Every softwares have their own features and products to cater the needs of the client. But, meeting their every expectations and requirements are just next to impossible. Not every software can provide every service that a client needs. Well, in this case, add-ons comes in handy.
Add-ons are like the extensions that are added to a software to increase its functionality. They can be added or removed as per our wish and necessity.
For Xero also, there are several add-ons available for various purposes like for maintaining account payables and receivables only, creating customized invoices, managing point of sales etc.
The following are different purposes along with the add-ons used for them:
1) Point of sales (POS): Point of sales refers to the final point where the product is handed over to the consumer along with the invoice in exchange of its cost. For POS management, Xero comes with some add-ons like:
a. Square: Square makes the transactions easy to be done. It accepts card transactions from different devices like android or iPad etc. It is also very easy to connect and sync this add-on to your software. You can keep track of every thing like payments, income, refunds etc.
b. CIN7: CIN7 is a cloud-based add-on that automatically syncs all the data like purchases, sales, costs and profits earned to the software. It streamlines the whole chain of supply under one umbrella to make the management of all the data entering continuously mess-free.
2) Warehouse Management: For any trading business, their most important asset are their products, which they treat as ‘inventory’. Better quality their products have, more profit will they earn. Inventory are purchased and kept in bulk in warehouses that needs proper management. For warehousing management, following add-ons can be used:
a. Vend: Vend is a cloud-based software. Vend along with Xero, tracks and keep data of your stock available in the warehouse. It also alerts when it deficits the sales order. It automatically records all the data eliminating the risk of any kind of errors.
b. simPRO: This add-on keeps all the necessary information like available inventory in the warehouses, their location, details of all the supplier under one click. It also tracks material that goes out from warehouse for delivery. It groups similar kind of materials according to category. simPRO also sorts out all your suppliers and takes out the most effective price amongst them to save cost.
3) Preparing Quotes: Quotes are like legal contracts that binds the supplier to fulfil a demand made by the customer upon a specific cost. The following add-ons can be used with Xero to create quotes
a. Workflow Max: Workflow Max is designed by Xero itself. It creates and sends customized quotes in minutes. It lets you chose from pre formed templates for quotes that saves up a lot of your time.
4) Sales performance management: Sales performance management means tracking, managing and analysing the sales in of the business and adopting methods to increase it. In order to manage sales, businessmen take help of various softwares. Along with these softwares, many addons are also used:
a. Futrli: Prepares dashboards on your behalf, so you can keep an eye on all your reports. These dashboards are also shareable, that means, that it can be sent to any one, even to the personal responsible for the problematic area, if any.
5) Drop shipping: Drop Shipping is the method of business where the business man who acts as the middle-person, does not keeps goods in the warehouses. Instead, they receives order from customers and send its details to the manufacturer to meet the demands. This method is usually preferred by e-commerce companies. To manage drop-shipping, following add-ons are being used in Xero:
a. Shopify: Shopify helps you manage drop shipping by regular and automatic exporting all the details of the order to Xero. It creates customised reports that help you of all your orders. It also support compliant with global tax structure.
b. oneSaas: It automatically creates details of the invoice and the customers according to the order placed and this invoice will be transferred to Xero. It also lends you hand in email marketing.