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Xero Getting Foothold in Top Firms

Rod Drury, XeroXero, which makes Internet-based accounting applications, says it is making significant progress at top accounting firms in the United States. In a slide in presentation about its results for the year ended March 31, the company said it that "Over 10 of top 100 accounting firms in process of moving clients to Xero." However, the company has not provided details.

So far, the New-Zealand-based vendor has publicly identified only San Ramon, Calif.-based Armanino. In April, Armanino said it was picking up Xero to provide outsourced accounting services to small business clients. And it does not appear Xero is ready to identify the firms immediately.

"No, we haven't named anyone else but making good progress getting a foot hold in key firms," CEO Rod Drury said in response to an emailed question. Drury did not volunteer other names. It's unlikely that firms are moving all small-business clients to Xero. For example, Armanino said the deal did not impact its offering similar services via cloud-based Intacct.

The slide presentation also reports that the accountant channel in the U.S. has experienced 50-percent growth this year and that first-year growth exceeds other countries both in terms of users and its partners. Xero said it is building an accountant channel in California and that it has more than 430 active partners and more than 2,200 accounting professionals have completed Xero events. Xero also cited evidence of its impact on the market. It said a LinkedIn Group and was formerly devoted to QuickBooks now is for Xero and QuickBooks consultants. The shortened version of the formal name is "Successful QuickBooks Xero Cloud Consultants Accountants", which has nearly 29,000 members. That group is managed by Michele Long, a well-known Intuit ProAdvisor.

However, as of March 31, Xero has only 11,000 customers in the U.S., and a less-than 1 percent share of the market. Its goal is 360,000 customers and a 1 percent share, although the slide does not cite a time table for achieving that. Its over-all goal is 1 million customers worldwide.

The presentation notes Xero plans to significantly increase its investment in the low-cost product with such elements as accounting practice management tools, U.S. payroll, mobile and touch technologies and financial documents, along with closer relationships with banks and payment services.

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