Winstanley Kerridge: Our Xero Story, presented by Neil Sinclair (Director) at Xerocon Auckland 2014.
Xero is beautiful online accounting software that connects small businesses and their accountants together in the cloud.
2. • Who is Winstanley Kerridge?
• How we selected Xero
• Why we implemented Xero
• How we implemented – What NOT to do!!
• The Ugly Year – Xero Year One
• What does year 2 look like?
• What does our future look like?
Presentation Overview
9. Vision
Our strategy
To be the most successful professional firm of
Chartered Accountants and advisors providing
Marlborough with outstanding service levels of
business and financial support and advice.
Mission
We are Chartered Accountants dedicated to
providing the highest quality services to meet the
business and financial needs of our clients.
12. • Xmas 2010 $250k investment in new IT platform
• Network software changed to Windows Server 2008 R2
• AO started crashing every day
• Support response from MYOB did not meet our expectation
• 1st Xerocon in Taupo Feb 2011
• Had to move debtors off AO in March 2011 – moved our internal
accounts to Xero
• Instability and significant productivity loss Jan – Jun 2011 period
• Desire to test the Market – had been with MYOB for over 15 years
• Decided to use Request For Proposal (“RFP”) process
What forced the change
13. RFP process explained
Identify vendors
& link to strategy
Determine
functional
specifications
Prepare RFP
Issue RFP
to vendors
Score functional
specifications
& price
Reference
checking
Complete scoring
matrix
Run vendors
presentations
STEP ONE : Work out what you want
STEP TWO : Evaluate Responses
16. What does a functional specification look like?
RFP process explained
We identified 1968 “unique or critical” features in our Func Specs!
17. What does a
RFP look like?
RFP process explained
18. Three key objectives we identified
• Make us more efficient
• Allow us to provide better services to our clients
• Provide the directors with better quality internal information
!
Four vendors identified
• MYOB (AE)
• APS
• Acclipse (now CCH)
• Xero Modern Practice
!
Software evaluation process
19. Three key objectives we identified
• Make us more efficient
• Allow us to provide better services to our clients
• Provide the directors with better quality internal information
!
Four vendors identified
• MYOB (AE)
• APS
• Acclipse (now CCH)
• Xero Modern Practice
!
Software evaluation process
20. Three key objectives we identified
• Make us more efficient
• Allow us to provide better services to our clients
• Provide the directors with better quality internal information
!
Four vendors identified
• MYOB (AE)
• APS
• Acclipse (now CCH)
• Xero Modern Practice
!
Software evaluation process
21. • Some of our current processes are stale
• Some of our current processes are inefficient
• Inefficient processes often the result of software not being
used fully or not supporting that function
• We “over engineer” many compliance jobs
• A lack of integration means we end up processing the same
data more than once (eg tax pymts in tax WP and ICA WP)
• Therefore we spend a lot of time on the aspect of our work
that client does not necessarily value
• We needed to work smarter
What we think we found
30. Implementation
• Assemble project team
• Determine needs & write RFP
!
• Evaluation completed
• Board sign off and staff advised
!
• Training – Xero, WFM, Workpapers
• Plan / Implement / Conversion
!
• Went live!
• Xero Ledgers, WFM and WPs
Oct 11
!
!
Jan 12
!
!
March 12
!
!
April 12
31. Our lessons
• A full project and change management plan
• Don’t use a Director as Project Manager – hire a specialist
• Understand the full cultural impact of the change
• Don’t focus on IT
• Train the project team first
• Get staff buy in before you kick off the process
• Ensure training is of the highest quality
• Clean your data
33. Our challenges
• Partial take up still
• Tension between the teams
• Efficiencies not being realised
• Senior staff struggling with change in emphasis
• Clients still not getting the full benefits
39. Hindsight
• Probably waited a year – to get off the Bleeding Edge!
• Better project management
• Cultural change effort significantly higher
• But would we have gone with Xero…
40. Hindsight
• Probably waited a year – to get off the Bleeding Edge!
• Better project management
• Cultural change effort significantly higher
• But would we have gone with Xero…
S**T YES
41. The future
• Xero is a given (while they are market leaders)
• Transition - more move Full-Xero Clients
• Xero farming Q2/Q3 FY14
• Cloud DM Q2 FY14
• Xero Add Ons will become key to higher levels of service
• Business services will need to become broader – either
through lateral hires or relationships
• Collaboration via Networks