There’s a reason that Xero is one of the most popular accounting software systems on the market for professional services companies. Few accounting systems can match Xero’s ease of use, which allows companies to invoice, purchase orders, reconcile statements, and more from one intuitive, cloud-based system. 

Where SMBs can really leverage Xero’s full power, though, is when the software is used thoughtfully alongside other common SMB business management tools. Integrated with the right project management tool, for example, and Xero can help professional services firms boost efficiency, scale operations faster and free up time for high-value activities.

This brings us to our very own project management tool, Projectworks. We developed Projectworks from the ground up as an all-in-one business management solution for services companies. We knew that if we were going to succeed as a project management solution for professional service firms, we would have to integrate with the accounting tool those firms use almost more than any other. Since Xero is where professional service firms keep track of their numbers, we set out to build an integration that could harness the power of both softwares to give users complete visibility of their business.

There’s a lot that goes on under the hood to get two powerful, cloud-based softwares to talk to each other, but for users on the front end, it’s surprisingly simple: the integration focuses on exporting Invoices (and associated data) from Projectworks through to Xero. Invoice payment data is pushed from Xero to Projectworks to allow the issued invoices in Projectworks to be reconciled with Xero.

So in real terms, what does that mean for users? It means that Projectworks and Xero combine to give a holistic view of your business - starting from pre-project resourcing right through to invoicing and payments - essentially task management, planning, scheduling, time tracking, invoicing, and collaboration all rolled into one. It means that you can sync your items, accounts, and tax codes for fast invoice creation, and that all of the invoices you create in Projectworks are pushed to Xero and that any payments made in Xero are reflected in Projectworks automatically. And finally, it means you get twice the power: Projectworks’ tools for managing projects, people, and finance combined with Xero’s features to manage your numbers.

We put a lot of work into our project management system’s seamless integration with Xero, and we’re proud to say that our friends at Xero have recognized our effort. At the 2020 APAC Xero Awards, we won Emerging App Partner of the Year - a wonderful honor for us and validation for professional services firms looking to match their best-in-class Xero accounting systems with best-in-class business management tools.