Features a nod towards offline usage.
Xero’s added new features on Sunday including the ability to export budgets to a spreadsheet for budgeting. The decision recognised that online budgeting tools were not yet powerful enough to replace spreadsheets.
Excel was still “the best in the world” when it came to customised reports and graphs, ad-hoc queries and complex forecasting, Xero said in its official blog.
“We looked at developing smart budgeting tools ourselves. However, Excel really is best-of-breed, so it made more sense to connect the two,” Xero product manager Andrew Tokeley wrote.
Xero users could export actual figures from Xero to a CSV file, create scenarios in Excel or Google Spreadsheet, and then import the results back to Xero as the budget line.
Xero posted a YouTube video which showed how data from the Budget Manager in Xero could be manipulated with conditional formatting, spark lines and dynamic graphing in Excel in Office 365, Microsoft’s cloud productivity suite.
There was no ability to import Xero data directly into cloud-based spreadsheets in Office 365 or Google Apps – the data had to be downloaded first as a CSV file.
Xero users in the US received the ability to print cheques directly from Xero. The cloud accounting program managed check numbering, voiding, deleting, styling and a full audit history of any changes.
Xero claimed there was strong demand for printing checks in other regions such as Canada and said it would roll out the feature to other markets in coming months.
A new time-saving feature for accountants was the ability to add tracking or change the tax rate on a transaction from the main bank reconciliation screen. Previously users had to open a transaction to change these options.
Full release notes could be found here.