Cloud accounting firm Xero announced a champion move for small businesses today that will not only help businesses get paid faster, but also give them more options on how they get paid.
“Small businesses are fundamental to the growth of major and developing economies around the world; ensuring that they get paid on time is vital to their survival and growth,” said Craig Walker, Founding CTO and Executive General Manager Platform Business Technologies at Xero. “We built the Xero platform to help small businesses grow with better tools, smarter insights and comprehensive connections to the information they need to run their business. Our partnership with Stripe today brings us even closer to helping small businesses spend less time chasing payments, and more time focusing on doing what they love.”
The two are working on solutions to make client invoicing more efficient and to offer more insight into business performance. The first two tools being launched under the partnership are the Stripe Feed and Auto Pay.
The new data feed from Stripe makes it easy for businesses to receive transaction data on sales and invoices in the Xero platform. Prior to today’s integration, Xero facilitated Stripe reconciliation for credit card payments processed through Stripe. The partnership will automatically integrate every payment processed through Stripe, from online invoices to Shopify purchases and processing charges, as individual line items in Xero.
Xero will use machine learning to automatically reconcile transactions. The company said that the new Stripe Feed will be available “in the next few months.”
With Auto Pay, businesses can set up and receive recurring payments for repeat billing customers in Xero. This will come in handy for a multitude of businesses, as Xero reports that more than 1.6 million repeating invoices are paid in Xero month-over-month. This feature will soon be available to customers in the U.S. and eventually roll out across the globe.
The companies have found that small businesses using Stripe payments in Xero invoices, when compared to those without a payment gateway, are already paid up to 15 days faster globally, and up to 16 days faster in North America.
Xero offers its 1.8 million subscribers access to an ecosystem of 700+ third party apps and 200+ bank connections. The company most recently presented at FinDEVr San Francisco 2014 when the company’s Head of U.S. Partnerships David Pollock spoke about building an API-driven ecosystem for small businesses. At FinovateSpring 2011, CEO Rod Drury debuted the company’s Business Identification solution.
Founded in 2006, Xero listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) in 2007 and the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in 2012. In January of 2018, the company consolidated to list solely on the ASX and now boasts a market capitalization of $5.9 billion ($8.6 billion AUD). Xero has raised more than $319 million (NZ$470 million) in funding, including $1.4 million pre-IPO; $10.2 million at its IPO; and follow-on rounds from investors including Peter Thiel, Matrix Capital Management, and Accel Partners.
