Jenkins - Learning Xero learn to use Xero to make bookkeeping tasks simple and gain valuable business insights effortlessly

Until quite recently, software had undergone a rather pedestrian process of evolution from the earliest personal productivity tools of the PC era, to enabling team collaboration thanks to the emergence of low cost networking in the 1990s, and then lastly through the era of the first internet-aware software, which enabled organizational software like CRM. But around the mid-point of the last decade, something very interesting began to happen in the world of software that went on to create an unprecedented explosion in form, function, and sheer volume of choice in the world of software that we live in today.

In 2011, Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape (the world's first web browser), insightfully encapsulated the factors behind this new era of software in his Wall Street Journal article, Why Software Is Eating The World"Six decades into the computer revolution, four decades since the invention of the microprocessor, and two decades into the rise of the modern Internet, all of the technology required to transform industries through software finally works and can be widely delivered at global scale."

There has never been a time when we've had more choice in software nor has the capability and usefulness of software ever been greater.

What's possibly even more interesting about this new world is that the biggest beneficiaries will not be the mega-corporations who possess the huge amounts of capital necessary to benefit from the earlier generations of software, but the millions of small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) in the UK.

The productivity of our SMBs matters a great deal more than you might realize. SMBs contribute to more than half of the UK's national gross domestic product every year and account for almost three quarters of employment. And it's among this vital economic community that modern, powerful software has finally found a home in the village shop, the five person design studio, and the small town roofing contractor, which makes me incredibly optimistic about the decades ahead when we'll finally see millions of great British businesses unlocking their true potential with great software.

Of course, software on its own isn't enough and so before the UK's millions of business owners and managers can hope to benefit from this new era, they first need to grasp what it means practically, and how they might approach harnessing it. And it is in this regard that the author of this book, Jon Jenkins, is well qualified having helped hundreds of small businesses adapt to and embrace cloud software. As managing director at Xero, I first met Jon around 5 years ago and was struck by both his passion and his clarity of vision about the potential cloud software had for transforming the productivity of small businesses in particular and it has been a pleasure to observe Jon go on to help, coach, and advise many hundreds of companies since that time.

This book is the distillation of Jon's own expertise and ability together with countless practical insights gained through working with all those companies and business owners.

Gary Turner

Managing Director, Xero