Learn Xero Online from Abbottabad

Before any transaction is posted, the company file has to be set up properly. This module takes you from a blank trial organisation to a file that behaves like a real business.

• Register for the free 30-day trial and open a practice organisation
• Find your way around the dashboard, menus and search
• Enter organisation details, financial year end and base currency
• Review general settings and feature settings such as invoice and bill defaults
• Understand users and roles, and why access should be limited to what each person needs
• Learn how cloud accounting differs from desktop software in backups, updates and sharing

A clean chart of accounts and correct opening balances are the foundation of every set of books. Mistakes made here follow you into every report.

• Add bank accounts and understand how they appear in the chart
• Build, edit and archive accounts, and choose sensible account types
• Enter opening balances on the conversion date
• Import supplier and customer contacts from a spreadsheet
• Update customer and vendor opening balances against the control accounts
• Run the opening trial balance and check that it agrees with your source figures

Stock and assets are where many small-business books go wrong. You will practise setting them up so that cost of goods sold and depreciation come out correctly.

• Create tracked inventory items with purchase and sales accounts
• Record inventory opening balances
• Purchase fixed assets and record them in the fixed asset register
• Understand depreciation settings at a practical level
• Handle loss, damage or write-off of inventory with the right accounting treatment
• Review inventory and asset figures in the reports

The sales cycle is the busiest part of most ledgers. This module follows a customer from first order to final settlement, including the awkward situations.

• Cash sales versus credit sales, and how each is recorded
• Sales orders, converting an order into an invoice
• Receiving customer advances and applying them to invoices
• Receipts, part payments and overpayments
• Credit notes and sales returns
• Writing off bad debts
• Full settlement of customer balances and checking the receivables report

On the supplier side, accuracy matters because it controls what you pay and when. You will work through the full purchasing cycle.

• Create and send purchase orders
• Convert purchase orders into bills
• Enter bills for items and for services
• Add a new vendor during a purchase
• Record purchase returns and supplier credit notes
• Make payments against bills, including part payments
• Review payables and plan payment runs

Real ledgers contain entries that are not simple sales or purchases. This module covers the adjustments an accountant meets every month.

• Advance rent and how it is released to expense over time
• Security deposits held as assets
• Renovation and capital-type expenses
• Adjusting an expense against a prepayment
• Manual journals and when they are appropriate
• Common mistakes: wrong account type, duplicate entries and missed accruals

Bank reconciliation is the single most useful habit in bookkeeping. Here you learn to do it quickly and to find the cause when it does not balance.

• Import bank statements from a CSV file
• Match statement lines with existing invoices, bills and payments
• Create new entries directly from a statement line when nothing matches
• Use bank rules to speed up repetitive transactions
• Complete the reconciliation and confirm the balance with the statement
• Set up and manage petty cash, including top-ups and expense recording

The last module turns your entries into information. You will read the standard reports and see how tax and payroll fit into the same file.

• Export the trial balance and profit & loss report
• Read the balance sheet and the aged receivables and payables reports
• Understand how a VAT return is calculated from tax-coded transactions
• See how payroll is set up in Xero and what information it needs
• Tidy a file before sharing it with an accountant