Clarity: Helping to make business clearer

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Xero’s app marketplace has over 800 apps which help small businesses and their advisors reach their goals. Each month we celebrate an app partner who stands out for helping small businesses thrive. Find out more about Xero’s app partner program here.

Introducing Clarity, our November app partner of the month

Clarity is a global, cloud-based platform that provides accountants with the tools to make the numbers clearer for small businesses. Advisors can also create step-by-step action plans and help their clients access cash and funding they need to grow and exit.

Clarity to make business simpler

“We have built the Clarity platform to help small business owners have a clear understanding of their numbers and how to make them better,” says co-founder Aynsley Damery. “Through the use of our structured online data room, small businesses can use the information to help them apply for funding and investment to grow and scale profitably.”

Aynsley and co-founder Steven Briginshaw met at the 2017 B1G1 conference in Birmingham. They discussed what they were doing next and the current situation in the accounting profession and the small business world.

They both shared a passion for empowering entrepreneurs to help change the world.They knew their respective accounting and advisory firms had made a dent in helping small businesses become more successful. However, they wanted to help small business owners and accounting firms globally. It was this shared passion, vision and belief in their ability that convinced them to go into business together.

“We’ve each worked with hundreds of businesses from all over the world for more than 19 years and knew that small businesses don’t get the help they need to survive, let alone thrive,” says Steven. “We understand what small business owners look for from both technology and an advisor. Clarity provides accountants, advisors and bookkeepers with the tools to help small business owners drive success and growth.”

Clarity and Xero help small businesses:

Understand and improve their numbers,
Have a clear plan to build their ideal business, and
Make accessing cash to grow or exit their business easier.

Accountants and bookkeepers can:

Introduce and/or scale their business advisory services
Generate new revenue and creating a funnel for bigger ticket advisory work, and
Empower their whole team to deliver business advisory.

Superpowering accountants

“Accountants have a superpower to understand and explain numbers. Numbers are the language of business so by default accountants are best placed to advise small business owners on how to become more successful,” says Aynsley.

Clarity has been built in a numbers-led and systematic way to help accountants play to their strengths, and in a way that is comfortable for them. This not only empowers them to help their clients thrive, it also builds their confidence.

A basic knowledge of the difference between profit and cash can go a long way for a growing start-up. This is where Clarity steps in – enabling accountants to translate the numbers and empowering them to help their clients make informed decisions for the business.

The power of the global platform

To help accountants start the conversation with their clients, the Clarity platform helps small business owner understand:

Revenue growth
Gross profit percentage
Operating profit percentage
Business return
Revenue per employee,
Core cash target
Cash days

Accountants can highlight the business potential by showing how small adjustments in the numbers can improve profit and cash. This leads to more collaboration and valuable conversations between themselves and their clients to drive their business forward.

“For accountants, we’re solving the problem of introducing and/or scaling business advisory in firms. Clarity helps cascade advisory down to the frontline troops, enabling the whole team to have advisory conversations with confidence. We want to make business advisory accessible to all small businesses through their trusted advisors worldwide,” says Aynsley.

A partnership in the cloud

Clarity was launched at AccountEx London on 1 May 2019, officially joined the Xero app marketplace in July 2019, and will be exhibiting at Xerocon London 2019.

“Xero is one of the most popular online accounting platforms in the world and the support Xero offers is amazing. The experience is seamless making advising clients as simple as possible. Living up to our mantra of making business simple,” says Aynsley.

The team attended their first official Xerocon as an app partner in Brisbane this year. “Xerocon Brisbane was brilliant to establish ourselves on that side of the world. The ANZ Xeros are well versed in accounting tech and heavily engaged in the advisory shift.”

The Clarity platform translates to any currency and has partner programmes relating to all jurisdictions worldwide. Since its launch six months ago, the app has attained Xero community members from the UK, Ireland, Canada, USA, South Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand.

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