Xero connects with over 1,000 apps that help small businesses and their advisors succeed, with most available in the Xero App Store. Each month we celebrate an app partner who stands out for helping small businesses thrive. Find out more about becoming a Xero app partner here.

I’m excited to introduce June’s app partner of the month, EzzyBills – a smart, simple data processing and approvals tool for small businesses and their advisors. EzzyBills helps business operators save time by automating data capture and streamlining expense approval processes, all the while keeping the numbers up-to-date in Xero.

Co-founder, Michael Fitzmaurice, gave us the lowdown on how EzzyBills came to be, how it connects into your Xero workflow, and some of the feedback they’ve got from their customers.

Out with the old, in with the new

EzzyBills was co-founded by Michael and Li Fitzmaurice in 2014 in Australia, after Michael had been creating tools supporting older, legacy accounting software to keep inventory and sales information up-to-date. Through his experience, Michael saw a bigger opportunity to help small businesses with their bills and expenses via the cloud.

“I realised that creating a piece of software that could extract data from bills would create immense value for a larger potential customer base,” Michael says. “Ever since our first customer purchased a subscription in 2015, we’ve supported thousands of businesses looking for a quick and effortless way to import their supplier invoices into Xero with line-item extraction.”

Extracting the data

EzzyBills connects to Xero to automate time-consuming tasks such as data-extraction from document line-items, management expense approvals, general ledger coding, and e-invoicing.

“The biggest benefit of EzzyBills for our users is the amount of time saved. Before subscribing to an app like ours, most businesses entered all their supplier data into their accounting software manually,” Michael explains.

Uploading documents to EzzyBills is done through either email, drag and drop, or via a mobile app. As each document is scanned by EzzyBills the key information is extracted and exported to Xero. During this process, EzzyBills is able to connect the dots to other important information in Xero, like default supplier codes and supplier payment terms, and automatically creates and populates a draft supplier invoice. All that’s needed next is approvals (which EzzyBills can also help with) and payment.

“EzzyBills eliminates the need for manual data entry as well as the human error that goes with it. Many businesses using EzzyBills have also been able to save money on staff costs because so much of their data entry work has been automated,” Michael adds.

Hitting the right notes

Since that first customer in 2015, EzzyBills has grown to operate on a global scale, with thousands of customers worldwide who use their product together with Xero everyday to help run their operations.

“The most rewarding part of building the business is engaging with customers who want to talk about the product,” Michael explains. “We get energised when customers feel part of our journey, and are willing and able to share their feedback to help us improve EzzyBills.”

With a solid 4.9 stars on the Xero App Store, feedback has been very positive, with reviews referring to how simple EzzyBills is to use and how much time it’s saving for business operators.

One reviewer says: “This has literally changed the way we do business. All our invoices are now stored in Xero, it really couldn’t be easier. Best character recognition software I’ve ever used. Upload via email, browser, iPhone app, or drag and drop into Google Drive. Great customer support. And great. Pricing. Complete game changer. [sic]”

Looking to the horizon

The team at EzzyBills have created something that their customers love, but there’s still more they think they can do. One thing they’ve learned over the years is how important education is to help small businesses understand the value of what products like EzzyBills can bring to their operations.

“We need to teach them what technology can do for them and how much time and money they can save from automating processes that are currently done manually,” Michael explains.

In the meantime though, the team are excited about new improvements and products, like their new tool supporting e-invoicing – a new way of sending invoices directly between buyer’s and supplier’s accounting software.

“We want EzzyBills to be known as an accounts payable workflow engine that goes well beyond just data extraction, so that clients will be able to use EzzyBills across a wider range of business activities and be able to automate more of those business processes,” Michael finishes.

Simplify your data processing and approvals processes with EzzyBills – try it here in the Xero App Store.