News: Xero Expands Add-on Directory into Software Marketplace
Xero has 350 add-on programs with nine new ones added in the past three weeks. That is three new programs each week!
It is virtually impossible for accountants to keep on top of new add-ons and have time left to do their accounting too.
The updated marketplace and a better search option are a welcome addition, but will it make a substantial difference?
Yes – if you have the time, you can test features and functionality by getting a trial account. But you will find it quite hard to access critical factors.
- How financially stable is the company behind the add-on program?
- Does the developer have the resources to keep up with new technology?
- Can you measure the maturity and stability of the software?
- How well does the company understand the intricacies of the business process?
- Can you synchronise data in all add-ons or are you duplicating lists of customers, products and prices?
The last point is the most important. People often overlook the fact that they will now have lists of data in so many systems and not all data will get automatically synced between them. A very common scenario is to connect Xero + Unleashed + Vend + Magento + Google Contacts or a CRM.
Add-ons are still not purchased through a unified platform, like iPhone or Android apps, which is why there is no central location for reviews and real user discussion.
If Xero creates a real app store, information about the number of users and their level of satisfaction will naturally surface and become transparent.
And until then? Probably not to worry if you are looking at areas that are not the lifeblood of a business.
But for any core systems it is definitely worth investing time and effort in a thorough exploration of the solution first.
Totally agree with this comment as a consultant and developer of operational software for industry verticals that match the required workflow to transact an invoice or a purchase order. Coming from a Mobility background of two way real time synchronizing the key is – “their must be a master and a servant”! However applications built for the Internet have a much better chance in my opinion and experience in achieving your ideal outcome. Also Rod Drury made it cleat that the future path was industry verticals which makes sense for the user. SAP got this right many years ago but were slow to take CLOUD applications seriously. BI from a centralized data base is the future and the IT&C Community should watch and follow those Accounting Vendors that get this right!
This is a great article to highlight the risks of choosing what essentially becomes as critical as the underlying accounting package it integrates with.
Those give points pretty much say it all.
The one I would add is the awareness of how they handle YOUR clients financial data. Xero have put in many hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars into their infrastructure to ensure a high standard of security to their digital custodian of your clients data.
Would you let your client select any add-on that will have equal access to said financial data via Xero’s API, and could essentially store a copy of that data without giving them the equal due diligence?
A consideration that I believe is not often pondered due to the unawareness that these add-on partners (not just for Xero) gian access to almost 100% of the data you access through the accounting package.
I agree, Drew. Most SMEs take software vendors at their word that they have the proper protections in place. Whatever “proper protections” means. I’m sure the definition differs, and relates closely to budget…
Reposting here again to get some more mindshare –
Nice article Inbal. Interesting as far as Data Management goes. You made a right point. I see when going via this Add on route, policy framework of designating apps to be single source of truth becomes really important. Eg. CRM holds the customers, Inventory App holds the Inventory. Another challenge comes up when presenting all the data spread out across these silo apps into meaningful dashboards/cockpit views for Execs in an organization to make intelligent decisions. All these apps have their own cloud databases and becomes an enormous jigsaw to extract and synthesize into a single view. A question – Are we going back to square one with the ERP decomoposition strategy on cloud?
Hi Parul, yes they are great points – which app should be the source of truth, and the importance of dashboards. Clearly in Xero’s case (and for all accounting software vendors) it’s hoping to be the source of truth. At Xerocon it revealed that it also wants to be the dashboard for all apps. The first makes a lot of sense, not so sure about the second. An independent dashboard seems more logical so you can swap out the bits that you need – like alternative accounting systems.
Excellent point, Drew.
When you authorise access of an add on to your Xero org, they pretty much have access to the entire API (with the exception of payroll in certain occasions).
Users of smartphones would be familiar with reviewing the access privileges of an app before installing it. No such step when authorising the Xero API.
Most people do ask questions about security, up-time guarantee, and where the data is stored when it comes to accounting, but hardly anyone asks the same questions about add-ons.
And in reality, your accounting system has your financial performance, but your so called ‘add-ons’ are sometimes really the heart of your operation and store much more sensitive information about your customers, their purchasing habits, your relationship with your suppliers, your product costs and so much more.
Interesting, isn’t it?