From XU Magazine, 
Issue 19

Cloudy with a chance of… Profits? Expenses? Sales?

As an advisor, how often do you think about the impacts of the data you don’t know? Introducing the hottest new topic in advisory: The weather.
This article originated from the Xero blog. The XU Hub is an independent news and media platform - for Xero users, by Xero users. Any content, imagery and associated links below are directly from Xero and not produced by the XU Hub.
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When it comes to advisory in the accounting ecosystem, high-quality financial data serves as the foundation from which actionable insights and meaningful business advice are born. But financial data is only one piece of a much more complex puzzle. Optimizing access to other data – data that may otherwise be inaccessible or difficult to capture – can have profound and far-reaching implications for businesses.

Advisors, get your heads in the clouds

Have you ever thought about how the weather affects your decisions to buy certain products or when and where you buy them? Are you the type of person who loves to go to movies on rainy days? Ever bought a new fan or even an air conditioner unit after getting fed up with a seemingly never-ending heat spell? Are you more likely to book a beach holiday on a hot summer day, or in the midst of being cooped up inside throughout the cold winter months?

Take this one step further. Consider your own business, or the businesses you advise through your practice. What do you know about the consumer patterns or purchase decisions made in the context of the weather? Can your financial data tell you about these associations? If you don’t have the foggiest idea, you’re not alone. And now, you don’t have to wait for a rainy day to find out.

chata.ai: Not just a fair-weather friend

chata.ai is a conversational business intelligence tool that allows users to access, report and analyze their business data in real time, simply by asking questions in their own words. Integrating with APIs such as Xero to dynamically pull client-specific financial data, chata.ai empowers users to move beyond the “what” – identifying KPIs – to delve into the “why” – analyzing the underlying factors that contribute to those metrics. This shift from the “what” to “why” is where meaningful insights are derived, and better business decisions are made.

Let’s chata’bout the weather

Is your current advisory strategy destined to make it rain, or should you be worried that a storm is brewing? With chata.ai, all you have to do is ask.

What are my monthly average sales by weather type for the last 3 months?

What were my total sales of Product X on sunny days last year?

What were my average sales on days above 20 degrees?

What were my average sales on rainy days last quarter?

Advisors can bring unique value to their service offering simply by asking chata.ai how the weather affects specific metrics over time, and the insights that stem from this new accessibility are profound. And when an advisor shares these insights with their clients…

Well, they’ll be on cloud 9.

With chata.ai, users simply link their weather location to their business data and ask questions in their own words. There’s no need to dig through a painful number of transactions and cross-reference financial data with weather history in an effort to determine meaningful trends. Instead, chata.ai makes it possible to quickly and easily gain in-depth insights into the data to make powerful and informed business decisions.

If you’re thinking about exploring how the weather impacts your business, hopefully this has given you a little ray of sunshine. Try chata.ai for free to determine whether weather matters for your business…

Helpful hint: it does!

Why leave it there?

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