You may have seen that last week The Wow Company was awarded Partner of the Year by Xero at their annual ‘Xerocon’. Wow walked away with the top award ahead of 1,200 other Xero Partner firms.
Check out the picture of a visibly shocked Paul Bulpitt (Wow Director) and some of Team Wow posing with the award on the night, with Gary Turner & Rod Drury from Xero.
With the celebrations over and the award nestled neatly on the Wow mantlepiece, we thought it might be interesting to tell the story of our love affair with Xero.
In 2008 we got told about this amazing accounting software that was taking over New Zealand (thanks to Will Noble for the tip-off). Accounting software isn’t the kind of thing you get excited about, but we spotted straight away that Xero was very different. Even before it had been localised for the UK, we recognised that it had the potential to transform the way our clients managed their financial information.
Since 2008, we have told pretty much everyone we know about Xero, we use it at Wow, we have converted, trained, implemented and integrated Xero with hundreds of businesses. (Most tellingly, not one has ever switched back to Sage, QuickBooks or the spreadsheets they were using before).
The Wow and Xero love affair goes deeper than just recognition for long-service or loyalty. When Xero UK MD, Gary Turner presented the award, he said that there was one stand-out candidate for the Partner of the Year Award. To be the stand-out choice in a field of 1,200 other accountants is quite something – here’s what we think makes the difference:
1. There are now many Xero Partners around the world. However, few actually ‘get’ how putting your business in the cloud can make such a positive difference, and even fewer make cloud working central to the culture of their business. 100% of the Wow accountants are Xero Certified Advisers and we run internal training sessions on the various add-ons to Xero that automate people’s businesses. As one of the presenters said at the Xero Conference “you can’t just talk the talk, you need to walk the walk”. At Wow, those of you who know us will tell you that we have a completely different culture to any other accountancy firm you’ll meet. We love making a positive difference to our clients’ businesses and Xero is central to that.
2. The team at Wow are focused on providing meaningful information at your fingertips – which for your business means automating as many of your business processes as possible. Xero is only the beginning of that – the platform, backed up by hundreds of add-ons that make running your business really efficient & simple. To this end, our in-depth knowledge and involvement with the Xero add-on community is essential. Products like Xero’s add-on Partner of the Year, Receipt Bank, make this possible. Having meaningful information at your fingertips not only helps you make better business decisions, it can also be tax efficient.
3. At Wow, our strategy is very closely aligned to that of Xero’s. Our aim is to be the #1 most obvious choice for any Xero user looking for an accountant to advise and guide them. To this end, we are involved in the Xero Partner Advisory Council, we help Xero out by beta-testing new products, we advise on add-ons……and generally make sure we’re at the forefront of all Xero innovations. After all, as the fastest growing software company in the world, Xero is surely the place to be.
Our love affair with Xero has been long running and it’s great to know that the feeling is mutual – long may it continue…
“The Wow Company are true pioneers and were one of the first practices in the UK to see the potential in cloud technology to deliver a different kind of client service. While they continue to be passionate advocates for technology, you only need to speak with a Wow client to see the real story isn’t about the technology, but how Wow use Xero to transform the prosperity of their clients.”
Gary Turner, Xero’s UK Managing Director
