Poolside partying, fun and games, back massages and the buzz of 3500 people – Xerocon is Coachella for accountants, Burning Man for the bean counters.
And Oxford Edge Associate Director Anna Riley was there, at Sydney’s Darling Harbour for Xerocon 2023, the self-titled “world’s most beautiful and innovative conference for cloud-accounting leaders”.
Anna is Oxford Edge’s Xero hero and this was her second Xerocon. She’s a big fan of the cloud-based accounting software, now the firm favourite with small to medium-sized businesses in New Zealand and Australia. To know what’s coming next in the world of Xero, you gotta be at Xerocon.
So what is coming? There was a lot of talk about what’s next for AI and how to make the most of emerging technologies, with futurist and entrepreneur Mark Pesce exploring the impact of AI on the accounting industry.
Xero’s big strength for users is the endless number of industry-specific apps available to them. Those app partners filled a huge Darling Harbour exhibition hall and Anna scoured the booths for the kinds of tools she knew Oxford Edge clients were after.
Another big push was to promote accountancy in the face of falling popularity with university students. The message was that it’s cool to be an accountant. It’s not about sitting there doing tax and GST returns, it’s about aiding the clients.
For Anna, this was a validation of Oxford Edge’s approach of “a different kind of accounting”, with its emphasis on strategy, advice and business intelligence rather than just doing the books. Using Xero and its apps, the OE team is able to quickly get through the reporting requirements, leaving more time for the important and rewarding value-add work for clients.
Anna is now disseminating the insights from her Xerocon visit to Oxford Edge clients and helping them make the most of the new wave of apps available.
