A Brit Hit as Xero reaches 60,000 UK SMBs milestone

James Henderson for ComputerWorld New Zealand writes: New Zealand cloud accounting firm Xero has surpassed over 60,000 small business customers in the UK, representing the sixth consecutive year of 100% growth across Great Britain.

Revealed at Xerocon London 2015, the Kiwi firm pledged £1 million commitment to partner marketing, aimed at supporting the growth of the company’s UK partners.

Also announcing the launch of UK Payroll, to be available in April 2015, Xero UK Managing Director Gary Turner says the UK division has also completed the addition of direct bank feeds with Metro Bank, alongside RBS, NatWest, HSBC and Silicon Valley Bank, with Santander also in the pipeline.

“The cloud business isn’t easy,” said Gary Turner, Managing Director, Xero UK, in his opening keynote address.

“And that’s why Sage hasn’t yet nailed cloud accounting, and Intuit Quickbooks is still navigating its way through.

“But Xero isn’t complacent about what it has to deliver; though, so far so good with more cloud customers than Sage and Intuit combined in Xero’s sixth year of 100%+ growth in the UK.

“So if there’s one thing we hope you’ll take out of this, it’s that “Desktop software is dead. We’re now living in a cloud reality.”

Xero also unveiled a new wave of innovation enabling small business to grow faster and increase UK GDP with the country’s first integrated cloud business management solution, offering all-in-one accounting and payroll solution, along with a business performance dashboard using big data to provide real-time business insights.