Xero and Stripe team up to help small businesses get paid faster
Xero teams with Stripe to help SMBs get paid faster
Cloud accounting firm Xero announced a champion move for small businesses to help them get paid faster and give them more options on how they get paid, writes Julie Muhn at Finovate.
“Small businesses are fundamental to the growth of major and developing economies around the world; ensuring that they get paid on time is vital to their survival and growth,” states Craig Walker, founding CTO and executive general manager, platform business technologies at Xero.
“We built the Xero platform to help small businesses grow with better tools, smarter insights and comprehensive connections to the information they need to run their business. Our partnership with Stripe brings us even closer to helping small businesses spend less time chasing payments, and more time focusing on doing what they love.”
The two are working on solutions to make client invoicing more efficient and to offer more insight into business performance. The first two tools being launched under the partnership are the Stripe Feed and Auto Pay.
The new data feed from Stripe makes it easy for businesses to receive transaction data on sales and invoices in the Xero platform. Prior to today’s integration, Xero facilitated Stripe reconciliation for credit card payments processed through Stripe. The partnership will automatically integrate every payment processed through Stripe, from online invoices to Shopify purchases and processing charges, as individual line items in Xero.
Xero will use machine learning (ML) to automatically reconcile transactions. The company says the new Stripe Feed will be available “in the next few months”.
With Auto Pay, businesses can set up and receive recurring payments for repeat billing customers in Xero. This will come in handy for a multitude of businesses, as Xero reports that more than 1.6 million repeating invoices are paid in Xero month-over-month. This feature will soon be available to customers in the US and eventually roll out across the globe.
The companies have found that small businesses using Stripe payments in Xero invoices, when compared to those without a payment gateway, are already paid up to 15 days faster globally, and up to 16 days faster in North America.
Xero offers its 1.8 million subscribers access to an ecosystem of 700+ third party apps and 200+ bank connections.
Founded in 2006, Xero listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) in 2007 and the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in 2012. In January of 2018, the company consolidated to list solely on the ASX and now boasts a market capitalisation of $5.9 billion (AU$8.6 billion). Xero has raised more than $319 million (NZ$470 million) in funding, including $1.4 million pre-IPO; $10.2 million at its IPO; and follow-on rounds from investors including Peter Thiel, Matrix Capital Management, and Accel Partners.
