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Xero Makes Toronto Office Its North American Hub

May 24, 2021
Bill Kimball

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In Singapore, the company’s sales hub for operations across the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Malaysia, Xero uses Dialpad to establish local numbers for its team, lending credibility to reps when connecting with prospects. Like many fast-growing companies, Xero inherited a hodgepodge of PBX systems as it expanded its international footprint.

As a software-defined platform, Dialpad also integrates seamlessly with the rest of Xero’s Anywhere Worker IT stack, including G Suite and Salesforce. “By pulling relevant data directly into our phone system, our reps can sell and service smarter—no matter where work takes them,” said Andrew Jessett, General IT Manager. Xero also relies heavily on Dialpad Analytics, which enables the company to drill down into communications data by user, department, or region. In addition to supporting Xero’s customer care centers, Dialpad also enables the company’s sales organization to communicate via voice or business SMS—from anywhere.

Back at Xero’s Wellington, New Zealand office, where they were consolidating three buildings to create the company’s headquarters, the team was looking for a visitor management solution. Now that more people would be coming in and out of a single building, the team wanted a way to see who was on-site, when, and why. Also looking for a solution, Carrie Miners, Xero’s Projects and Workflow Coordinator based at Xero’s Wellington office, did a quick Google search and came across Envoy. For XERO, a company that provides online accounting software for small businesses, first impressions mean everything. Whether it’s a visitor, vendor, or potential hire, Xero aims to create a warm and welcoming environment for every person from the moment they walk in the door.

Close to the train station, there’s great shopping, delicious places to eat, lots of green spaces, as well as endless cycling and walking paths. Brisbane – Our beautiful sunlit office has a real family atmosphere. Close to Brisbane Central Train Station and walking distance from Queen Street Mall as well as King William Square, we are lucky to have the best of what Brisbane has to offer just a short stroll away.

  • Denver – Headquarters for the Americas, the Denver office is in the heart of the Platte street area and right near the scenic Platte River.
  • A seven-minute walk from Union Station, the new location provides ready access to places like the Pepsi Centre, Coors Field, the Platte River North Bike Trail, Commons Park and the West Rail Line.
  • To achieve their Zero Trust goals in a scalable way, they knew they needed to minimize the risks that come with manual processes.
  • It acquired Spotlight Workpapers in July 2012 for a mixture of cash and shares totaling $800,000.

Designating Toronto as a product and technology hub reinforces Xero’s commitment to Canada. Xero opened its new Toronto office last year and also recently announced upcoming new product features specific for Canadian accounting and business professionals. The new Toronto hires will also build upon Xero’s data automation technology and capabilities. After using Envoy at Xero’s Wellington office and seeing how secure and easy it made the visitor experience, Miners helped the other members of her facilities team roll it out at respective offices around the globe. To assist Xero to create the right environment, “first impressions coordinators” were established at some of its global offices. The person in this role in each office is responsible for everything from managing the front desk, to coordinating lunches for employees, to making sure packages reach their owners. We will show you how to create, update and delete companies, members and opportunities.

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Overall, Xero Inc’s employees are extremely satisfied with their current office vibe. Edge Marketing, Inc. a Minneapolis-based public relations and marketing firm serving the needs of businesses and firms in the legal and accounting industries, today announced its new partnership with Khoo Consulting.

xero office

For Bowden, everything—centralizing IAM on Okta, implementing adaptive MFA, moving to the cloud, automating processes—plays a role in establishing a Zero Trust security vision for Xero. Decommissioning AD is a major focus for the Xero team, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic when so many employees are working remotely. Workflows is also helping the team make Xero business processes more beautiful. In one example of a PowerShell script gone wrong, Bowden talks about what used to happen at Xero when a user became inactive. Scripting up an automated process with custom code often entails embedding a key, token, or password used to call a third-party API.

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“We considered just scripting all this stuff, but then we thought about the team that would have to manage those scripts, and the support team and everyone else who will come across them,” he says. Workflows also gives the Xero team ways to reduce technical debt and the company’s on-prem footprint while improving security. “We have an enterprise license with Asana, so there’s no added cost to us when we provision a new user, and our support team doesn’t add any value,” says Bowden. Today, Bowden is going through all those lifecycle management processes, identifying quick wins, and quickly improving productivity for both the IT team and their employee customers. Anything that involves looking through a spreadsheet or logging into a system to complete onboarding or offboarding steps—things like moving Google Calendar ownership to a manager—can now be automated using Workflows. As a high growth company, automation is one of IT’s key priorities.

xero office

Often, that token is stored in a file on the company server, without too much attention to securing it effectively. Because Workflows runs on the Okta platform rather than on an on-prem computer or server, API tokens are automatically secured and updated.

Kyle de Golia, first impressions coordinator for the Denver, CO office, is one of those key people. He says that before Envoy, there was no automated system for welcoming guests and notifying a host that their visitor had arrived. Guests checked in via pen and paper that was on the desk, and if Kyle stepped away from his desk, visitors had to wait until he was able to get back to his desk to sign in. This wasn’t the first impression Xero wanted its guests to have and didn’t provide a clear view of who was on site at any given time. “Envoy is this digital friend I get to hang out with every day. It’s one thing to have a teammate, it’s another thing to have a reliable teammate. That’s Envoy.” We will cover the occupancy and utilization reports available in the system. We will show you how to use each one and dive deeper into the data it exposes.

Office 365 For Accountants And Bookkeepers

We will demonstrate how to create invoices and manually run the bill run. We will also together review the billing settings in the system and automate the billing operations. This onboarding package is best for multi-location teams with complicated workflows. We will start with a short kick-off session to discuss your current processes, timelines, integrations and outline a step-by-step plan to ensure the smooth adoption of the system on your end. Our Onboarding Specialists will make the most effective use of your time together working to empower you to take full advantage of the system capabilities and reporting tools on your own.

Hawkes Bay – A converted old wool-store is where you’ll find our newest office. When we’re not busy answering customer queries, you might find us out shooting some hoops in the carpark, taking in the panoramic views of the pacific ocean or heading off to a local winery. Auckland – Our fast-growing Auckland team is housed under a New York loft-style roof in Parnell. We have plenty of space for creative teamwork, chilling out or having a game of pool.

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With Workflows, IT gains the power to automate complex identity-centric processes without code, using APIs to create bespoke business processes connecting Okta product features and third-party applications and systems. Okta’s out-of-the-box automated lifecycle management features made a huge difference for Xero, eliminating 95% of onboarding and offboarding processes. To achieve their Zero Trust goals in a scalable way, they knew they needed to minimize the risks that come with manual processes. “Now that we provision from Workday into Okta, user creation is automatic,” says Bowden. As People Experience staff enter employee information into Workday, the data flows into Universal Directory, which pushes it out to 24 common applications, including Slack, Google Apps, Office 365, and Salesforce. Placing employees into Workday’s location and distribution groups triggers automatic provisioning to the apps they need, with the correct configurations. The team implemented Okta Single Sign-On in 2013, and the rest is history—Xero employees have started their days by logging into Okta ever since.

Join our team of the world’s best thinkers, creators and educators who are changing the way small business is done globally. Have the freedom to shape your career and be proud of the work you do. Remodel of an existing 2,300 SF single-story office building and a 240 SF addition. This highly awarded remodel included reuse of high embodied carbon materials and net-zero energy usage.

Save time and effort by providing Xero with all the data it needs to issue invoices automatically. About us Making flexible working the way of working has been our goal from day one. Meet our team and advisors who are helping us understand the flexible workspace industry, shape our product and deliver the most effective solution on the market. Careers Join a fast-growing startup and make a difference with your work. We’re currently hiring Senior Full-stack JavaScript Engineers, Senior DevOps Engineer, Engineering Director, Senior QA Engineer and more. Ask about our products, pricing, implementation, or anything else. Built In Colorado is the online community for Colorado startups and tech companies.

xero office

A sleek and modern office that inspires an innovative and collaborative work environment where everyone can do the best work of their lives. Milton Keynes- This vibrant office is our UK headquarters where you’ll feel welcome and fit right in as soon as you walk through the doors.

Imagine Having Time To Focus On The Big Picture While Xerox® Rpa Takes Care Of Your Manual Tasks

The team started using Workday as a source instead of AD, storing information within Okta Universal Directory and using Okta Lifecycle Management to automate onboarding and offboarding processes. When they first implemented Okta, Xero IT set up AD as their source for employee profile information, adding and updating data manually. Okta’s tight integration with AD meant that, as they adopted more cloud applications and moved away from on-prem, AD-reliant ones, they could shift profile sourcing away from AD, as well. Of course, the team is also charged with making sure IT security remains rock-solid. Meeting both those challenges involves establishing unified identity management, which forms the basis for a Zero Trust security strategy.

In November 2018, Xero acquired cloud-based accounts preparation and tax filing solution Instafile for £5.25 million , which will be paid over three years. Xero paid the acquisition price for Hubdoc in two stages, initially US$60 million consisting of 35% cash and 65% in Xero equity. A second tranche of US$10 million in equity was promised to the Hubdoc’s shareholders in 18 months following the acquisition, subject to operational targets and conditions.