The benefits of Xero for GPs

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­In the last year, we have supported a number of our GP clients that have made the move from IRIS to Xero. Xero is an online accounting software that connects your practice to your bank, accountant, bookkeeper and other business apps. The various features within Xero offer a number of benefits to GP practices, allowing them to spend more time with their patients and less on admin.

Bank feeds

Xero lends itself efficiently to bookkeeping for GP practices through its use of bank rules and bank feeds. Bank feeds link up your bank account to Xero and can automatically import transactions. Once you’ve connected a bank feed, you will see a statement balance which matches your account balance and easily allows you to reconcile your accounts each day to your trial balance. Having a detailed chart of accounts, with separate codes, is helpful as it drives the information for the reports in Xero.

Bank feeds helps save time as income and expenses can be matched off or allocated quickly and bank rules can be set up for any recurring transactions – helping to make sure allocations are correct every time.

Invoices

The invoice section allows you to keep track of expected income and feeds into debtors, which is particularly helpful for practices with other income e.g. medical reports. Xero has two options for invoices. “Classic invoicing” involves you manually inputting the data and “new invoicing” uses information you have filled in in the past which is particularly helpful for recording NHS statements where format is the same every month, saving you time for reporting and for allocating income and expenses to the correct nominals.

For remittances and invoices received, these can be attached quickly and easily to the income or expense lines in the Xero nominal. This can help keep the records tidy as no printouts are required and you can search an expense on Xero to find invoices quickly. By attaching invoices to expenses there is no need to send on or print out this information when it comes to handing in your year-end information as it is all saved in Xero.

Reporting

Xero allows a lot more flexibility for bookkeeping as reports can be run when required for any period. This means you can compare expenses more regularly, which is helpful if you’re trying to budget or save costs within your practice. Tracking your capital and current account positions also helps to reduce the chances of overdrawing. Having the ability to check your position at any point in year rather than just at year end accounts is a big benefit, especially if the reporting has been done properly.

As Xero Platinum Partners, we can provide training sessions specifically for GP Practices who are new to Xero, and those looking to get the most out of their existing Xero package.

For more information on how we can support your GP practice, please contact our dedicated EQ Healthcare team today via healthcare@eqaccountants.co.uk or contact one of our offices.

Alternatively, if you would like to discuss any aspect of Xero in more detail, please get in touch with our EQ Accounting team on info@eqaccounting.co.uk.