Why operating online is the future for UK accountants

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New research conducted by Xero has found that our partners are growing revenue considerably faster than accountancy firms in the UK overall.

We recently released the UK Partner Benchmarking Survey, and of the 400 Xero UK accounting partners questioned, nearly all of them are growing revenue at around 12% a year — better than the UK average of 3%.

We surveyed firms ranging from sole practitioners to the very large (100 or more employees. The findings support what we’ve observed and heard anecdotally: that Xero is proving invaluable for these connected cloud practices.

The survey results provide the ability for firms to see how they’re faring as compared with others of similar size.

More clients on the cloud, more growth

We found that as firms build up their online client portfolio, they tend to experience more rapid revenue acceleration. Most of these firms hit their stride once they click over the 100 client milestone on Xero. Some of them have even grown their revenue 27% in the 12 months leading up to the survey versus the prior year.

These firms are also adding more clients — even small firms with two to four employees added more than four times as many clients as other similarly-sized practices.

These survey results show that Xero firms gain efficiencies, and with less effort are able to increase revenue.

The race to go all-in online

With all these obvious benefits, and less than a year to go until HRMC’s Making Tax Digital start date, the 18% of our partners who have almost all of their clients on Xero are well-positioned for what the future holds. But what does that mean for the other 82%? Are they going to be significantly behind?

Xero’s research found that while currently 31% of UK partners have at least 80% of their clients online, 56% are aiming to be in this category by December 2018. Our partners have ambitious goals to digitise their clients’ files, and we’re here to help.

It’s inspiring to see these key figures as it means that accountants and bookkeepers are really taking hold of the time-saving opportunities online financial management affords. They’re doing so not only to grow their clients’ businesses but their own.

To see how your firm stacks up, read the full UK Partner Benchmarking Report here.

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