The Receipt Bank Blog

That’s it – Xerocon is officially over for another year! And among the many exciting announcements, including a few of our own, there was one clear message: be more human. That’s because this year’s Xerocon was all about finding ways to use new tools to be a more attentive, more effective advisor to your clients.

NO APPS FOR APPS’ SAKE

In the ‘What’s your client app stack?’ breakout session, our partner Sharon Pocock, of Kinder Pocock, stressed the importance of getting to know apps inside out before recommending them to a client. That way, you can ensure that your client will both have a better experience of the app, and feel confident in asking you for support.

The panel agreed that whatever your journey to buying an app, all apps should be chosen on the basis of your clients’ needs. As Jonathan Fox, of College Road Consulting, said, “Help your clients first and they will love you for it.”

THE BIG REVEAL

Ok we’re a bit biased, but our favourite breakout session was our talk, Driving Value With Data: How To Crack the Bookkeeping Circle, hosted by our Director, Alexis Prenn, and our Customer Experience Manager, Steven Lucas.

Alexis discussed the concept of the bookkeeping circle: a circle which revolves between getting data and adding value to that data. As the ‘getting data’ stage of this cycle gets easier and faster with automated processes and AI technology, so the ‘adding value’ stage becomes more significant.

Steve then took over the reigns to chat about our new exciting new features, including:

• Sales Invoice Extraction, which comes after much demand from a number of our partners.
• Fetch, which syncs with your clients suppliers and fetches invoices automatically.
• Sweep, which identifies receipts and invoices in your email inbox and automatically posts them to Receipt Bank.

It’s safe to say everyone was pretty excited. We’ve got so many more great features coming soon, so watch this space!

It was also a great honour to be announced as a launch partner of Xero HQ, which was officially introduced at Xerocon this year. For more on this exciting partnership, check out the blog post.

AND THE WINNER IS…

Of course Xerocon wouldn’t be Xerocon without the awards ceremony, and this year every single winner in the accounting and bookkeeping categories was one of our partners!

A huge congratulations is in order for:

• Taylorcocks – Emerging Partner of the Year
• Ken Bell Accounting – Bookkeeping Partner of the Year
• Alex Falcon Huerta of Soaring Falcon – Xero MVP Award
• Beyond Accounting – Accounting Partner of the Year Ireland
• Aucamp Scholtz Lubbe – Accounting Partner of the Year South Africa
• Armstrong Watson – Accounting Partner of the Year UK

We couldn’t be prouder that the best in field are all Receipt Bank partners!

IN A SENTENCE

Our favourite part of any event is chatting to our partners and getting to know them a bit better. As we caught up with our partners, we asked them to sum up Xerocon 2017 in a sentence.

“You appreciate how connected we all are,” said Stuart Hurst of UHY Manchester, “and how important this co-operative ecosystem is for our clients.”

“It’s inspirational to see the community grow year on year,” added Alastair Towler of Plummer Parsons.

“So much to learn, so little time to implement it,” laughed Jason Taylor of TRNZact. Lauren Taylor, also of TRNZact, added with a smile, “Information overload but makes for exciting times ahead.”

“This year it’s bigger and better,” said Chris Cheeney of CDC Accounting, “there are better connections with all the app vendors. It inspires you to keep improving the client experience.”

“Utterly amazing and fully immersive,” giggled Frankie Sunderlands of The Wow Company when she stopped by the stand.

Lauren Harvey, of Full Stop Accounts, summed it up perfectly: “It’s not just about the tech, it’s about the people as well.”

KEYNOTE HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD

The keynote speech by Tim Leberecht perfectly encapsulated the message of this year’s Xerocon: running a beautiful business in the age of machines. His engrossing speech covered the ways in which we can try to be more human in running our businesses, especially as machines take charge of the menial processes.

He highlighted a study by Forrester which found that emotion is the number one factor in determining customer loyalty and advocacy. That’s why it’s so important to go beyond the minimum, since tasks that might at first seem unnecessary could go a long way towards creating truly personal relationships with your clients.

All in all, it was a hugely enjoyable Xerocon and we learnt so much from all the speeches we attended, all the brilliant people we spoke to and all the app vendors who came up to chat tech. But if you need us for the next few days, we’ll be hitting the snooze button…