Better bookkeeping thanks to a Xero health check

We recently met with a client who was falling behind on their bookkeeping and a number of compliance tasks (bank reporting, ATO lodgements, plus others!). Not only were they facing serious consequences from a regulatory perspective, but they were becoming increasingly overwhelmed with the bookkeeping task ahead of them. We worked with the client and their external bookkeeper to conduct a broad review of their online cloud accounting system, Xero, and implemented a number of solutions to get over 300 transactions reconciled accurately, implementing automations and rules to eliminate the administrative burden moving forward.

The details:

Project Name: Xero Health Check

Now: Faced with a growing number of unreconciled financial transactions and falling behind on their compliance requirements (lodgements and reporting), our client approached us to assist with implementing better bookkeeping practices and support their external bookkeeper in getting the business accounts up to date. As an external contractor, the bookkeeper only had limited time and capacity - and the client’s outstanding history, over 8 months of actions and more than 300 unreconciled transactions, was causing a roadblock to getting things up to date. While the client did have an existing Xero file, it was not being used to it’s full potential, and the heavy reliance on paper systems & receipts had created an administrative headache that was getting out of control.

Where: The client knew their priority was on getting their existing accounting file up to date and all outstanding compliance actions dealt with, but knowing their bookkeepers capacity was limited they were also looking for support in reducing the administrative and time burden of the bookkeeping going forward. They also wanted to ensure their internal finance processes were documented and implement real-time reporting features to help keep them on track and provided much needed visibility.

How: We got in the trenches to help get our client up to speed and learn more about how they were currently working in order to identify a number of process improvements. We conducted an initial session with the client onsite to understand the current pains/frustrations. In this session, we visually mapped out how the process could look for the different aspects of their finance function - accounts payable processing in particular.

Following this session, we performed a Xero health check review, taking a look at how the file had been configured, how it was being used and identify gaps/areas for improvement.

We then conducted a project investigation session where we spoke about where the business is now (how tasks are completed, workflows handled, findings from Xero health check) and made recommendations as to how things could look moving forward, agreeing on solutions and prioritising those with the client.

Once the outstanding accounting transactions had been cleaned up and a number of automations and bank rules implemented to leverage the functionality of their cloud accounting platform, we supported the client with onsite training sessions to upskill them in their newly documented processes and technology solutions.

Following the training sessions, we supplied the client with a number of resources and guides to follow to help them get the remaining transactions up to date, putting them in the drivers seat to consolidate their new-found knowledge and test drive their newly documented processes.