How Xero Tax is making compliance a breeze (part 1)

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In this series, we interview Xero partners trialing Xero Tax. For part one, we have Bryan Stevens in the hot seat.

In November 2018, we announced our acquisition of Instafile (now Xero Tax), signaling a new approach to accounts preparation and tax in Xero.

Xero Tax automates the process of tax filing and financial reporting in the UK for Xero partners, connecting Xero directly to UK compliance bodies, including HMRC.

Bryan Stevens, Xero partner and founder of Interbiz Ltd, was one of the first to trial Xero Tax in the beta programme.

Below he outlines his experience using the product, his favourite features and how the tool has helped his practice become more efficient.

How did you end up here?

I’ve had an interesting journey as an accountant so far. It has involved everything from audit and advisory at KPMG, managing a provincial accountancy practice, being Finance Director of a food manufacturing business, and more recently founding my own practice Interbiz Ltd.

Interbiz Ltd offers entrepreneurs a closer working relationship in providing accounting, tax and business advisory services.

When did you first come across Xero Tax?

I first encountered Xero Tax while looking for compliance solutions for the new business. I’d used some of the big names in the past but, to run the new practice efficiently, I wanted to find a cost effective cloud-based product that could significantly simplify and speed-up the compliance process.

Why did it impress you?

What I immediately liked about Xero Tax is that it felt like Xero. Using the product is a very different experience to using some of the older incumbent tax and accounts production systems.

In particular, Xero Tax’s step-by-step joint accounts and tax production workflow is very intuitive. It parcels up the core compliance work in a way that’s easy to manage.

Which features stood out?

The fact that it starts by collecting all the statutory data from Companies House makes the job so much simpler for me. It saves me time and means that I’m not at risk of missing any changes.

The automatic XBRL tagging works so well that I can’t recall ever needing to make any manual adjustments and the fact that it works with any chart of accounts and without any mapping input from me is a great time-saver.

Tell us about your experience using the product?

The integration with Xero is excellent and provides me with simple ways to navigate and move data between the two products. They really do work seamlessly together.

It is not quite the case that you can’t tell where one begins and the other one ends – but it is very close to that.

Why did you join the beta programme?

You can see both the big and small innovations that make Xero Tax a great product and that’s why I’m excited to be on board from the start: I know the Xero Tax team fairly well now.

Support is rarely needed, but when it is they are super responsive. It’s great to be working with people who have a big vision and actively want input from their customers to help them innovate towards it.

At Interbiz, I endeavour to provide the best quality service to my clients so that they, in turn, can focus on providing the best quality products and services to their own clients. I think of it as ‘helping owner-managers make better businesses.’ It’s great to know that the Xero Tax team believe in the same kind of approach.

If you’re interested in joining the beta, and being the first to hear about our future development plans, you can register your interest by emailing UKTax@xero.com.

For further questions or support, please contact your Xero account manager. Look out for videos, resources and updates on our Xero Tax landing page. And if you’re not yet a Xero partner, sign up to the partner programme at xero.com/partners or email partnerteam@xero.com

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