Small business platform Xero has announced collaborations with global software company Stripe and professional services network PwC. Xero’s partnership with Stripe will see the development of new tools that help small businesses and their accountants get paid faster and invoice customers more efficiently. The collaboration with PwC enables local PwC firms around the world to offer their clients access to the Xero platform, building on established relationships in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Anna Curzon, Xero’s Chief Product Officer said: “Internationally, less than 20% of small businesses use cloud accounting technologies. Australia and New Zealand are much further advanced in this area, there is a huge opportunity to bring the benefits of real-time tools to businesses and advisors around the world. This alliance means Xero and PwC can work together to help small businesses increase productivity and provide them valuable time back in their day.”

Using Xero Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), PwC will work with Xero to continue to develop products and services for small businesses. Xero and PwC already have a track record of designing and building solutions such as PwC’s Cashflow Coach.

Scott McLiver, Global Digital Innovation leader for Entrepreneurial & Private Business, PwC New Zealand, said: “Business owners are increasingly embracing the cloud for their key business systems. The access to business data that Xero provides allows PwC to build products that solve key business problems.”

The partnership with Stripe, announced at Xerocon San Diego 2019, aims to enable new payments experiences that are more seamless and efficient for small business owners and their advisors around the world.  The first two innovations that are being developed under the new partnership include:

  • A new Stripe feed, designed to bring comprehensive transaction data for all Stripe payments into Xero for easy reconciliation and greater insights, whether a small business invoices from the Xero platform or an ecommerce site, and
  • Auto pay, allowing small businesses to set up and receive recurring payments for repeat billing customers directly through Xero

 “Small businesses are fundamental to the growth of major and developing economies around the world; and that ensuring they get paid on time is vital to their survival and growth,” said Craig Walker, Founding CTO & Executive General Manager Platform Business Technologies at Xero.

With the new Stripe feed, the small business user will see all transactional data processed through Stripe — whether an online invoice from Xero or an e-commerce platform such as Shopify — this includes automatically seeing all payment transaction data, processing charges, flow into Xero as individual items.

“At Stripe, we build payments infrastructure that enables new kinds of businesses to start, run, and scale,” said Jeanne DeWitt, Head of Revenue and Growth for North America at Stripe.

Auto-pay will be available soon to businesses in the United States before rolling out globally. While small businesses can already schedule and automatically send recurring invoices from Xero, the new auto pay feature means they can now be paid automatically by their own customers as well.

 Professional services and other business-focused firms will particularly benefit from the ability to set-and-forget regular billing cycles with customers who opt in, resulting in receipt of regular payments without worrying about forgotten bills or invoices.