The Capsule Blog

Announcing Xero and KashFlow Integration

Today we’ve made it easier for small businesses to better manage their customers by integrating the best CRM with the best online accounting systems, Xero and KashFlow.  CRM and accounting are both important functions for most small businesses.  CRM provides the tools to manage relationships with prospective and existing customers, and accounting systems provide the tools to manage your financial success. 

Typically these systems have been disconnected, so when updating a customer in your CRM you have to duplicate that change in the accounting system.  Of course, in practise time is tight and the these systems often drift out of date.  Equally important, you want to see everything you know about a customer in one place.  The CRM provides the customer dashboard, so why would you want to switch to the accounting system to see what’s been invoiced and what’s overdue?

By integrating Javelin with these accounting systems we’ve fixed the problem.  Now all information including invoicing and overdues is available from customer view in Javelin, and updates to customers are automatically applied to the accounting system so you only need update the customer in one place.  This is a big step forward for small business in getting better value out of CRM and accounting.

The following screencast demonstrates how you can get started easily and start benefiting from an integrated solution.  The screencast shows Xero in action and we’ve done exactly the same for KashFlow too.

The KashFlow version of the screenflow is available here.

To find out more about Xero and to sign-up for a free 30-day trial, visit www.xero.com

To find out more about KashFlow and to sign-up for a free 60-day trial, visit www.kashflow.co.uk.  KashFlow are kindly offering Javelin customers £2/month off KashFlow when you sign-up using promo code JAVELIN01

Sign up for a free, no obligation 30-day trail of our Professional Edition to get started.

The value of integrated solutions for small business

Javelin is days away from an upgrade where we are moving into a significantly new world for our Javelin users.  We have integrated Javelin with two online accounting systems.

Why have we done this?  One of the criticisms of CRM’s is the difficulty of maintaining accurate data.  If you are not actively updating the information, no matter the quality of the CRM solution, it will fall into disrepair.  Rubbish in, rubbish out.

I know this from personal experience.  I am in a part-time buy-to-let partnership and we use an accounting package, a landlord system, and a bunch of excel spreadsheets. We have to key the bank details into the accounting system, we have to duplicate the contacts, and we have stopped using the landlord system for anything other than letters and the core contact details – even though the system offers much more.

The good news is that we have integrated the best CRM, Javelin, with the best accounting packages so you manage your data more easily.  What a transformation from when these systems were disconnected.  Accounting information is on the same page as all the other information about the customer – at a glance you can see the invoice status on the customer record, along with last contact dates, history of contacts and any pipeline business.  So if you are chasing an outstanding invoice you can see the value of new business alongside the outstanding invoice before making the call to the customer.  There are also some cool features like moving between systems being as simple as a click-of-a-button.

Personally, I hope other service providers will understand this need and start providing integrated solutions for their users.  It is time for small business to get the benefits of SaaS well beyond discussions around a lower cost threshold and much reduced IT support.  I am proud that we are leading the way in providing a service that is truly beneficial to you.