Using XERO has been an exciting departure from the traditional accounting methods. I very much dislike accounting, hence why I’m in IT. But XERO makes it fast and fun. It’s almost like posting on FaceBook, with a sleek and smooth user interface, free from HTML rendering glitches.

My XERO highlights:

• Web Interface: Being web based allows me to create invoices from anywhere. Sometimes I create the invoice while still onsite and utilise the instant email delivery.
• Importing bank statements: I was originally going to sign up for a bank feed, but importing bank statements is to easy it’s become a non issue. I thought I had sent the bank feed authority letter, it’s been a while, maybe I never did send it.
• iPad App: Although my daily use tablet is a HP Touchpad, I do also have an iPad and the XERO app is great. Ipads are the tablet of choice so it’s great that XERO have a highly functional app built for it.
• Faith: As George Michael said “We gotta have faith”. We gotta have faith that XERO will still be there in the morning. This is a concern with all cloud based services and not specific to XERO. Many IT service providers have come and gone, some taking all their clients data with them. I really would like a way to export my data into a MYOB/Quicken file, or something for local backup. Just incase.  That said, I do have faith. XERO has given me no reason to doubt their service continuity. Infact with each Twitter post they strengthen it. The more they talk to me, the more I feel reassured they will be there tomorrow.

To wrap it up, So far, So good. Check them out at www.xero.com.au

So, the year is 2010, some 7 years after its début appearance I finally discover the holy grail of  applications, second only to Outlook. A right mouse click gone awry, instead of ‘copy’ a misguided cursor selected ‘send to OneNote’. And so it begins.

What is OneNote?

OneNote is an information gathering tool. Before OneNote I would store things in various places. Browser bookmarks, Excel spreadsheets, Outlook Notes, text documents, on paper notepads. It was a mess. With OneNote, I create a page and paste (or type)  all the information into one application.

My endevours this past week have been to re-enter the last fiscal years transactions into XERO. This en mass data insertion allows me to quickly find any shortcomings in the XERO system.

I started by importing my bank statements and then set about creating entries for each transaction. This worked very well and was very easy to do. I hit the 50 line statement reconciliation limit of the trial and purchased a subscription for $49 a month. This is double the $25 per month I am paying to MYOB Liveaccounts. A bit overpriced for my liking, SAASU pricing structure is much better, where an equivalent plan is $25 (or $35 for advanced payroll).

From the beginning I found the interface much faster than MYOB Liveaccounts. The website is so fast it feels like a local application (like running it on your computer). I did not encounter any bugs or glitches with the data entry. Creating transactions to match my statements was very intuitive and I was able to complete the entry without reaching for the XERO product manual.

With all my post data in I set about creating some invoices. I was disheartened to discover only minimal customisation to the invoice design. I like my invoices to be ‘pretty’ as opposed to the staid boring lines of traditional invoices. I would have liked HTML/CSS style customisation which would enable me to create an invoice themed like my website.

XERO, take a cue from the developers at Billings, their documents are beautiful.

Creating the invoices is a simple process, matching the ease of use of MYOB and SAASU.

One thing I did notice is the chart of accounts somewhat lacking. In this respect MYOB excelled. When entering a purchase, MYOB already has a Cost of Goods Sold section which includes Purchase of Goods For Resale/Finished Goods / Raw Materials. In XERO I had to create an expense field for my stock purchases. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but as I stated in the beginning, I’m an IT guy, not an accountant.

With XERO you can export your invoices at the time of creation as an invoice named PDF, also you can carbon copy yourself in on the emailed invoice, which is fantastic.

Overall I was impressed with XERO. It feels very polished and robust. When it comes to cloud applications we as users really have no way to judge the environment other than by its user interface. Since all of our data is in the cloud and administered by them we need to have some level of trust that their backup and disaster recovery systems are up to the task. It would be disastrous for all concerned if they suffered a major outage and only had backups from 2 weeks ago (or like Distribute IT where all the backups were destroyed by a hacker). The smooth and fast user interface goes a long way to creating an assurance in XERO.

My comments coming as a MYOB to XERO user: MYOB has a very nice graphical interface, was extremely easy to set up and use but then destroyed my trust in ‘the system’ with the all bugs and glitches it presented me with. The cost of XERO is a lot higher but is also reflected in its user interface.

Continuing from my experience with MYOB Live Accounts here.

I’m going to be making technical and book keeping  oriented comments, this isn’t a review as much as tracking my experiences.

Saasu won’t get much of a mention here, I signed up for it, paid the fee and linked my bank account. After a little while I ran into the problem of not having a proper ledger of accounts. Saasu looks great and works fine but it needs to be professionally set up to your business. Since I was looking for a more DIY solution, I went to Myob Live Accounts.

18/08/2011:

- Read Part 2 Here: My Cloud Accounting Journey: Part 2 XERO

12/08/2011: pm

- I’m going to start recreating my invoices in XERO over the weekend, fingers crossed.

12/08/2011 : am

[Update: 14/12/2011] Recent testing has shown MYOB now accepts partial increments in the Quantity field, this is fantastic! Also the slow page loads, dropping allocations and ‘reference number in use’ error are no longer presenting. It’s great that MYOB has matured and fixed the technical issues. If your considering cloud accounting, make sure Live Accounts is on your list.

- I’ve been using MYOB LiveAccounts since the beginning of July. In the beginning it looked perfect for my needs. Easy to setup and use with the built in accounts and easy to understand terminology. It all started well, but then progressed downhill from there. These are the issues I’m having at the moment:

• Reference Number is in Use error – When I’m inside an invoice to amend or simply view it, I will not be allowed to save it. If I wait a few seconds then press Save it will work, sometimes it takes a few tries. This is a server timeout error, and it happens on all 3 of my browsers IE, FF, and Chrome.
• Dropping Allocations - Same cause as above, server issues. Causes my invoice to open but all my line items will be unallocated. Before I can save the invoice I need to re-allocate them all (again & again). This is most frustrating as I’m always going into invoices to update them with new line items. I do not create new invoices for each line item, sometimes an invoice might sit for a month constantly being updated.
• Slow Page Loads – Sometimes it takes seconds for the page to load, this might not sound like much, but over the course of a day, it get very frustrating. We all know what its like waiting for webpages to load, now image your accounting system being that slow.
• No .5 increments - I bill time, and sometimes I bill half an hour. That is a quantity shown as .5. MYOB support told me to use QTY1 and halve my billable rate, but this gives the client the wrong impression. I really don’t want them thinking Im billing an hour for half hours work, and I don’t want them thinking my rate is 50% below its actual level.
• $0 Dollars & Extra Line Items – MYOB will accept $0 sometimes, sometimes it wont and will register simply as ’0′ – minus the $. When this occurs you cant save/send an invoice. I do this for a reason, my invoices contain data about my services rendered. So my first line item will be : Tech Support – xyz 1 Hour Billable Amount, then lines underneath showing specifics. However each line item needs to have a quantity and dollar amount. Yes there is a Notes section on the invoice but this is too small to hold all the relevant information.
• Can’t Save Invoice as PDF – Cloud is all well and good, but I also like to keep PDF versions of the invoices I create. There is no Save to PDF option.
• Can’t Print Well to PDF – If I chose to Print an Invoice, it opens it as a PDF, great! Not really, that PDF is now called ‘Invoice’ so I cant just save that filename. I can Print that PDF to PDF but then its name becomes ‘journalId=1068098&t=1313131619419′. Not much help. I just want to save my invoice as a PDF with something like INV0001. XERO has a PRINT PDF button – which allows you to save with the invoice number.

That’s it for now. I have raised these concerns with MYOB tech support. The timeout issues are not specific to one location, I get them from home and the office, on different computers. The only similar points are both use an Internode internet connection.

Read Part 2 Here: My Cloud Accounting Journey: Part 2 XERO

The idea is not as far fetched as you would first think. Many business owners and operators leave the details to their IT person without a second thought. Here is a great list created by Sonia Cuff of Computer Troubleshooters Aspley. Sonia’s Twitter Feed.

1. Administrator passwords

‘Local administrator accounts’ have full access to make changes to your computers.  If you have a server, there may also be a ‘domain administrator’ account.  Make sure you have a record of these account passwords in a safe place.  If your business provides laptops and mobile phones to your staff, also keep a record of any passwords or PIN numbers that are used to secure these mobile devices (e.g. are prompted for when the device is turned on).

2. Domain name details

If you have your company name registered as a domain on the internet (e.g. for your website or email addresses), make sure you know when your domain is due to expire.  Domain name registration only lasts for a certain period (commonly 1, 2 or 5 years) and must be renewed.  We’ve seen websites and emails stop in their tracks because the domain name registration company couldn’t (or didn’t) contact the business owner to process the domain name renewal.  Also associated with your domain name is a password or PIN number (sometimes known as a registry key).  This proves you are the rightful owner of the domain and is required for making any changes.  It’s a long process if you need to get this password reset because it’s been forgotten, so make sure it’s stored in a safe place.

3. Internet connection details

The modem that connects your computers to the internet is configured with some details that are specific to your account with your internet provider.  This may be as simple as a username and password, but may also include security settings or even ‘port numbers’ for allowing or denying internet access to some software programs.  If you have internet connection problems and the modem needs to be reset back to the factory defaults, this information will be lost.  It can also happen due to a power failure or if the modem is faulty.

4. Last successful backup test

Your backups are only as good as your last successful data restoration test.  If someone else manages your backups, ask them to regularly test that they can recover a random selection of your files and provide you with a monthly report so you know it’s been done.  If you look after your own backups, make sure this testing is performed by someone in your company and that you receive a report from them to show when it happened.

5. Software licensing proof

Like the financial and taxation side of your business, the responsibility for legal software ownership rests with the business owner.  Don’t think that you’re only a small business so no-one will audit you.  Keep a safe record of your software license keys and proof of ownership (e.g. purchase receipts).  This also makes license numbers easy to find if your computer software needs to be re-installed or moved to a different computer.

Over the weekend a friend stopped by and asked me to come with him to buy a new computer. It was time to get rid of that old noisy Pentium he was running but his usage really hadn’t changed. Essentially we are looking for a computer to surf the net and play some games on.

I’ve long been a fan of All In One computers where the entire computer is housed in the monitor, meaning no big box under the desk. iMac have this market cornered in terms of design, they are beautiful, elegant pieces of art but we are looking for Windows based machine. In a nutshell, they are all pretty ugly.

Based on technical specifications and price we picked up a Dell Inspiron 23 inch All In One with a Touchscreen for around $1200. 20% off the retail price, nice.

23″ is a great size, it looks big initially, but you rapidly get used to the dimensions. The touch interface is mostly a gimmick but will be more usefull when Windows 8 comes out as it features Live Tiles, like Windows Phone 7. It’s a gloss screen which means its reflective althought the colour representation is great. For a home environment where there isnt banks of lighting overhead, it shouldnt be an issue.

With everything built into the monitor the only cable we have to plug in is power. The keyboard and mouse are wireless.

This dell has some great technical specs:

• Intel Core i5 – 4 GB RAM – 1Tb hard drive
• HD Led Screen (1920 x 1080)
• DVD Recorder + Card Reader
• ATI Radeon HD 5470 1GB (graphics card for gaming)
• TV Tuner – Digital –> BONUS! This thing can be used as a TV!

Upcoming Windows 8 Live Tiles Touch Interface

That last point is a real winner for my friend. This computer is going into a study/second sitting area and the TV feature will come in very handy. The system comes with a Windows Media Center remote which allows you to control the computer just like a TV. You can also record your favourite tv shows for viewing later.

Overall Im pretty happy with this Dell. Excellent value for money at @ $1200, OK value at its full RRP of $1498.

I know, its pretty simple right? You would think so.

From the day I got home with my IPAD it was behaving badly with my wifi connection. Laptops worked with no issue, but  my brand new $700 Apple iToy was having wifi problems showing the following symptoms:

• terrible wifi range and reception
• asking for the wifi password regularly
• wifi freezing and pausing -> this one was most annoying. My wifi indicator would show a connected state, but no data would transfer. Other wifi devices would be OK, just not the iPad.

A quick ‘turning it off and on again’ would fix the wifi problem, only to have it reoccur minutes later. The actual time was totally random, from seconds to hours.

My first Wifi Router was a Belkin Pre N, which had run my wifi network admirably for years. Then tried a Netgear DG834. Then a Billion. Then a Belkin Surf N. Now back to another Billion. Through all those router changes I left the channel on number 1. This was done on purpose as I live in a wifi heavy area with almost all the other access points between channels 6 and 12. To get as far from them as possible, I used 1.

It wasn’t until a recent router reset where I left the router on its default channel of 6 by accident, later discovering that the iPAD had magically become wifi stable!

Part of problem solving is changing everything possible to find the culprit, but who would have thought the ipad would have a channel 1 problem? Plus in my defence, I did have a very valid reason for staying on 1.

Now this might not work for you, but if you are having these problems, and are on channel 1, give it a go. Mine has been working happily now for 2 months, so my issue was definitely the channel.

Update: This pausing, freezing symptom actually affected all my i devices, my iPhone 3gs, iPad & iPod Touch. And yes I did try all the other fixes and guides on the net, like setting a fixed IP address and adjusting the brightness.

My Response:

What you want is Log Me In Hamachi VPN @ $254 per year.

You basically install the little app onto each computer to join the VPN and its done! It bypasses routers and most firewalls, negating VPN IP issues. LogMeIn is secure and well respected.

Simply set up a share on one of your computers (the best one). Plug in a USB drive & run daily backup’s to it. Have a couple of these drives and take them offsite, rotating them weekly.

Windows 7 has a great backup and restore interface built in. If your using XP, try something like Acronis True Image Home @ $99. It’s a set and forget type application which will image your entire computers drive, or just files you select.

This option would cost $99 for Acronis + 2 x WD Elements Desktop @ $65 each. Total $164.

As mentioned previously you will need to keep the file serving computer on all the time for remote access.

There are NAS boxes that are internet accessible, such as the QNAP TS 210 @ $261 + 2x HDD @$55 each + you will still need offsite backup drives @ $65 for USB HDD = $436

Qnap has MyCloudNAS is a service which allows you to connect to your NAS remotely from anywhere.

This NAS has dual drives which can be set in RAID 1 mirror, this is not a backup, it only protects against single drive failure. If drv 1 corrupts it will instantly clone corruption to Drv2. Also if NAS gets stolen or hardware fails, its all gone, hence offsite usb drive needed. Pulling a drive from the RAID 1 array as previously suggested is NOT a good idea.

Added: FYI Myob over VPN will be a terrible experience. MYOB barely likes working over a local network. To do this, you will have to remote desktop into the computer where the MYOB data file lives.

We have around 5Gb of documents to share, hundreds if not thousands of documents, including docs, PDF’s and images.

The old way to do this would be via FTP server  but I’m looking for a more modern method, where I dont have to allow 3rd party access to my clients servers.

A quick Google search for enterprise file sharing solutions brings many results with a couple of clear market leaders. Research into these services show they are both reliable and secure (very important). Although they seem to be identical services there are differences when delving down into their specifics.

These services offer many benefits over FTP such as version revisions, commenting and collaboration. Easy to use interfaces for uploading files and setting user permissions.