JAX Assure that gives you precise accounting data and only the data you are allowed to access within Xero, making it more accurate than other generative AI models,” she said. 

Accounting Today plans to publish a more in-depth look at this new tool tomorrow, based on our one-on-one talk with Jolly. 

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IAASB tweaks standards on working with outside experts

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The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board is proposing to tailor some of its standards to align with recent additions to the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants’ International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants when it comes to using the work of an external expert.

The proposed narrow-scope amendments involve minor changes to several IAASB standards:

  • ISA 620, Using the Work of an Auditor’s Expert;
  • ISRE 2400 (Revised), Engagements to Review Historical Financial Statements;
  • ISAE 3000 (Revised), Assurance Engagements Other than Audits or Reviews of Historical Financial Information;
  • ISRS 4400 (Revised), Agreed-upon Procedures Engagements.

The IAASB is asking for comments via a digital response template that can be found on the IAASB website by July 24, 2025.

In December 2023, the IESBA approved an exposure draft for proposed revisions to the IESBA’s Code of Ethics related to using the work of an external expert. The proposals included three new sections to the Code of Ethics, including provisions for professional accountants in public practice; professional accountants in business and sustainability assurance practitioners. The IESBA approved the provisions on using the work of an external expert at its December 2024 meeting, establishing an ethical framework to guide accountants and sustainability assurance practitioners in evaluating whether an external expert has the necessary competence, capabilities and objectivity to use their work, as well as provisions on applying the Ethics Code’s conceptual framework when using the work of an outside expert.  

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Tariffs will hit low-income Americans harder than richest, report says

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President Donald Trump’s tariffs would effectively cause a tax increase for low-income families that is more than three times higher than what wealthier Americans would pay, according to an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The report from the progressive think tank outlined the outcomes for Americans of all backgrounds if the tariffs currently in effect remain in place next year. Those making $28,600 or less would have to spend 6.2% more of their income due to higher prices, while the richest Americans with income of at least $914,900 are expected to spend 1.7% more. Middle-income families making between $55,100 and $94,100 would pay 5% more of their earnings. 

Trump has imposed the steepest U.S. duties in more than a century, including a 145% tariff on many products from China, a 25% rate on most imports from Canada and Mexico, duties on some sectors such as steel and aluminum and a baseline 10% tariff on the rest of the country’s trading partners. He suspended higher, customized tariffs on most countries for 90 days.

Economists have warned that costs from tariff increases would ultimately be passed on to U.S. consumers. And while prices will rise for everyone, lower-income families are expected to lose a larger portion of their budgets because they tend to spend more of their earnings on goods, including food and other necessities, compared to wealthier individuals.

Food prices could rise by 2.6% in the short run due to tariffs, according to an estimate from the Yale Budget Lab. Among all goods impacted, consumers are expected to face the steepest price hikes for clothing at 64%, the report showed. 

The Yale Budget Lab projected that the tariffs would result in a loss of $4,700 a year on average for American households.

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At Schellman, AI reshapes a firm’s staffing needs

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Artificial intelligence is just getting started in the accounting world, but it is already helping firms like technology specialist Schellman do more things with fewer people, allowing the firm to scale back hiring and reduce headcount in certain areas through natural attrition. 

Schellman CEO Avani Desai said there have definitely been some shifts in headcount at the Top 100 Firm, though she stressed it was nothing dramatic, as it mostly reflects natural attrition combined with being more selective with hiring. She said the firm has already made an internal decision to not reduce headcount in force, as that just indicates they didn’t hire properly the first time. 

“It hasn’t been about reducing roles but evolving how we do work, so there wasn’t one specific date where we ‘started’ the reduction. It’s been more case by case. We’ve held back on refilling certain roles when we saw opportunities to streamline, especially with the use of new technologies like AI,” she said. 

One area where the firm has found such opportunities has been in the testing of certain cybersecurity controls, particularly within the SOC framework. The firm examined all the controls it tests on the service side and asked which ones require human judgment or deep expertise. The answer was a lot of them. But for the ones that don’t, AI algorithms have been able to significantly lighten the load. 

“[If] we don’t refill a role, it’s because the need actually has changed, or the process has improved so significantly [that] the workload is lighter or shared across the smarter system. So that’s what’s happening,” said Desai. 

Outside of client services like SOC control testing and reporting, the firm has found efficiencies in administrative functions as well as certain internal operational processes. On the latter point, Desai noted that Schellman’s engineers, including the chief information officer, have been using AI to help develop code, which means they’re not relying as much on outside expertise on the internal service delivery side of things. There are still people in the development process, but their roles are changing: They’re writing less code, and doing more reviewing of code before it gets pushed into production, saving time and creating efficiencies. 

“The best way for me to say this is, to us, this has been intentional. We paused hiring in a few areas where we saw overlaps, where technology was really working,” said Desai.

However, even in an age awash with AI, Schellman acknowledges there are certain jobs that need a human, at least for now. For example, the firm does assessments for the FedRAMP program, which is needed for cloud service providers to contract with certain government agencies. These assessments, even in the most stable of times, can be long and complex engagements, to say nothing of the less predictable nature of the current government. As such, it does not make as much sense to reduce human staff in this area. 

“The way it is right now for us to do FedRAMP engagements, it’s a very manual process. There’s a lot of back and forth between us and a third party, the government, and we don’t see a lot of overall application or technology help… We’re in the federal space and you can imagine, [with] what’s going on right now, there’s a big changing market condition for clients and their pricing pressure,” said Desai. 

As Schellman reduces staff levels in some places, it is increasing them in others. Desai said the firm is actively hiring in certain areas. In particular, it’s adding staff in technical cybersecurity (e.g., penetration testers), the aforementioned FedRAMP engagements, AI assessment (in line with recently becoming an ISO 42001 certification body) and in some client-facing roles like marketing and sales. 

“So, to me, this isn’t about doing more with less … It’s about doing more of the right things with the right people,” said Desai. 

While these moves have resulted in savings, she said that was never really the point, so whatever the firm has saved from staffing efficiencies it has reinvested in its tech stack to build its service line further. When asked for an example, she said the firm would like to focus more on penetration testing by building a SaaS tool for it. While Schellman has a proof of concept developed, she noted it would take a lot of money and time to deploy a full solution — both of which the firm now has more of because of its efficiency moves. 

“What is the ‘why’ behind these decisions? The ‘why’ for us isn’t what I think you traditionally see, which is ‘We need to get profitability high. We need to have less people do more things.’ That’s not what it is like,” said Desai. “I want to be able to focus on quality. And the only way I think I can focus on quality is if my people are not focusing on things that don’t matter … I feel like I’m in a much better place because the smart people that I’ve hired are working on the riskiest and most complicated things.”

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