A couple of months ago, as part of our coverage of Xerocon, I wrote an article titled, "Xero - Redefining Financial Reporting," which talked about an exciting new reporting functionality Xero had started releasing in various phases across their entire service market.
Xero recently announced that Xero Report Templates now are available for U.S. customers.
The new Report Templates feature significantly will reduce the time accountants and bookkeepers spend on reporting by creating reports (or packs of reports) that can be used across any or all clients to save time and ensure consistency. Xero reported that its partners who already have been using the tool experienced reduced time spent on reporting and compliance as much as 60 percent.
Xero
Xero Reports & Templates
In case you don't recall my earlier article, or you simply don't want to take the time to click on the above link and reread it, here are some of the features associated with Report Templates:
- Out-of-the box templates to get started faster: These template reports can be used for compilations, reviews, as well as for the legal industry, service companies and retail businesses.
- Easy customization of reports using layout editor that permits the addition of headers, footers, text blocks, custom columns, formulas, and much more.
- A built-in report codes system that updates all reports – including account groupings and layouts – while permitting the maintenance of a consistent chart of accounts. The new reporting engine makes use of "Report Codes," not individual Charts of Account, so that reporting conforms to recognized accounting standards and remains consistent across not only an accountant’s entire practice, but on a much "bigger data" framework. The mapping of individual accounts to their appropriate "Report Codes" creates a level of conformity and standards that's unprecedented within the industry.
- Standardized reports (or groups of reports) that can be run practice-wide or be customized at the client level. Reporting based upon this schema means that an accounting professional could run reports across all their clients with ease. It also means that the same reporting nomenclature and classifications can conform to the applicable standards of reporting. But dynamic flexibility in the reporting allows for not only standardized sets of reports at a practice level (and beyond), but permits customization of reports at the client level. Changes made to the reporting standards then can ripple down to the customized client reports.
In addition, Xero will be holding webinars to give customers a chance to see the new reporting firsthand.