All Aussie Accounting Adventures - Tech Edition
All Aussie Accounting Adventures - Tech Edition
Deep Dive: Xero for Groups
Are multi-entity businesses outgrowing Xero, or is there still untapped potential in this small-biz favourite? In this episode, we dive into the complexities of managing multiple entities on Xero, from restaurant chains to pharmacy networks and so much more. Amy and Ajack explore how firms can keep clients engaged with strategic support that prevents the potential shift to in-house teams.
Sure, juggling multiple Xero files comes with its headaches—user permissions, code consistency, and those pesky operational snags. But don’t hit the ERP panic button just yet! We’ll explore clever solutions like third-party consolidation tools and share real-world examples where businesses have stretched Xero’s capabilities to impressive lengths.
When is it time to outgrow Xero and graduate to ERP systems like NetSuite? We unpack the “three E’s” every business should follow: explore, exploit, and exhaust Xero’s ecosystem before taking the costly leap. With insights from Amy and Jack, we’ll reveal how to make Xero work smarter, ensuring clients stick with you while you elevate your service game.
So come on, join the accounting tech adventure with them!
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David Easton (@davidjeasty) | Insta...
Hey.
Speaker 2:Jack. Hey, amy, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing all right, I'm doing all right. Nice to be here.
Speaker 1:How are you? I'm good. Do you know how it's so weird? We're actually recording our podcast in the same room.
Speaker 2:Dun dun, dun.
Speaker 1:Dun, dun dun. Opposite of each other, we're in the flesh.
Speaker 2:Amazing stuff.
Speaker 1:It's great so it's great. So the all Aussie accounting adventures at the moment. We're all in town together at the moment, all catching up as a group, which is fabulous, so I'm pretty damn excited, it's. You know, we're here with mum and dad. It's so lovely.
Speaker 2:Looking forward to it actually catching up with them. It's just us now, but hey, we'll see them soon.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they're coming.
Speaker 2:They're going to come right. They're gonna come right. They're not just gonna leave us. No, I hope not. I hope not. But on that topic of catching up with the group, that's a beautiful segue, oh it's beautiful. What are we talking about today?
Speaker 1:We're talking about zero for groups and I've look I'll be honest with you I read this topic and I was like Jack, what the hell are we talking about today? What do you mean? Zero for groups? But from a context perspective, we're obviously talking about clients who have group structures, yeah, and they are running them through Xero. So this is more specifically for your clients. So today's topic is actually directed at you. Know, how you can help your clients, rather than how we can help your firm per se. So this is, yeah, just put that lens on If you help your clients, you're going to help your firm, correct?
Speaker 3:you know, but yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's clients who have multiple entities as part of their business therefore become a group. So I mean, probably to set the context even further, you know, a lot of what I'm talking about today isn't necessarily like groups like, oh, we have a business and then we have a trust and then we have, you know, this entity over here, but more so, I run restaurants and I have five restaurants and I have a service entity, that and I have a labor hire entity and I have a you know. So I've ended up with eight or nine zero files because I'm running this group of restaurants and, you know, I'm an entrepreneur and I just want to keep having more restaurants. But, you know, is zero still the right platform for me to be using as an accounting software, because it's isolated and siloed and these are the kinds of things that I'm sure some of you listening are like oh, I've got a client, like that yes yeah you know I've got two or three.
Speaker 2:They run car washing. You know laundromats and whatever else they've, you know they've got going on are they helping them to wash the funds through as well?
Speaker 1:Sorry, it was there, very good, sorry, low-hanging fruit, sorry, sorry, low-hanging fruit, low-hanging fruit, but yes, yes.
Speaker 2:They're not that happy with that, but they are on Xero, right. So look, why are we talking about Xero for groups? Why now? Why is this a topic that is coming up? And I mean, I wanted to have it because I, as part of my role at Mayday and as part of kind of our association with this CFO tech stack brand, we ran a webinar series called Zero for Groups and it was really interesting and there was a lot of insight out of it because it was just conversations with, you know, finance leaders and accounting firm owners and Xero experts and kind of understanding from my perspective. What's going on in this multi-entity space? What are the challenges these businesses are having? Are they staying on zero? Do they want to stay on zero? Are they struggling with zero? What's going on? And I think, if we take a step back, why are we having this conversation now rather than like five years ago?
Speaker 2:And it seems like the time it's just kind of clicked over to. There's now a volume of these businesses that mean it's relevant to be having this conversation, and I'm sure, if you run a practice, that the number of groups who were running through zero five years ago was less than it is now. Yep, that's maybe an assumption, but partly because firms are able to do more for their clients and so they're actually holding on to these clients for longer. You know, your biggest paying clients are probably going to be multi-entity groups yeah they're big clients.
Speaker 2:They they need a lot of support, but at some point they're going to go. Hey, actually, guys, I think we need to hire someone in house. So do you want to be losing your biggest clients or do you want to be maintaining them? So I think that's why this is a relevant conversation to be having with accounting firms and accounting firm owners, because hopefully we're talking about the top tier, the cream of the crop, the biggest clients on your books right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but also I guess the other reason for raising this is like thinking about this is Xero have always marketed themselves as not for bigger businesses. They've always marketed themselves for smaller businesses. And you know, if we look back at the history of Xero over the last 10 to 15 years, they have done an epically amazing job, especially for the Asia-Pacific region of you know, getting a lot of like volume of small businesses onto their platform right, and thank you to all the accountants out there that have obviously supported that, because you guys have done a really epically good job of transferring your clients off of, you know, the likes of MyObs, quickbooks, those reckon, all of those kinds of platforms and onto the Xero ecosystem. But, as you say, those businesses have now grown. They have now grown up, they have expanded, there's now multiple entities and things like that. So, yeah, it is actually a timely kind of conversation. It's good.
Speaker 2:And I think it's not even Xero's decision to focus on this. It's kind of a.
Speaker 2:It's just the evolvement of how businesses yeah, it's a natural evolution that's come through the fact that Xero has their ecosystem of apps, where basically Xero from the very get-go 18 years ago said look, we know we're not going to solve every problem for every business, so we've got to focus on what we do really well, that core accounting ledger, and then let's let the app partners do the rest. They'll be innovative, They'll figure out what problems need to be solved, They'll figure out where customers need to pay for something to upgrade Xero or do more with Xero. And so we're obviously seeing that evolve.
Speaker 2:That upper end, that medium to large business that's still running on Xero, was beginning to run into a whole bunch of headaches and issues and say, oh, I've got to leave Xero now because I can't do this anymore. I can't even close my month end in a month. I'm not getting reports to the board on time. You know Xero is just not operating for me anymore. I need to go up to an ERP system, a NetSuite, a Microsoft Dynamics, whatever it is, even bigger, SAP, Oracle, if they were that big. But that means your average accounting firms no, not no longer really probably going to be able to service them. You know your team is all trained in zero. It's not trained in these other tools.
Speaker 2:So that's why I think this is really interesting conversation, because hopefully there's a benefit for you as a firm to maintain your clients on zero as long as possible well, definitely, but also kudos to all the firms out there that have actually been able to support their clients through that massive growth. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Like it's awesome that you've actually been able to get them from there. It's a good problem to have. I know this is what I'm actually raising Like this is a good problem to have. Congratulations to all of you that are actually experiencing this problem. Now let's try and give you some insight. That's right.
Speaker 2:So now, you've got some good problems.
Speaker 1:Yay, let's solve them.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean some examples here as well.
Speaker 2:So at Mayday we work with specifically multi-entity businesses on Xero so groups on Xero and to give you some ideas as to what I've seen. So I came from practice. I worked with businesses that might have had two or three Xero files here and there. You know the trust scenario. Or maybe they had two or three zero files here and there. You know the trust scenario. Or maybe they had two locations or whatever it was. So recently found out that one of our clients has 250 individual zero entities. That's insane An investment manager, property developer, those kinds of things. So you know, if we're, if we're building a lot of properties, each of those might have a few entities attached to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay you know so like a very and at the scope that they are. So for them, you know 250 entities, they are at breaking point. Yeah, which you know and I think this is really an important part of the conversation is look, I might be a fan of zero and I might be a big fan of saying we can go further with zero than you might think. We can go much further than just being small business, but there's still going to be a point, right, you're not going to have Microsoft or Woolworths running their accounting through zero. So we know that somewhere between small business owner and there there's a line right. And I think for them, at 250 entities, adding a contact, I have to add that contact to 250 places.
Speaker 3:Managing user permissions.
Speaker 2:I'm managing that across 250 entities. Chart of account code changes, so they don't have zero HQ as well. We've got to remember that. So, firms have access to this stuff that direct businesses don't. But you know that may come. That may be something that Xero are interested in looking at. We'll find out in due course. But still there are big challenges there and even from a price perspective, at 250 entities, you're actually probably more expensive on Xero, which is crazy to think because Xero is so cheap in comparison. So they're actually at that tipping point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:That's the biggest I've ever seen. They're still on Xero now, but they're on the transitional pathway.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But you know, gym group we own 45 gyms, yep Zero. There you go, which is fantastic to see. We work with a really good group of pharmacy groups as well. So a couple of them, and so one of them has got 65 plus pharmacies around the country. They have an entity that does centralized purchasing to get bulk discounts and so then they you know they need a charge between all the different entities and locations and whatever else. So there's some really good examples out there Another 100 entity property group that we work with, a 30 entity retirement village group, restaurant groups, and this is just some like. There's heaps of them out there and I was surprised to learn that this is going on. I didn't realize the scope of how many people were on Xero, yeah.
Speaker 1:Congratulations to all the accountants out there that have been pushing that. Well played, you guys absolutely, and it's because it's a great platform they don't want to leave it.
Speaker 2:No one wants to leave zero yeah I mean maybe there were. There's some cfos out there who kind of see it as like a badge of honor or something, a medal they've got to achieve, like as part of growing up and be like I need to take my business from zero to next week like it's like cool. I've done that in my career yeah you know, but I think for the majority they're kind of like but why, you know?
Speaker 1:yeah, because it's easy to use. It's like from an end user perspective as well. No, we don't need to sell the audience on this, it's just easy right. Like you know as a small business owner, it's, it's intuitive, it's easy to navigate. It does everything that I personally needed to do. Multiply that to every you know um instance that I needed to do. I'm literally replicating it across all my different businesses. Yeah, so why would I want to? Why would I want to over complicate it?
Speaker 2:so the reasons why, historically, it's got to a point where you have to leave one of them is purely volumes. We had a bit of a chat about this, I think, in last season one of our episodes and so feel free to have a listen back at that. But there is a point where you can have too much going through zero that it just basically slows to a halt and stops. There are workarounds, there are apps you can use to maybe change what's going into zero and keep the majority of your data outside of it and just have daily balances and whatever else. So that's one reason. If you hit those limits, you can't run certain reports. You're just going to have to go. But the soft limits that Xero say they have are soft limits. You can go further than that.
Speaker 2:At some point their support team will have to run reports for you and at that point they'll probably be starting to tap you on the shoulder and say, hey, do you have a plan?
Speaker 3:to move off of Xero.
Speaker 2:Because we can't keep supporting this. So that's okay. Consolidated view of your accounts. So this, you know there are now, and there have been for a while, some good consolidation softwares out there. But if you've got a group of entities you report up to a board, centralized board. They want a consolidated view. You've got to make sure you've got something that can handle that, because zero alone isn't going to do that for you. Um, but you know, join, calc, sir, data sites, there's a few others out there. I believe you know the fathoms of the world, the spotlights of the world as well. Um, even though I might put them under the more management reporting place, they, I think they also do um level of consolidations, um financial controls. So we're talking about user permissions and access managing that. You've got, you know, bills that need to be paid. You've got approval processes that need to happen yeah, you know across multiple entities.
Speaker 2:These things get more complex, but once again, there's apps that kind of help with this stuff, the approval maxes of the world. There's other payment systems wheel, air wallocks, or and you've got light year from an accounts payable perspective too. So another reason why you might have previously gone is financial controls. We need some work there, but maybe now you can actually achieve what you need with some of the ecosystem that's connected to Xero.
Speaker 1:Yep, I'd agree with that.
Speaker 2:And you've got, I suppose, some complexities that can come up from having different kinds of business structures. So I mentioned before where you might have like a services entity. You might have, you know, all your employees hide through one zero file and then on your other zero files you've got your trading businesses and then you've got one over here that manages all the assets and whatever else and you've got these intercompany transactions. Well, intercompany transactions used to be a limitation of zero as well.
Speaker 2:No, longer no longer um, thanks to you know. Selfless plug, shameless plug, apps like mayday right we've come along to solve problems that were there yeah and reasons why people were leaving zero.
Speaker 2:Oh great, you know, we just have too much volume of intercompany. I'm having to manually post everything into multiple zero files every single time. The team don't like doing it. It's very manual, lots of spreadsheets. It's not happening properly as a result. So therefore we end up with intercompany loans that are out of balance and then when we consolidate up, it's all a mess. And then a month we're doing a lot of cleanup. Let's go to another platform because it's just too much work. And those other platforms are all in one. They give us the consolidated view, they have the intercompany modules. Sure, it's 160 grand just to get started, but at some scale that was justifiable.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But for now there's actually some really awesome apps out there solving these problems. Payroll is another one. You've got more than 200 employees. Zero payroll is not going to work for you. Employment Hero comes in and helps you there, and in one of the conversations I was having with on this Zero for Groups webinar series, they were like Employment Hero can come in from 5, 10 employees. To be honest, you know like at some point Zero Payroll is just not going to it doesn't have the HR component.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot there. I mean, I don't know if there's any other reasons, like you know. I don't know if you've got any other.
Speaker 1:No, no, I think like you've covered up a lot of them, I guess. What are the? I mean, as you say, xero still has its challenges. You briefly touched on them at the beginning but one of them like managing user permissions.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, yeah, oh gosh. I know you just hire a new employee in the finance team, or you know. Oh well, I gotta spend half a day just adding them to all of our different zero files yeah so I mean stuff like that. I think there's still areas that could be improved. It'd be fantastic. I'd love to see opportunities for improvement whether that zero or us or whether other apps in the ecosystem can solve some of these, because there's still, you know, some processes that could be better.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:You know chart of accounts, contacts, user permissions, tracking categories I think is another one that's not even just updating them across the entities, it's just wanting more tracking categories as businesses get bigger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would agree with that, and having more Regular detail.
Speaker 2:I want to report in different dimensions, not just two.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So that's another kind of limitation of zero, but these are things that are somewhat. You know, we're getting to a point where very few of these are absolute deal breakers. A couple deal breakers that are out there still if you're a manufacturing business complex from the get-go.
Speaker 2:I think you know Unleashed might be doing a little bit in that space to help with. I know it's more inventory, but I think when you're manufacturing there's raw materials, there's WIP, there's what's going out to the customers. It's all very integrated and so that's a reason where an ERP makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd agree with that.
Speaker 2:We've got this whole business supply chain. Everything's coming together and it doesn't matter on your size, it doesn't matter how many entities you've got. There's going to be complexities that only an ERP is going to solve.
Speaker 1:Yeah, agreed, and it depends on the complexity of your business realistically as to what your needs are in relation to that.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. And there's some foreign currency challenges out there too, you currency challenges out there too. You know, I don't, don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting everyone listening here to have these scenarios, but you know, oh, we've got a hong kong based entity with a australian dollar bank account. We paid for something in japanese yen and, and we need to, you know, report these three entities in the group up to um, this board, you know, in in hong kong dollars and then. But these five entities actually go up to a different reporting. You know, there's, there's some I'm using hands if you can imagine what I'm doing to kind of draw these diagrams.
Speaker 1:It's really quite impressive but you won't see it um he's giving me a mime, yeah so.
Speaker 2:So there are still some things, but I don't think these are things that any anyone listening here is going to be dealing with on a day-to-day basis. It's going to be the the uncommon scenario. So hopefully you know we can kind of put you at ease that if you've got clients who are growing up, grow up, opening multiple locations, opening new restaurants, opening new stores, um moving to new countries, doing business in different locations, that you know you can still help them and you can keep them on Xero and trust that Xero is still going to be a fantastic platform for them, possibly even better than the alternatives of quote-unquote upgrading, because it's not really upgrading, it's just more expensive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great, I feel like this is a good place to pause and go and hear a little word from our sponsors. Jack.
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
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Speaker 1:So thank you to our wonderful sponsors, as per usual. Couldn't do this without you guys. Cheers. We've been talking about Xero and possible erps and things like that. Um, and I guess one of the a good point to kind of, I guess, move forward with is when your client gets to the point where, like, well, we actually have possibly moved and grown up beyond zero. So a good place possibly to start would be zero versus an erp. Before we do this, can you give me a layman's term explanation of what an erp? Why would you go to an erp over zero? Like what's it going to give me what? Like what's the benefit of it?
Speaker 2:so I mean erps are quite customizable I suppose so they are more than just accounting systems as well. So I don't know if you've seen all of the workday ads that's one that comes up finance and HR in one platform, and all the ERPs have elements of this, where they've got multiple areas of the business, multiple departments, kind of under one banner, whereas Xero is just going to be accounting software, really maybe payroll, but that's really the extent of it. Then you've got the customization. So, oh, you want to report in 16 different ways? Cool, we can make 16 different tracking category levels for you. Or you want to report these three entities up to this place? Great, we could build that for you. So it's modular. You add pieces to it. You kind of build your own all-in-one system but, as a result, super complicated, not off the shelf, involves lots of consultants, involves lots of money being spent.
Speaker 2:And so, as a result, you really want to know that you have to go, or you have this kind of nuanced, complex need that only this kind of customized approach is going to work for um, otherwise, there really shouldn't be a, there should never be a desire to go. Yeah it should never be a. I'm really looking forward to having an erp because it's not.
Speaker 2:It from all all everyone I've spoken to yeah, it's. It's not a fun thing to go through in terms of the implementation, in terms of time, resources, cost, energy, all of that. A lot of them don't go as you'd hope. So you know, if you were listening to our last episode, you kind of alluded to like whatever timeframe you put on a you know big software project.
Speaker 1:you know, double that time and then double it again and then maybe within the RP, double it again.
Speaker 2:That's kind of what it sounds like. So it sounds like a bit of a nightmare to do, and then in a lot of cases it doesn't achieve the desired outcome anyway.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:So I think that's where you really want to and I've kind of look, I'm not going to say I come up with it, but I haven't seen anyone else say it you.
Speaker 1:What you want to do, is you want to explore zero's ecosystem?
Speaker 2:yep, you want to exploit every piece of the apps and tech that you've got, and to the point of exhaustion yeah, so the three e's yep explore, exploit and exhaust now, if you do that to zero and you still can't make it work for you and your business or your client's business yeah then you've probably it's probably come the time to have that conversation or begin that journey, and that's okay yeah but if you go before you need to, I can't see a scenario where you might not regret that.
Speaker 1:You heard it here. First the three E's people, as said by Jack Teel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I don't know what else to?
Speaker 3:say we just spoke to sponsors, please.
Speaker 2:Please, no, don't give it to me. I'm not going to give it to anyone.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I couldn't resist. It was there, all right. So, yeah, zero versus ERP. Is there anything else? Like what would you? What? What are some of the other things like you? You mentioned there that you know, if you went to an erp, for example, as you say, they're an all-in-one um, but they're not always all-in-one, are they?
Speaker 2:well, it's yeah, it's not. It's not what, what you think it might be cracked up to be. And yeah, it's not what you think it might be cracked up to be. And I came in. So my experience here, so just to kind of provide a little bit of background, so I haven't worked as an accountant in a finance team on an ERP but, I worked as an auditor auditing finance teams who used ERPs yeah, cool, so familiar with them enough.
Speaker 2:But most of my personal accounting experience has been with Xero. So Xero is extremely easy to use. You sign up bank feed's there, connect your bank feed Yep, oh great, I want a bank feed in my ERP. Yeah, 10 grand later, 20 grand later, because you've got to set it up, you've got to borrow it, it's not off the shelf. So little things like that where and I've heard this in other components too like hey, I just want to run this quick report, I just want to do this thing. It's like it's not as quick as you think, it's not as easy as it should be, it's not as intuitive as you might be used to with zero. So I think that's also where maybe there's a misconception that uh, look, okay, cool, yep, I get it, I don't want to go to erp because bigger isn't always better.
Speaker 1:Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2:sorry, that's not how I said it. Amy, look there's, this is getting out of control. Um, it's what was I even saying? There's, um, you know parts of the, the product that, because you're investing so much money that I can understand why there'd be an expectation, it's going to be better yep and I think that's where maybe part of the misconception is, which is it is more expensive. But if you're, if you're not trying to achieve something that you need it for, it won't be better at anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So if I'm running a 10-entity restaurant business and I have central entity with wages and I'm recharging a whole bunch of stuff and I have consolidated accounting and I've got a restaurant I'm opening in Singapore and I have employees and I need to give them a card to spend money, pop, open an Airbox account or whatever it is. You can do all of that on Xero. So if you said, said okay, let's go up to an erp, well, you're gonna invest all that money and you're gonna hope that the experience is gonna be better, yeah, but it won't be better.
Speaker 2:It will be worse on nearly all facets, all accounts. So unless you're trying to do something that you know you can't do with zero in its ecosystem, then everyone I talk to is like don't do it yeah, right it's it.
Speaker 2:It's not something you want to do. Um, and I know I banged that point home a little bit, but look, I I think to kind of maybe begin wrapping up. I I don't think too many of you listening, you know, I don't know. You know it'd be interesting to know actually dealing with this on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 1:How many of your clients actually have an ERP that you need to deal with?
Speaker 2:Exactly so. You're probably not dealing with ERPs and you're probably only every now and again having a client grow up so quickly that they're saying to you hey, mate, you know I'd love to have you as my accountant, but we're hiring someone in-house now because we're growing and we need it and, as a result, you know, hey, can you still do our tax at the end of the year, but we're not going to need, you know, all of that outsource finance function service that you know you were making 30 grand a year off of. Now we'll just take the you know, the compliance that we need done. So it's about saying, well, actually, if you're in a position and educated enough to understand what they're trying to do, why are they going, hiring someone and moving to an erp and doing all this complicated stuff?
Speaker 2:I've seen or I've heard or I've listened to the podcast and I've I'm aware that that these businesses can be run on zero. Is this not a project? Could you save yourself 100 grand here of not not going down this route? Yeah, and you, as a firm, maintain that client as as someone under your arm, you know, because you can keep doing the outsource finance function service offering or bookkeeping and accounting and payroll, because it stays on zero. So I think that's where I see the relevance of this conversation for for people listening.
Speaker 1:I think my takeaway from this apart from learning a hell of a lot more about this topic than I initially thought that I knew, thank you very much is those three E's is actually a really, really good takeaway for me, especially the exhaust all avenues, like just exhaust, every single app, like explore exhaust. What was the third one, sorry?
Speaker 2:Explore, exploit, exploit and exhaust exploit and got it anyway.
Speaker 1:Rolls off the tongue, just rolls off the tongue, jack they're actually all x's as well. Wow, not even the three three x's um, but I do agree with that, like without before you actually do change, just try everything in your power not to have to change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot in that, especially when we're talking about such a significant investment.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's another guy that I know quite well. He's financial controller at a business, really fast-growing business. It was on his roadmap to be like okay, cool, I know we're going to have to go to an ERP. Yep, Started having the conversations with the consultants, got the quote was like, okay, no thanks. Instead of that, I'm going to give my finance team an unlimited budget to spend on Xero.
Speaker 2:Because, basically nothing was going to compare to that cost. So let's see if we can make this work. I'm not going to question you if you need to sign up to an app to get something done because we're saving so much money by not going down this route.
Speaker 1:That's insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, it was $160,000. Quote for the implementation $5,000 a user per month, per year, so just for the fee. And then you've got the you know, ongoing consulting to, like you know, add a module, add a bank fee, do these kinds of things. I need this report, you know. Add a module, add a bank fee, do these kinds of things I need this report. It's super expensive because there's businesses that need it. They're super complicated and it's cheaper than building your own thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, but I think what we're seeing and imagine my hands again doing this diagram for you Xero used to be kind of this small circle in the middle where small businesses would go, and then, outside of X, zero was another larger circle where there were these kind of like middle large business erps. And then you've got this final band, which is your massive companies sap and oracle out there, whereas your net suites and microsoft dynamics are in that middle ring. Yep, what's happening is zero plus ecosystem is stretching out and taking over some of that middle space. Um, and so it's allowing, you know, businesses to stay on on the platform for longer, whilst achieving everything they need for much lower cost awesome, it's a good place.
Speaker 1:Oh, I think that's it I think we did it we did it. Thanks so much, great chat. See you later.
Speaker 3:Bye, hey team. It's Ellie and Andrew from All Aussie Accounting Adventures here. I hope you really enjoyed this episode with Amy and Jack. What did you think, Andrew?
Speaker 4:Oh, stunning as always, the two of them are brilliant minds and are brilliant communicators. So we hope that you have got some incredible learnings out of this episode and if you'd like to continue to follow us, make sure you check out our website. Find us on the socials You'll see Accounting Adventures, or look for All Aussie Accounting Adventures, wherever good stuff can be found, whether that's conferences, whether that's websites, whether that's podcasts or social media.
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