How tradies are using Xero to earn more and work less

When we ask tradies in business what they most want and need, we hear some variation of these four things:

I want to know I have the cash I need in the business every week
I want a better balance between business and family life
I want my team to have a better experience of work than I did when I started out
I want all my hard work to pay off financially so I can…buy my first home, invest in properties, splash out on a holiday, send my kids to private school…or something like this.

A follow up question you might not expect us to ask is: are you using Xero to do your accounting?

Software isn’t the answer to all your problems and desires. Running any business and achieving any goal requires work.

It can be considerably less hard work (and pretty transformational) when you have Xero helping you manage things.

Here’s how our tradie clients are using Xero to simultaneously get more from their business and make life easier.

They’ve set up a dashboard to know what’s happening with their cash at all times.

You want to be able to see what’s coming in and going out of your business at a glance. Imagine a world now without online banking? Similarly to the way you login to your bank and see all your transactions, with Xero, you can filter your business finances into one central place.

This means no more need to cross reference your bank with your spreadsheet with your latest invoices and so on and so on.

You can set up a bank feed, so Xero will automatically import transactions from your bank account or credit card directly into the software.
You can enter your supplier invoices or receipts into Xero and easily run reports to tell you what you’ve spent, who you still need to pay and when you need to pay them.
You can stop using your inbox as a filing system by saving a copy of supplier invoices and receipts to the individual transactions.

They’re spending less time in the office by having the Xero app on their phone.

No tradie we’ve ever worked with has said “I’d love to spend more time in the office”.

Thankfully, like most digital software solutions on the market today, Xero has a mobile app so you don't have to tack extra time at the laptop on the end of a busy day.

View your overall cash balance
View monthly cash in and out
See your outstanding invoices and outstanding bills
Take photos of invoices or receipts on your phone to automatically upload expense data
Create online quotes on the go

Don’t worry about your data - its safe Xero is cloud based software and they encrypt your business information. This means it is safe, secure, and available when you need it. You control who has access to your Xero data, so no one can view it without your permission. Just remember to protect your business information with a strong password and either an authenticator app or Face ID on your phone.

They’re increasing their bank balance by allowing customers to pay as quickly as possible.

You don’t necessarily need to take on more work to be confident you have enough cash in the business.

Improving and automating your existing cash systems can go a long way to increasing your bank balance and decreasing the (very common) cash worries. The automations in Xero can help you get paid by customers faster so you have cash more consistently.

In Xero you can:

Convert quotes to invoices with a single click.
Send your customers an email to an online quote. They can review your quote and accept or decline your quote with the touch of a button.
Allow customers different payment methods including debit card, credit card or digital wallet such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, so everyone can pay easily.
Receive the cash in your bank account two days after payment is made.
Set up automatic email reminders for late payers to remind customers to pay their outstanding invoices with you.
Copy or edit previous quotes and use contact, inventory or pricing information you have previously saved.

They’re making payroll less admin intensive for themselves and their teams.

Xero can save you time in managing your employees and save your employees time managing themselves. Can I get a thank you for Xero payroll!

Set up new employees faster When new employees join your business, you can lodge a tax file number declaration electronically via Xero rather than completing a paper form and sending it to the Australian Taxation Office.

Once setup, Xero can accurately calculate each employee’s annual leave and personal/carer’s (sick) leave balance. The leave balances are updated automatically after each pay run.

Process payroll automatically

When you’re processing your payroll, you can either enter the hours or (if you are using the timesheet option) the hours will be entered automatically for each employee in the pay run.

Xero calculates the employee’s gross earnings based on the type of hours worked such as ordinary hours or overtime and the applicable hourly rate. Xero will also calculate the employee’s income tax withholding and superannuation contribution. Rather than transfer each employee’s net pay in multiple online bank transfers, you can save time by using Xero’s batch payment feature.

Xero’s automatic superannuation payments remove the hassle of making multiple payments to different employee superannuation funds.

Xero saves you time by backing up your business information and automatically making updates to their software, so you are always on the latest version. When personal income tax rates or superannuation contribution rates change, Xero updates these rates, so you are always using the correct rate.

Empower your teams

Xero payroll also has a timesheet feature where you can track the number of hours worked per pay period by your employees. Xero Me is phone app that allows employees to:

View past pay slips
Enter timesheets
Check leave balances
View upcoming leave requests in the leave calendar
Request, edit or delete leave requests, and
Owners or managers can approve or reject leave requests & timesheets

Your tradies can even upload expenses in the app, removing the need for company cards and making expense requests simple to process.

They’re ditching the paper diary - for good.

These tips are just the foundational things Xero can do for your business. When you grow your business and your team, Xero will grow with you.

When you are starting your business, a paper diary to schedule jobs, reminders, and estimate jobs is OK. As you take on more work and more employees you’re going to want more sophisticated systems to keep track of everything.

You can extend Xero’s capability by connecting it with specialist tradie job management apps. These apps assist with quotes, timesheets, job scheduling, GPS vehicle tracking & invoicing and they integrate or ‘talk’ to Xero. Some of our favourite tradie job management apps are Fergus, Nextminute, Servicem8 and Tradify. These apps give you greater control and help reduce the chaos and overwhelm in your business.

How many hours could your whole family save with Xero?

Most of the trade businesses we work with are family run. This usually looks like a tradie out on the road with the team while their partner runs the business back office.

Imagine you and your partner were given a magic tool that could shave hours off your admin tasks, giving you both more time to spend with your family, take on additional jobs, check out those private schools and book up that beach trip.

That's the power of Xero. With its streamlined invoicing, effortless expense tracking, and automated financial management, you'll be clocking out earlier and enjoying those precious moments with your loved ones.

With Xero, you're not just managing numbers; you're gaining back the most valuable currency of all: time.