These are challenging times for everyone. Our purpose is to make life better for small businesses and during these challenging times, this mission is more important than ever. Millions of customers rely on Xero every day to help run their businesses online, and we are working hard to ensure that Xero stays strong, ensuring our customers have access to their financial information at any time.
Everyone’s business is being impacted in some way by the effects of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). Recently, we shared Xero’s response to the evolving situation, and I’d like to provide an update on a number of initiatives we have added to help you through these challenging times – based on direct feedback from our customers and partners.
Dedicated Customer Response Team
For Xero customers needing support, we’ve assembled a Customer Response Team who can be contacted through Xero Central for guidance on a case-by-case basis regarding the initiatives we’ve put in place to support our customers. We will respond promptly to our customers’ requests.
Activating a Business Continuity Hub
We have activated a dedicated Business Continuity Hub on Xero Central that brings together key information from government agencies around stimulus packages for business in the major regions where we operate: New Zealand, Australia, UK, US, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Africa.
The Business Continuity Hub contains a range of practical tools and education resources to support you through this incredibly challenging time. Some of these resources and topics include:
- Getting access to advisors, government portals and applications for grants, understanding small business relief and application support
- Education webinars – how to run your business remotely, looking after yourself and your teams, links to community connection forums, business continuity planning and keeping track of cash flow
Our team will continue to keep the Business Continuity Hub up-to-date with relevant content based on your feedback, so please let us know through the community forum what you’d like to see included.
Government outreach
Economic stimulus packages are now being offered by governments in most countries. Xero is working with governments to help better direct support to small businesses where it’s needed. This support is being provided through our Xero’s Small Business Insights – providing evidence and understanding about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the small business economy.
Small Business Payment Terms
We’ve initiated a change with our small business supplier payment terms from 1 April 2020 where we will aim to pay small business suppliers’ invoices globally within 10 business days.
Cash flow tools
A view of cash flow is the most critical need for small businesses and we want to ensure our Xero customers have access to all the tools needed to plan ahead.
- The Xero App Marketplace has a number of apps to help with short-to-medium and long-term cash flow forecasting
- We’ve launched the next phase of customer credit limits, to give businesses more control over the amount of risk they take on when invoicing customers within Xero
Pausing our planned price rise
For customers in regions that were due for a price increase on 18 March 2020, we have delayed our proposed price increase until 1 July 2020. Customers now have access to Hubdoc included in their Xero Business Edition plans, which helps save time by automating data entry and simplifying bank reconciliation.
Our focus is to help you stay connected and informed during this unpredictable time. Remember, you can reach out to your key Xero contacts or Xero Central if there’s anything we can do to support you and your business.
In uncertain times the best approach you can take is to stay close and connected with those around you. Take care of yourself and people close to you, and let’s do our best to keep connected as a community.
