Xero Awards London 2020: GoCardless is the Financial Services App of the Year!
Last editedMar 20204 min read
On Tuesday 3rd of March, Xero hosted their annual UK & Ireland awards here in London, celebrating stand-out accounting, bookkeeping and app partners across their thriving community. We’re thrilled to be able to say that we won Xero’s Financial Services App of the Year 2020, up against the brilliant finalists iwoca and Pleo.
Attending the night were representatives across all of GoCardless; Pranav Sood (VP Small Business), Duncan Barrigan (Chief Product Officer), Rachel Astall (Head of Global Partnerships), Steph Hills (Partnerships Support Manager), Amy Tucker (Partnerships Support Advocate), and Saman Harris (Senior Legal Counsel).
We’re delighted to again be recognised by Xero for our dedication to the amazing small business community they’ve fostered, having been previously named NZ App Partner of the Year 2019, UK App Partner of the Year 2018 and 2017.
“The Xero Awards are a great opportunity to recognise the achievements of our accounting and app partners, and shine a light on the work they are doing to support small businesses. We’re delighted to be working with forward thinking businesses like GoCardless to offer bank debit as a payment option across the UK. We know that invoices get paid 15 days faster on average with GoCardless and Xero.”*
- Edward Berks, Global EGM, Financial Partnerships, Xero
It was an emotional evening
Bringing together some of the UK and Ireland’s most progressive accountants and bookkeepers, and the app partners they make magic with, the 2020 Xero Awards have broken away from their traditional placement within the broader agenda of Xero’s annual conference Xerocon.
For the first time, the event has taken a life of its own independent of Xerocon, demonstrating Xero’s dedication to recognising the value these accountants, bookkeepers and apps bring to their community. No longer are these awards outshone by delightful mania that is the Xerocon show floor and afterparty - they can now take centre stage. It makes sense - the individuals and firms that Xero is celebrating are helping them champion small business around the world, many being small businesses themselves. And small businesses are critical to the economy - in the UK alone, small-to-medium businesses account for 60% of all employment and around half of turnover in the private sector.
And alongside Xero upping the ante with their dedicated awards night, so too were emotions high. The excitement in the lead up is perfectly captured by Stuart Hurst of UHY Manchester’s LinkedIn post where he states “Xero changed [his] LIFE”, that he’s “absolutely buzzin to get the nomination”, and culminating in the promise that if he wins, he’ll “10000%” get a Xero tattoo.
Notable themes across the acceptance speeches were a genuine sense of community in the Xerosphere and how essential its support has been in enabling accountants and bookkeepers to start their own firms and become small business owners. James Ashford, Founder of GoProposal and Director at MAP (who took home an award themselves), spoke of the power of this community in a LinkedIn video, “[there’s this] sense of collaboration… long gone are the days when accountancy firms operating in silos and saw the other firm down the road as competition… they’re championing this sector… and they want to seriously help small businesses to grow.”
Speaking of the night, GoCardless’ Pranav Sood said:
“The atmosphere was brilliant and unlike any awards night I’ve ever been to. There was a real sense of shared purpose to the evening. It was genuinely moving to listen to the winning accountants and bookkeepers talk about the impact that Xero and the app ecosystem have had on their practices and their lives.”
Xero Awards London 2020 winners
Over the course of the night, 14 awards were dished out to lucky attendees. Nine were picked up by accountants and bookkeepers, and five by app partners. Congratulations once again to all.
Accounting and bookkeeping awards
Sole Practitioner of the Year - Figure Fairy
Small Firm of the Year - Ashton McGill
Mid-size Firm of the Year - Ad Valorem
Large Firm of the Year - Johnston Carmichael
100% Xero Award - Raedan
App Advisor of the Year - MAP
Xero’s Most Valued Professional - Jonathan Bareham
Emerging Partner of the Year - PSC Accountants & Advisors
Partner of the Year - RDA Accountants
Jonathan Bareham of Raedan taking the stage to accept his award
App partner awards
App Partner of the Year - ApprovalMax
Emerging App of the Year - Xavier
Financial Services App of the Year - GoCardless
Industry Specific App of the Year - Re-Leased
Practice App of the Year - Fluidly
A community we’re proud to be part of
Xero’s mission to help empower small businesses, empower the accountants and bookkeepers that serve them, and to bring back the oft-missing human element of business technology, is inspiring and we’re proud to be a part of it. We’re committed to continue supporting small businesses.
Since the humble origins of our Xero integration four years ago, we now help just shy of 10,000 small businesses around the world get rid of the pains of getting paid, so they can focus on the parts of their business that they love, and be confident the cash they’re owed will come in when it’s supposed to. And how we help small businesses tackle the late payment problem is significant - invoices get paid 15 days faster on average with GoCardless and Xero*.
“We were able to identify where it was most valuable to have customers paying by Direct Debit and as a result have reduced the amount of time that customers take to pay from around 90 to 30 days.”
Jacob Colton, Director, Catalyst2
But the journey we’ve been on with Xero is more than just stats and quotes. The past 12 months in particular have been a rollercoaster, with:
Xero Roadshow Australia (Feb 2019) - Kicking off the year with a road trip down under, visiting 10 towns and cities.
Joining forces to tackle cash flow problems through education (Apr 2019) - Unifying our knowledge with Xero, as well as accountants and bookkeepers from the community, we launched Cash Flow Academy.
Headlining Xero Roadshow UK & Ireland (May-Jun 2019) - Back in the original home of GoCardless for the start of a lovely summer, making our way around 13 cities alongside our friends at Fluidly.
Gold sponsor at Xerocon Brisbane (Sep 2019) - Representing at one of our favourite events of the year, and marked the first time GoCardless was demoed live on stage by Xero’s Craig Walker.
Xero Roadshow NZ (Oct-Nov 2019) - Over to the home of Xero to hit the road once again for their New Zealand roadshow.
Gold sponsor at Xerocon London (Nov 2019) - What can we say… we love Xero, we love London. This was a match made in heaven. Xerocon London 2019 was a stellar event.
Launching ‘Instalments’ for Xero Roadshows Australia (Feb 2020) - Announcing the launch of our hotly-anticipated instalments feature in GoCardless for Xero, we teamed up with Xero once again to go on a whirlwind 3 week tour.
We're excited to see what will come in the next 12 months, and beyond.
Want to learn more about GoCardless for Xero?
Our award-winning integration with Xero puts you in control of when you get paid and automatically reconciles your invoices, saving hours of admin. Check out how it works.
*Average improvement in days to pay on invoices collected by GoCardless for Xero users in the UK between 01-10-2018 and 30-04-2019. This information is general in nature. Average invoice payment times may vary for each business using the service. Standard merchant fees apply.
