A big warm hello to all of our Xero community — we hope you are feeling refreshed and are excited to collaborate and work together in the year ahead! Since the festive break, we rolled out a select number of updates to inventory, expenses and Xero HQ, kicking off our first product news blog post of 2022 with a bang. Let’s dive in.

If you’re a Xero partner, don’t forget to register for our upcoming quarterly product update, where our education team will walk you through a demo of all the latest releases, so you can maintain your advisor certification.

New features

Import GoCardless direct debit forms to Xero — Global

We’ve made it easier for you to import active direct debit forms from GoCardless and match them to your contacts in Xero, even if they were created elsewhere. Simply import them when you connect your GoCardless account to Xero, or select direct debit forms from the dropdown menu next to your GoCardless account to access them from the direct debit management page. Once imported, you can manually match these forms to specific contacts and continue to collect all future payments for that contact using GoCardless in Xero.

Better manage inventory from the list view page — Global

When you click on any product or service item in the inventory list view, you’ll now see a summary of key information at the top of the page. The editing button is more easily available and identical to the item creation page. Before confirming any adjustments, you’ll now be shown not only what has changed, but by how much.

Save time changing staff access in Xero HQ — Global

We’re making it faster and easier for you to edit staff access to Xero organisations with improved bulk actions. Now when you select multiple clients you’ll be able to edit staff access to their subscriptions in one go, with the full list of role types available.

Empower employees to set up their expenses — Global

It’s now easier to add a new employee to Xero Expenses. With this new update, employees can be  invited to set themselves up for expense management and enter their own bank details, rather than their employer doing this on their behalf. This self-service tool helps to streamline the expense set up process and eases the administrative burden for Xero admin users.

Assign different permission levels in Xero Projects — Global

We’ve released new functionality in Xero Projects that allows admin users to assign staff to different projects and decide what they can and can’t see using different levels of visibility. You can now mark a project as public or private, so you can control who can see project information.

Easily report payroll information for STP Phase 2 – AU

To help you prepare for the STP Phase 2 compliance date at the end of the year, we’ve launched a new STP2 Information Hub. Simply click the banner from your overview dashboard within Xero Payroll to find the latest information on new pay items, including bonuses and commissions, directors fees and cashed-out leave. To start using new pay items, click on ‘Add this payment type’ from the Hub.

Stay compliant with the 2021 Schedule C report template — US

We’ve released a 2021 Schedule C report template (view in Spanish) to help US advisors prepare income and expenses for sole proprietor tax returns. It’s now available as an option in your report templates. To make sure there’s no confusion, we’ve removed the default template for 2020. You’ll still have access to your customised templates, as well as templates that have been saved or published in your client organisations.