Cloud Stories | Cloud Accounting | Business Tools | Xero, Qbo, Myob | Ecosystem | Apps

The questions I asked Andrew Sims; Can you explain to our listeners what The Full Suite does? How does your solution benefit the Xero user? How should Xero advisors deal with an IT guy who says a business can’t be moved to the clouds? What inspired you to found The Full Suite? Hint, it involves sitting next to Rod Drury on a plane trip! What challenges have you faced growing the business? Where do you find your customers? How many staff do you have? What do you look forward to doing most? With your insights and experience, where do you think businesses can improve your productivity? What does the future hold for The Full Suite?

Highlights of my conversation with Steven Shelley  Zero time theft From solving an internal problem in an aerospace company to launching Deputy Solving staff rostering in over forty countries Global growth and looking for staff Lesson learnt: Build a product specific to a wider audience Subscribe to Episode #22 of Cloud Stories on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/cloud-stories-heather-smith/id908333807 I’d like to start by asking you Steve, what does a typical day look like for Steve Shelley? Steve:             So in the last few years Heather I’ve had quite a tumultuous time. I’ve actually been building a new house which has taken a lot of my time. Building a new team at Deputy, building Deputy and a whole series of other things that I’ve been working on in the background as well, so it’s been a very hectic last four or five years for me. But a typical day is a day which is literally jam packed. I don’t have much time to spare at all which is I guess how I’ve been for many years though, it

David is the Co-founder and CEO of Chaser. Prior to Chaser, David qualified as an Accountant with Deloitte and worked as a Finance Director. He is incredibly passionate about working with Xero users and partner firms to get their invoices paid on time. Chaser (www.chaser.io) has the top-rated Xero add-on for chasing customers to pay their invoices on time. They link seamlessly with your Xero organisation. You can then automatically send the polite persistent chasers that get your invoices paid on time. All while preserving what you would do personally, so that those chasers have the maximum impact in getting your invoices paid.

Highlights of my conversation with Lisa Martin Working with a mentor to develop leadership skills Quality Management in a bookkeeping business Social media, referral and paid advertising Building brand equity in a bookkeeping business New Zealand Bookkeepers Association and its role in New Zealand

Highlights of my conversation with Blake Oliver One of the first US based bookkeeping firms and cloud integrators to be listed on Xero site Acquisition of Cloudsourced Accounting by Harshman Phillips & Company and in turn offering the whole package: bookkeeping, cloud integration, tax compliance and virtual CFO services An add-on needs to solve a pain point to justify he friction of setting up another application. What do clients want from their CPA’s Mentions Cloudsourced Accounting = http://cloudsourcedaccounting.com/ Harshman Phillips & Company = http://hpccpa.com/ Abacus = https://www.abacus.com/ Expensify - https://www.expensify.com/ Bill = https://www.bill.com/ Vend = http://www.vendhq.com/ Square = https://squareup.com/ Heather Smith Click here to sign up to my newsletter http://bit.ly/SignUp4Newsletter Listen to my podcast : http://cloud-stories.com/  Read my latest blog post : http://www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com/blog/ Visit my website : www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com  Book

Highlights of my conversation with Nick Hazel Benefits of focusing on a niche customer base Unexpectedly becoming a business coach in the café industry Xero plus other cloud solutions used in a growing bookkeeping practice The ultimate cloud solutions for cafes What an add-on solution needs to do to get in front of bookkeeper Nick Hazel Mentions ·          Xero - https://www.xero.com/ ·         Café Bookkeepers - http://www.cafebookkeepers.com.au/ ·         Monocle Bookkeeping - http://www.monoclebookkeeping.com.au/ ·         Deputy - http://www.deputy.com/ ·         Receipt Bank - http://www.receipt-bank.com/ ·         Asana - https://asana.com/ ·         WorkflowMax - http://www.workflowmax.com/ ·         Zendesk - https://www.zendesk.com/ ·         Everhour - https://everhour.com/ ·         CrunchBoards - http://crunchboards.com/   ·         Beat the Q - https://www.beattheq.com/

Highlights of my conversation with Ryan Baker Promoting Work Life balance with a 100% remote team Scaling a business: insights from Fairfax, Trade Me group acquisition of previous business. The Microsoft Bizspark programme for early start-ups Increasing brand awareness via word of mouth Developing an internationally accessible pricing strategy Listening to clients, and planning and implementing improvements Mentions Timely – http://www.getTimely.com/ TimelyLife – https://twitter.com/timelylife Timely Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/liketimely Timely Blog – https://blog.gettimely.com Trade Me - http://www.trademe.co.nz/ Microsoft BizSpark – https://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ Slack – https://slack.com/ Yammer – https://devices.yammer.com/ Trello – https://trello.com/ Skype – http://www.skype.com/en/ Vend – http://www.vendhq.com/ Salesforce – http://www.salesforce.com/eu/ MailChimp – http://mailchimp.com/ Xero – https://www.xero.com/ UserVoice – https://www.uservoice.com/ Buddle Findlay Lawyers – http:

Highlights of my conversation with David Watson ·         Benefits of cloud integration for franchise businesses ·         What you need in place to offer advisory services ·         How cloud technology is disrupting the traditional business intelligence ·         Benchmarking for small business owners ·         How to maximise your time at conferences            Mentions ·         Fathom - http://www.fathomhq.com/ ·         Xero - https://www.xero.com/ ·         Vend - http://www.vendhq.com/ ·         eWAY - https://www.eway.com.au/   Connect with Heather Smith Click here to sign up to my newsletter http://bit.ly/SignUp4Newsletter Read my latest blog post: http://www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com/blog/ Visit my website: www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com  Book time with me heathersmithau.gettimely.com/book    Subscribe to my YouTube channel : https://www.YouTube.com/ANISEConsulting Follow me on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/HeatherSmithAU Join my FaceBook page : https://www.facebook.c

Highlights of my conversation with Alex Falcon Huerta founder of Soaring Falcon Accountancy Technology used in a 100% cloud accounting practice Helping clients review future trends Where small business owners can look to improve profits How add-on solutions can promote themselves to accountants Mentions included :  Soaring Falcon Accountancy - http://soaring-falcon.co.uk/ Digita Virtual Office - https://www.digita.com/pro/ MyPay - http://www.mypay.uk.com/ Xero - https://www.xero.com/ Dropbox - https://www.dropbox.com/ Microsoft Office 365 - https://login.microsoftonline.com/ CrunchBoards - http://crunchboards.com/ Fathom - http://www.fathomhq.com/ Spotlight - http://www.spotlightreporting.com/ Stripe - https://stripe.com/ eWay - https://www.eway.com.au/ Receipt Bank - http://www.receipt-bank.com/ Tripcatcher - https://www.tripcatcherapp.com/

Highlights of my conversation with Saul Colt Ruffling feathers by being interesting, original and fun: the story behind the cloud writing about a cloud company and the levitating man Word of Mouth marketing insights Marketing advice for accountants and bookkeepers wanting to attract the right type of client How exhibitors can maximise their investment at the Denver Xerocon conference and beyond Denver Xerocon 2015 Social media tools for professionals. Subscribe to Episode14 of Cloud Stories on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/cloud-stories-heather-smith/id908333807 Transcript Heather:        Hello, this is Heather Smith here and you’re listening to Episode 14 of Cloud Stories. I’m very excited today because I interviewed Saul Colt who is the Chief Evangelist for Xero, so we have that interview coming up. I just wanted to quickly touch base with you about some of the things I’ve been doing since the last episode. I think I went down with a sore throat again which stops me recording the podca

Highlights of my conversation with Steven Renwick Offering cloud credit control and accounts receivable solutions to small business turning Oxford MBA projects into a cloud success story utilising the crowd equity funding platform seedrs to launch Satago partnering with Experian to offer free access to credit data on UK businesses Subscribe to Episode # of Cloud Stories on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/cloud-stories-heather-smith/id908333807 Transcript Heather:        Hello and welcome back to Cloud stories. Today I’m interviewing Steven Renwick. Steven is the founder and CEO of Satago. Satago is a clever credit control and accounts receivable software that helps companies get paid faster. Satago connects to user’s accounting software and takes over the process of chasing customers for payments as debts age through automated statements and escalating email reminders. Included with Satago is free credit information and payment behaviour data about all of your customers, allowing you to de

Ep.12 Barry Dowling – TransferMate Global Payments – Minimising costs and complexities associated with foreign currency payments seamlessly from with Xero Highlights of my conversation with Barry Dowling ·        Spending time to understand your client ·        Using client feedback to tweak the solution offered ·        Achieving the milestone of $5US billion in transfers ·        Using referral links as a marketing strategy Subscribe to Episode 12 of Cloud Stories on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/cloud-stories-heather-smith/id908333807 Transcript Heather:        Heather Smith here. Welcome to Cloud Stories. Today I’m talking with Barry Dowling. Barry Dowling is the cofounder of TransferMate Global Payments. He is dedicated to making the process of booking foreign currency payments seamless, easier, faster and cheaper. TransferMate Global Payments is a global Fintech company that provides integrated solutions enabling companies to seamlessly process international payments. They pr

Highlights of my conversation with Tejasawi Raghurama Growth Save 300 administrative hours per month Automates accounting for ecommerce stores Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India Increasing monthly recurring revenue and reducing churn Transcript Heather:    Hello. It’s Heather Smith here. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you are doing well. Today I speak with Tejasawi Raghurama which I’ve probably pronounce incorrectly but I refer to him as Tej. Tej is a growth hacker at ZapStitch. ZapStitch is a data integration platform for small business to automate data flow across cloud business solutions. They are automating accounting for a thousand plus e-commerce business from North America, Australasia, Europe by integrating Shopify, Bigcommerce with Xero. ZapStitch automatically imports sales orders into your accounting application’s invoices. Discounts, taxes and shipping rates are sync’d seamlessly which is something he emphasises in the show. An average business using ZapStitch saves 300 plus

Highlights of my conversation with Hannah McIntyre ·         Inspiration for launching Futrli formerly Crunchboards ·         The early design of Futrli ·         Working in a global community ··      Business support in Britain ·         Moving from compliance to value add   Transcript Hannah, what did you like to do when you were 12 years old? Hannah:        Oh my goodness. Probably take my sister into a room and beat her up.  No, that’s a ridiculous thing to say. What do I like to do? I lived in the middle of nowhere in the countryside in the north east of Scotland, so in the summer holidays which would be your winter, your version of your winter, our summer holidays … we did get some sun in the north east of Scotland, it would be a case of, “Right kids, we’ll see you at tea time and we’d be out on our bikes fishing and doing all this sort of Huckleberry Finn sorts of things. Yes, I was a bit of an outdoorsy girl. Heather:        Cool, you were out on the heather moors of Scotland? Hannah: 

Highlights of my conversation with Cameron Priest ·        Singaporean Government fostering a technology hub ·        Global adoption of add-ons ·        Setting up a start-up in Singapore ·        Growing a business with a multi-lingual support ·        Giving clients the “wow factor” during the on-boarding process ·        The Smart Enterprise Software Wave ·        Choosing a currency to price in ·        Blk 71 Ayer Rajah Cr– the hub for start-ups in Singapore Subscribe to Episode 9 of Cloud Stories on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/cloud-stories-heather-smith/id908333807 Read about it here: http://cloud-stories.com/ep-9-cameron-priest-tradegecko-kiwi-cloud-inventory-solution-calling-singapore-home/ TradeGecko is a world-class Inventory, Order and Supply Chain Management platform with a comprehensive suite of functionalities – packaged together in an intuitive, cloud-based interface, designed and structured ‘user-first’ from the ground-up. Expertly manage your inventory as you s

Highlights of my conversation with Peta Ellis Benefits of working in a co-working space Brisbane tech Start-ups successes Various events held at River City Labs   Mentions River City Labs http://www.rivercitylabs.net/ River City Labs Events / Start-up weekend http://www.rivercitylabs.net/events/ Rails Girls http://railsgirls.com/ Uber https://www.Uber.com/cities/brisbane Ollo Mobile http://ollowearables.com/ Mothers Groupie https://mothersgroupie.com/ Right Pedal Studios http://rightpedalstudios.com/ SydStart http://sydstart.com/                                      Today I am speaking with Peta Ellis the General Manager at River City Labs: Brisbane's premiere Startup Community and Co-working space. Peta has been described as the “hub of the Brisbane start-up community" and was ranked 6 in the Top 50 Global Lean Evangelists, and StartUp Daily listed Peta as a Brisbane mentor all start-ups should get to know. Questions asked: Who is your favourite super hero and why? What is the purpose of River

Dan Fairbairn Secret confessions of a Cloud Integrator Highlights of our conversation ·         Pricing bespoke projects ·         Overview of Vend and SimPro ·         Mapping out client workflows and requirements Mentions    Waypoint formerly Ocius Digital http://www.wearewaypoint.com/ simPRO Software http://simpro.com.au/ WorkFlowMax http://www.workflowmax.com/ Xero http://www.xero.com/ Vend http://www.vendhq.com/   Deputy http://www.deputy.com Ocius Digital Technical, yet approachable. Professional, yet personable. Casual, yet dependable. Our clients choose Ocius Digital because our depth of experience and our unrelenting commitment to solving the most challenging business problems. We understand the obstacles and opportunities that small businesses balance each day including the seemingly never-ending demands on the directors, finding the time to work ‘on’ the business and not just ‘in’ the business, and constantly seeking ways to minimise the administrative overheads. www.ociusdigit

Today I am speaking with Chris Wheatley founder of Scope Accounting. Chris Wheatley is the founder and CEO of Scope Accounting a full service accounting business launched 8 weeks ago! Highlights of our conversation ·         Challenges of starting a new business ·         The thought process of choosing a business name ·         How Chris is using Sharesight and WorkFlowMax in his business Other solutions mentioned in this episode include: http://www.sharesight.com.au/ http://www.workflowmax.com/   Contact Chris Wheatley at https://www.facebook.com/scopeaccounting Contact Heather Smith at http://www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com/

 Today I am speaking with Tom Wallace founder of Re-Leased. Tom Wallace is the founder and CEO of Re-Leased a cloud-based, property management software designed to automate and simplify the management of your property management portfolio. Highlights of our talk: Coffee with Rod Drury -> Founding Re-Leased -> #Xerocon Start-Up Alley -> Winner of Xero NZ 2014 Emerging add-on of the year-> what next? Why New Zealand is leading the way in technology development. New developments of Re-Leased: residential property management and trust accounting Other solutions mentioned in this episode include: https://trello.com/ http://www.timely.com/ http://2012.redjungle.com/xero   Contact Tom Wallace at http://www.re-leased.com/ Contact Heather Smith at http://www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com/

Highlights of my conversation with Jared Armstrong Internal collaboration tools Inbox Zero Providing a product that presents exactly the features, exactly the complexity that is needed for the specific business that is using it Mentions MinuteDock https://minutedock.com/ Xero https://www.xero.com Google Docs https://docs.google.com Gmail https://mail.google.com/ Google Drive https://drive.google.com/ Raygun https://raygun.io/features Letterboxd http://letterboxd.com Timely http://www.GetTimely.com Stripe https://stripe.com/ Braintree https://www.braintreepayments.com Coursera https://www.coursera.org/ Dropbox https://www.DropBox.com MinuteDock is online timesheeting software designed to be super easy and efficient for freelancers and small to medium businesses. We integrate directly with Xero to sync across your customers, and make billing your time a breeze. Tracking time is natural and fast, you can drill down into time spent by staff on clients, projects and tasks with our in-depth reportin