This post is part of our Spending Hacker Business Class series which helps small business owners secure the BEST deals on products and services they need for the ongoing operation of their business.

Being in business for yourself has a lot of exciting aspects to it but Bookkeeping & Accounting probably doesn’t have a lot in the ‘excitement’ or ‘fun’ department.

Yep, ‘bean counting’ is not a fun activity for most business owners yet this is something that must be done in order to track how your business is faring and also to meet your tax obligations.

There are very few business owners who deal with this part of their business themselves and most either have an accountant or bookkeeper on their payroll or outsource it to someone.

How do you manage this part of your business?

However you do it, I reckon there is a better way. This is how I do it myself and I humbly suggest you consider this option as well.

The Internet has completely revolutionised every aspect of our lives.

We shop online through giants like eBay & Amazon (as well as many other smaller retailers), catch a ride with Uber, Get our music streamed to us with Spotify and our shows and movies with Netflix.

What you might not know (but can probably imagine) is that the Internet has also revolutionised how we do the less exciting tasks like bookkeeping and accounting.

Not only can you now do it all yourself without needing to hire anyone but, dare I say it, you might actually enjoy it!

Enter Xero: a cloud-based accounting and bookkeeping solution

Xero, which started life as a Kiwi startup, now has more than 600,000 small business owners around the world using its services and 1300 staff in 20 offices around the world.

It is also listed on both the Australian and New-Zealand stock exchanges.

This short video shows what they are capable of:

 

If you decide to go with Xero as your accounting and bookkeeping solution, you’ll be in great company as they are the most widely used cloud accounting service in Australia.

They also have great reviews by both the experts and actual everyday users.

Apple Pay now works with Xero

A recent (and quite valuable!) addition to Xero’s already-impressive list of features, is the ability for small business owners to accept payments via Apple Pay without having to do anything extra from their end (other than use Xero obviously).

In case you haven’t heard about it, Apple Pay allows people to easily make payments directly from their iPhone, Macbook Pro and Apple Watch without having to enter any credit card details or login to their PayPal account.

Here is a 2 minute video which explains how Apple Pay works:

If you are interested in the full details, you can read them on the Xero company blog.

Xero’s Plans and Pricing

Xero have three plans which vary based on your specific needs (e.g. how many invoices you need to generate per month, how many employees you have on your payroll etc) and all of those plans come with a free 30 day obligation-free trial.

They won’t even ask you for any payment details in the first 30 days as they believe (very smartly I might add) that if their service doesn’t work out for you and you can’t see its benefits, they don’t want your money!

If you were ever considering to streamline the financial affairs of your business by using an advanced, yet very easy to use, cloud-based accounting package, Xero is one such service definitely worth a try.