This year alone, Xero already has held two successful conferences: One in Atlanta and now in Brisbane — much like its predecessor, this September’s Xerocon was no different, for it continuously showcased the magic that only Xero could pull out of its sleeve.
The pre-con, as well as Days 1 and 2 were filled with so much entertainment and surprises, as accountants and bookkeepers from all parts of the globe had experienced that magic once again! This year’s conference was deemed as one of the largest ever cloud accounting gathering in Australia, with over 3500 participants present at the event.
And as Xerocon comes to a close, we’ve prepared a list of all the major announcements and product unveilings that happened at Xerocon Brisbane 2018:
1. Files Required — This feature (in beta) was designed to help advisors in identifying as well as organizing client documents all in one place, thus avoiding the everyday hassles of chasing information.
2. Machine Learning on Invoices — Users don’t need to enter accounting codes as well as inventory items to their invoices anymore!
The concept of having this functionality through the use of machine learning had already been present during the past Xerocons in Atlanta and London — and now, this feature is set to make its debut on the invoicing module by the end of the year.
3. Email-to-Bills — This newly improved feature enables users to automatically populate purchase fields such as supplier, invoice date, invoice number, amount, reference and due date through the use of OCR (Optical Character Recognition).
Simply forward bills from any other business to your Xero billing address and it will automatically create a draft in Xero. All you have to do is enter the description and Save. This removes the need for doing manual data entry within bills, thus simplifying purchase workflow. Check out this article to learn more.
4. Xero Mobile — Upgrades were included for the Xero mobile app — from easier management of bills and invoices to intuitive displays of financial data in dashboard. Stay tuned to learn more of these exciting new features in their next release updates.
5. Xero Bank Feeds API — Also announced at Xerocon was the launch of a new bank feed API platform which will help banks and other financial institutions in connecting their bank feeds with Xero without the hassle and too much waiting time! Check out our blog to learn more.
6. Automated Bank Rules — Yes, you heard it right! Come the next 90 days and you’ll never have to click ok on those bank rules anymore 
7. Xero Projects (AU) — Users would now be able to share timesheet information within the payroll section of the platform.
8. Updates to Payroll — Aside from bulk import of employees, users would now be required to use two-step authentication for a more secure experience in using Xero Payroll starting September 11.
9. Lodging of Activity Statements (AU) — You would now be able to lodge your Business Activity Statements (BAS)with the ATO (Australian Taxation Office) directly from the accounting software through a new Submit BAS function. This new feature would hopefully change the game for taxpayers, as it reduces waiting time on lodging of returns from hours to just minutes! Visit this article to learn more.
Also, automated lodging of ETP (Employment Termination Payment) can now also be done in Xero.
10. STP in Action — Also mentioned during Xerocon was the Single Touch Payroll (STP) function which allows customers to remit payroll taxes with the ATO. The feature made its way to a selected number of customers last July 1, 2018, and would become available for all clients by December 31, 2018. Visit this website to learn more about Xero’s Single Touch Payroll feature.