Launching our new webinar series: Building an Enterprise-Level System with Xero (UK)
August 14, 2023
Today we’re excited to be announcing a series of webinars we’re hosting in September, ‘Building an Enterprise-Level System using Xero’ (UK).
It's something we've been working on for a while and we're hugely excited about it!
We’re hosting 14 individual sessions exploring different topics, all aimed at helping CFOs and their teams who need to scale their Xero setup to meet the needs of their growing business.
If you think you’re outgrowing Xero, this series is for you. We'll be showing you the way to E-R-Peace of Mind on the accounting platform you already know and love.
Today, Xero has over 3.7 million subscribers in more than 180 countries.
That’s a lot of businesses. Many will have started up using Xero, loving the simplicity that the software gave the owners in the early days.
Inevitably though, 17 years after Xero’s launch, there are now many businesses that have grown up using the software and are testing the limits of what it can do. Their day-to-day needs are expanding, and the simplicity that once drew them in is leading to challenges to overcome.
Scaling businesses have scaling needs
A bigger business means bigger decisions and a greater need for reliable real-time management information. Opening new offices, expanding overseas, applying for funding and ramping up hiring all require new processes and tools, and there’s only so much Xero can do on its own.
In these scenarios CFOs and their teams end up grappling with complex spreadsheets to supplement Xero’s functionality, pouring through lines in Excel. This can lead to trouble. Human error on one hand, version control on the other. And then there’s the fact that a complex spreadsheet can crash a laptop, leaving the Financial Controller with their head in their hands.
Scaling businesses have sources of data that need to talk to each other, not get locked up in some Excel file on a desktop somewhere. Without the accounting system talking to the CRM, to payroll, to inventory management, to payments processing and more, it’s impossible to get the real-time business intelligence that drives decision making in successful teams.
If you don’t think about your finance software stack and design your Xero platform to work better for you as you scale, it’s very possible that you’ll start to feel as if migrating off Xero to a traditional ERP system is the only way forward.
"Our business has grown rapidly. Increasingly we'd been hitting the limits of Xero as a system. We'd resigned ourselves to the fact that our days with Xero were numbered."
– Harriet Hope from Arbolus
Migrating from Xero sucks
The jump up from Xero to any big-name ERP system is huge.
Firstly, the cost. You could go from paying under £500 GBP / $1000 AUD a year to 50x that, sending your software costs skyrocketing. And then there are the implementation costs. Typically you'll spend the same amount on consulting fees for implementation as you do on the software in year one.
Secondly, the hassle. Migrating any system takes time and energy, diverting the finance team’s attention away from all of the more important action-orientated work they could be doing, like forecasting sales numbers or costing your next expansion project.
Let’s face it, no-one ever said they were excited to migrate systems. It’s pretty stressful. Take it from someone who’s been there – Harriet Hope from Arbolus, a customer of ours at Mayday – told us that her last migration project was “horrible and hectic”.
What’s more, according to research from Gartner, 55-75% of ERP implementation projects fail. That’s right, your migration project has up to a 3-to-1 chance that it will leave you worse off than you were before.
"Usually, when a company gets to our level of complexity and size they move to an enterprise software system…
We’ve been putting that off because we don’t want the initial investment or complexity."
– MJ Figg from OG Global
Scaling with Xero is possible
We’ve met CFOs who say that it’s “inevitable” that they’ll have to move off Xero and implement an expensive ERP system to scale. For whatever reason, they’ve resigned themselves to this ‘fact’ and haven’t reviewed their options.
But scaling with Xero is absolutely possible.
Xero’s superpower is that, when customisation options for the software itself start to run out, there are third-party apps (like Mayday) that give the platform the functionality you need.
When you step back, consider your business’s needs and review your software options, you can create the perfect custom enterprise-level system for your business at a fraction of the cost of migrating to an ERP.
Why this series
At Mayday we frequently hear that businesses think they're outgrowing Xero. On a recent webinar with two customers, Harriet Hope from Arbolus and MJ Figg from OG Global, we heard from them about the benefits of using Xero's app ecosystem. They even came up with the apt phrase that it's possible to gain 'E-R-Peace of mind' with Xero, if you know how.
That's why we're hosting this webinar series. We want to share this knowledge with all Xero users who are thinking that they might need to move to an ERP system in future – we've got you covered.
Learn from elite CFOs
This September we’re hosting a webinar series which will guide you through these tech stack options – ‘Building an Enterprise-Level System using Xero’ (UK).
For each session we’ll be joined by a different in-house finance leader who has grappled with these exact issues in their roles, working with Xero to scale their businesses. They’ll tell you about the ups and downs of designing a software stack from scratch, the pros and cons of different approaches and how to avoid the mistakes they’ve made.
We’ll also be joined on each webinar by a cloud integrating expert accountant and a relevant app partner, both of which will talk through their recommendations, guided by the series host, Mayday Co-founder and CEO, David Tuck.
Each session will go over a specific topic that CFOs have asked us about. We have operations and process-focused topics, topics that apply to businesses expanding globally and opening new offices, topics helping businesses with insight and analytics, and more. For a full list of sessions, see the series schedule.
These webinars won’t be salesy. They’re for you to hear real life experiences of those who have been where you are now, and to get your questions answered. We’ll even do our best to cover where we think an ERP system might be needed over Xero (although we think that’ll be rare).
Sign up to the whole series, or to whichever sessions make sense to you and your business today.
Our series in full
Over the last three weeks of September, we’re hosting one 30 minute webinar every weekday, typically at 10am UK time.
- Launch webinar, discussing scaling with Xero – Tue 12 Sept
- Spend Management with Spendesk: Scale your Spending Process – Wed 13 Sept
- Consolidation with Joiin: Report at Group Level across Xero Orgs– Thu 14 Sept
- Reporting with Fathom: Level Up your Management Reporting – Fri 15 Sept
- Treasury Management with Hedgeflows: Proactively Manage Currency Risk – Mon 18 Sept
- Payroll with Pento: Manage Complexity when Scaling Payroll – Tue 19 Sept
- Supply Chain and Inventory Management with Unleashed: Manage Complex Manufacturing and Inventory Processes – Wed 20 Sept
- Foreign Currency Transactions with Airwallex: Optimise FX Rates and Automate Reconciliation – Thu 21 Sept
- Accounts Receivable with Chaser: Automate and Enhance your Accounts Receivable Processes – Fri 22 Sept
- Financial Planning and Analysis with Causal: Plan Effectively for Every Scenario – Mon 25 Sept
- Accounts Payable with Nook: Speed Up Bill Processing and Make Bulk Payments – Tue 26 Sept
- Approvals with ApprovalMax: Scale your Approvals Process as a Bigger Team – Wed 27 Sept
- Ease of Customisation with Xero: Unlock features for scaling businesses in Xero – Thu 28 Sept
- Intercompany Automation with Mayday: Automating multi-entity month end – Fri 29 Sept
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We're proud to be supported by such a stellar range of app partners who will be joining us to lend their expertise across the series.
We'd also like to thank our series partners:
- Official Recruitment Partner, Zanda: Founded in 2019, Zanda exists to accelerate sustainable growth in strong tech companies by surrounding founders with talented finance leaders. For the last four years, Zanda has supported numerous tech startups ranging from Seed-Series D with full-time, interim and fractional talent.
- Official Media Partner, XU Magazine: XU is the independent Biweekly Newspaper and Quarterly Magazine run by Xero users, for Xero users. XU is aimed at the 3.5 million+ strong community of Xero users worldwide. Every issue is available FREE of charge on the XU Hub. Visit the XU Hub to see the latest daily news, new features and updates.
- Official Professional Development Partner, GrowCFO: GrowCFO is a modern education platform that helps finance leaders reach their full potential. GrowCFO offers finance leaders of all levels an exciting way to join a supportive community – with thousands of members already signed up for our FREE membership, it’s the perfect place to join!
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