At its Xerocon Atlanta event this week, online accounting software specialist Xero announced the first wave of new features designed to automate many basic daily business tasks. Calling the new solutions, Connected Accounting, VP of Products and Partnerships for Xero Americas Herman Man added that in addition to automatically categorizing accounting data, Connected Accounting gives businesses insights that can help them better understand their finances.

“With the features introduced at Xerocon Atlanta today, we’re delivering connected accounting so accountants and bookkeepers can help their clients ask the big questions, on cash flow, profit, and revenue,” Man said. “It is these kinds of capabilities working seamlessly together that enables small businesses to pursue their passion, be successful and do beautiful business.”

Initially, Connected Accounting will enable Xero’s platform to capture and automatically populate data from PDF bills to make bank reconciliation simpler. Xero Projects, a job tracking solution for small business now available to Xero’s U.S. customers, is now connected to the platform in a way that allows businesses to combine contact, invoicing, billing, and reporting information with the rich data existing on the platform. The Projects app has also been improved, making it easier for workers to track project work on the go and giving business owners more control over access permissions.

Xero also announced coming enhancements to its query solution Ask and a to-be released solution for Xero HQ, Relationships, that will make it easier for businesses to maintain contacts and sync data across the Xero platform.

In addition to product announcements, Xero also shared news of a new partnership with Citibank. Via the agreement, joint Citibank-Xero customers will get access to direct bank feeds from within the Xero platform. This will give businesses real-time visibility of their finances, including cash flow and overall business performance. The deal with Citibank builds on the relationships with FIs that Xero has forged in 2018 alone, including deals with the National Bank of Australia in February, and the Development Bank of Singapore in January.

Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand, Xero demonstrated the Business Identification feature of its online accounting platform at FinovateSpring 2011. Earlier this month, the company announced its Canadian launch, partnering with Deloitte Private’s financial collaboration platform ctrl by Deloitte. In February, Xero teamed up with IT management solutions provider Kaseya, providing direct integration between the company’s business management solution, BMS by Kaseya, and Xero’s platform.

Xero is publicly-traded on the Australian stock exchange under the ticker “XRO” and has a market capitalization of $5 billion. Rod Drury is CEO.

Cloud-based accounting platform for small businesses Xero has signed a deal with IT management solutions provider, Kaseya, that will provide direct integration between BMS by Kaseya and Xero. Kaseya’s business management solution supports the back-end operations of managed service providers (MSPs) and mid-market enterprises (MME); the integration will ensure synchronized financial and operational data between both Xero and Kaseya’s platform.

General Manager for Cloud Computing at Kaseya Jim Lippie said, “As the industry’s only next generation PSA (professional services automation), BMS empowers our customers to be more profitable and operationally efficient through easy to access data capture and analysis.” He added that it was critical for PSAs to stay innovative in order to avoid what he called “the problems inherent in first-generation PSA solutions,” and pointed to Kaseya’s new relationship with Xero.

“Our latest partnership with Xero provides an added layer of financial intelligence that can be leveraged within BMS’ single pane of glass,” Lippie said. “This powerful integration saves our MSPs countless hours of admin and back office time.” Specifically, MSPs will be able to see client information such as invoice history, payment status, credit status, and products and services purchased in one location. Accounting departments benefit from seamless synchronization of operational data such as tickets and time tracking.

This week’s partnership news is accompanied by an announcement that Xero has opened its “newest and largest global office” in Wellington, New Zealand. The new HQ now supports more than 650 Xero staffers who were previously working in three separate locations around the city.

Founded in 2006, Xero demonstrated the Business Identification feature of its cloud-based accounting platform at FinovateSpring 2011. The company also participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014, presenting “Building an API-Driven Ecosystem for Small Business.”

The partnership with Kaseya is Xero’s second of 2018. The company announced an agreement with DBS (the Development Bank of Singapore) in January, which will give the bank’s small business customers the ability to have their transactions automatically imported to their Xero accounts. Last fall, Xero was named to KPMG/H2 Ventures’ Fintech 100, and teamed up with Worldpay to simplify invoicing for small businesses.

With more than 1 million subscribers, Xero’s technology integrates with more than 600 business apps. The publicly-traded company has a market capitalization of $3.4 billion ($4.7 billion NZD) and is currently trading on both the New Zealand and Australian stock exchanges under the ticker symbol “XRO.”  Xero is planning to transition to a sole listing on the Australian exchange later this year.