Website Shop Instagram LinkedIn

Project Overview

Xero is the first cloud accounting software to introduce daily automated bank feeds, transforming the time-consuming bank reconciliation process into something users can finish within seconds. And now, Xero is first to bring this innovative practice to mobile.

Available for both Apple iOS and Android devices, Xero Touch allows users to check their balances, reconcile bank transactions, manage invoices, add expenses and access customer contact information.

By putting smart, well-designed tools into the hands of business owners, Xero enhances the client-accountant relationship and is the new way to manage your business on the go.

Organisation

Xero

Team

Product Manager Matt Vickers

Developers Terrence Wood Lynn Barneto Kyle Barrow

Head of Design Philip Fierlinger

Lead Designer Brock Abernethy

Head of QA Andy Leeb

Quality Assurance Cecile Diamante-Tupaz

Marketing Richard Phillips PJ Warren Sam Grover

Project Brief

What’s the first thing you do in the morning? If you’re anything like me, it’s pick up your phone from your nightstand, check email and social networks– all before getting out of bed.

When we first started Xero, we found that the number one thing that business owners did in the morning was go online to check their bank account – to see if they got paid. Xero Touch is the fastest way to not just check who paid you but to keep on top of your cash flow.
Our goal was to mobilise accounting and give small business owners the freedom to manage their business on the go. The following features were highlighted as priorities for business owners:

Bank accounts, credit cards and PayPal balances, outstanding invoices, expense claims and all contacts are the fundamentals for doing business on the run

Bank reconciliation- this feature finds possible transaction matches, suggests possible transaction categorisations, supports transfers and allows you to leave notes on those statement lines that you’re unsure about

Bank statement lines let users drill into the bank balance for transactional details
Create, approve and send invoices
Upload receipts by taking a photo, do expense claims on the spot to avoid losing receipts
Find contacts on a map, call customers and suppliers, and quickly save notes
Multi-currency support for foreign exchange transactions
Integration with payroll, CRM, inventory management systems, e-commerce and other popular apps
4-digit PIN code allows fast login

Project Need

One of our innovative features on the app that we’re most proud of is the ability to see all your bank statement data in one place. By having visibility of your businesses bank accounts, credit cards and other accounts (like Pay Pal), you maintain financial control of your data regardless of whether you are at home or the office.

Xero’s single ledger platform means that Xero Touch users are interacting directly with the cloud. Gone are the days of saving different versions of updated files, Xero Touch lets you work on your finances in real time, with the data always up to date in the cloud.

One of the most requested features from our users is to solve the problem of managing receipts when you’re on the move. Xero Touch offers the ability to upload receipts simply by taking a photo. It’s expenses made easy!

Xero Touch offers advanced multi-currency support, unparalleled among other competitive apps, which means that our partners can offer their clients the ability to pay in the currency that they prefer.

User Experience

Knowing that bank reconciliation is one of the first tasks a small business performs as part of daily administration, we made an effort to move this functionality front and centre. Our aim is to create a mobile application that negates the need to log in to the web application for daily tasks – and by adding bank reconciliation we’ve empowered our customers to complete one of the most commonly performed administration activities at the bus stop or the coffee shop.

With bank feeds arriving every morning, we’ve designed a touch friendly interface that allows you to categorise and sort these transactions with a minimum of fuss. By doing so, your books are up to date and when you log into the larger web application, you can jump straight into reports and charts for in-depth analysis.

This is paired with an emphasis on those things that matter most to a business owner when they’re mobile: who they’re meeting, what they’re owed and any expenses they incurred along the way. This razor-sharp focus has resulted in an application that isn’t saddled with extraneous features, but with those tools that are helpful when you’re out and about and nothing more.

Project Marketing

App stores have developed into an important software distribution channel, and we’ve shifted focus to make sure that the software we have in those stores is peerless. App store presence is marketing – and the products we’ve launched for both iOS and Android showcase some of the best features of the Xero platform.

This has been paired with marketing pages on our website which highlight the platforms that we support http://www.xero.com/nz/accounting-software/mobile/ and encourage users to download our applications. We also issued a global PR campaign on the launch of our Android application which saw the application reviewed in multiple international publications. Lastly, we also distributed the message across our main social channels- Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook and Google +.