Xero is a cloud based accounting platform that helps automate accounting processes, bring you simple, insightful reports and stay compliant. Visit our dedicated Xero page to find out more or check out the Xero Website
Recommended Software
Accounting & Bookkeeping
Dext (formerly Receipt Bank) is a data extraction tool that scans your purchase invoices and pulls out all the relevant data, such as the supplier name, date, total amount, VAT amount and more. You can then download this in to Excel or export it directly in to your bookkeeping software, along with a copy of the original invoice. Reduces manual entry and saves you bags of time.
Payment & E-Commerce
Crezco is a platform that helps facilitate bank payments using OpenBanking. It integrates with Xero so you can send out invoices that customers can pay directly via their bank without having to set up a new payee and type in bank details. It works with a number of e-commerce platforms so you can add direct bank payments to your checkout process with ease. They also let you create payment links and can faciliate cross-currency payments. One of our absolute favourites!
Stripe is a credit card processing platform that lets you collect card payments in-store or online. Another great app to use with Xero – you can add a link to your invoices where a customer can just type in their credit card details and pay you straight away.
GoCardless is an online payments platform to let you set up and manage Direct Debits. Perfect for subscription based businesses or any recurring payment customers. Fees are incredibly competitive and best of all it integrates brilliantly with Xero to automatically collect payments from customers based on the due date you set on an invoice.
TransferWise is a great platform for businesses needing to buy and/or sell in any foreign currencies. If you need to pay for something in Dollars and don’t fancy paying the bank fees for an international payment, just set up a Dollar account in a few click, convert the money and send it. Simple.
Square is a complete payments & e-commerce solution. They offer POS software that runs from your own tablet with a basic card reader, or a full hardware solution with cash drawers & receipt printers. Their software also lets you sell online quickly and easily. You can also log stock in and out and send orders to suppliers directly from the software. And best of all, it integrates beautifully with Xero! This one is our go-to solution for retailers.
Business Tools
G-Suite by Google is an integrated suite of secure, cloud-native collaboration and productivity apps powered by Google AI. Includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Meet and more.
Fiverr is an online services marketplace with prices for services starting at… a fiver. You can find all sorts of services such as graphic design, digital marketing, copywriting, voiceovers, video editing and much more here. A great tool for bootstrapping businesses to get off the ground.
Evernote is a cracking note taking app that lets you sync note, pictures, web clippings and much more between devices, as well as share and collaborate with other. So whether you want to share the shopping list with your partner or edit documents with your colleagues, Evernote is a great way to do both, and more!
Personal Finance
Plum is a Facebook Messenger bot that helps you make micro-savings and invest them in to Tech, Growth and Ethical funds. Plum will take a few pounds every week out of your bank account (the amount is calculated using your spending habits) and saves it for you. If you want to invest in any of the funds, just open Facebook Messenger and tell it where you want to invest and how much.
I’m a huge fan of Monzo! It’s basically a bank account, but smarter. You can set up “pots” for saving for different things such as holidays, new car etc and keep this money separate from the rest of your funds. You can also set up a coin jar that rounds-up any of your purchase to the nearest pound and saves the change for you. You can also integrate with IFTTT and try out the 1p Savings Challenge or the £1 Savings Challenge
Cryptocurrency
Coinbase is probably the easiest place to start if you want to buy cryptocurrency. They’ve expanded their offering lately to include lots more cryptocurrencieswhilst still letting you buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin.
Binance is the worlds biggest online cryptocurrency exchange. They allow you to trades lots of different cryptocurrencies and is relatively easy to use once you get the hang of it. A great place to start.
Trezor isn’t technically software but hardware. It is an offline hardware wallet to store your cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency kept in online wallets and on exchanges is potentially vulnerable to hacking. Trezor’s wallets store your cryptocurrencies and act as a signing tool for transactions meaning better security.