What's new in Work Planner: Xero, Who owes you and tax tools
Work Planner now connects to Xero, there's one place to see and chase who owes you, receipts for cash and bank payments, and tax reminders that keep you ahead of HMRC.
This was a big week, mostly on the money side. Work Planner now connects to Xero, chasing debts is much simpler, and there's a lot more help with tax. Here's what's changed.
Work Planner now connects to Xero
If you or your accountant use Xero, your customers, invoices, payments and expenses now go across on their own. No more typing the same figures in twice, and bank reconciliation is available through Xero too.
See who owes you, and chase it in one place
The new Accounts › Who owes you page lists each customer who owes you money once, with the oldest debt first. From there you can send reminders, print the debt list, or print just the rows you tick.
It also comes with:
- Customer statements: print or email what a customer was charged and paid over a period, and what they owe, from their page or for everyone you tick. Customer Statements
- Ready-made reminders: payment reminder emails and texts for everything a customer owes, or for one job
- Pay everything at once: take payment for all of a customer's jobs by hand or with one card payment link, paying the oldest debt first
Less time working out who's behind, and money in sooner. See Who Owes You and Printing the Debt List.
Cash, bank transfers and receipts
Record payment is a short form for cash, bank transfers and cheques. It pays the job's invoices, asks before changing how the job is paid, and offers to send a receipt.
You can now send or print a receipt for any payment, by email or text. Emailed receipts come with a PDF of what was paid, when, how and what for. See Payment Receipts. If you need to give money back, you can refund a cash or bank payment from the payment itself: Refunding a Payment Taken by Hand.
Tax help and your accountant
Settings › Accounts & tax sets up your business type, financial year, VAT, expense tax categories and HMRC connection in one checklist. See Accounts and Tax Settings and Connecting HMRC.
You'll get reminders by bell, phone and email a fortnight and three days before each VAT return, Income Tax update and final declaration is due. The new VAT page shows what you owe and by when, and Income Tax shows your Self Assessment figures for any tax year, with or without HMRC.
Come year end, download everything your accountant needs for a period in one go, or email them a link. You can also give them their own read-only login with the new Accountant role. See For Your Accountant.
Also new this week
- Weather forecast: the dashboard and planner show the Met Office forecast where your business is. Weather Forecast
- Add expense: VAT worked out for you, the van, a photo of the receipt, and costs that repeat as often as you like. Adding an Expense
- Accounts › Home: income, expenses and profit beside last year, what you're owed and the tax due next. Accounts Home
- Profit and loss: one report by month and beside last year, which downloads as a PDF. Profit and Loss Report
- Round value report: what your repeating work is worth a month, a year and over the next 12 months. Round Value Report
- Customers report: customers gained and lost each month, by source and round, and why they left. Customers Report
- Completed jobs by team member: splits what each person collected by how they were paid, so you can check the cash they hand in. Completed Jobs Report
- Price rises: a Last Price Rise column on the Jobs list, and a filter for jobs whose price hasn't gone up since a day you pick
- Working days that change week to week: set a rota, or have someone's usual days take turns over two to four weeks. Team Member Working Days
- Quote tracking: see when a quote was delivered, opened and viewed online, your conversion rate, and send your terms and conditions with every quote
- Invoices: due dates from your payment terms, overdue marked, and tick several to email or print at once
- Export CSV on Expenses, Invoices, Who owes you and Customers
- Pinned records: pin a customer or job to open it again quickly. Pinned Records
- Custom Record Labels: pick which customer and job details to show, and in what order
A couple of things work differently now. Invoices are marked as sent, paid or voided with buttons on the invoice, and printing no longer marks them as sent. The Overview, Statements, Ledger and Receivables reports have been replaced by Profit and loss, Who owes you, Accounts › Home and a Transactions export.
Fixes worth knowing about
Transactions and expenses typed in by hand were working out VAT wrongly, saving £120 at 20% as £24 VAT instead of £20. That's now fixed. Debt and unpaid invoice reminders also weren't reaching anyone after the first 200 customers, and now go to everyone.
Invoices paid by Direct Debit or Instant Bank Pay no longer stay unpaid, and a Direct Debit that's charged back now shows as owed again. There were also plenty of smaller fixes for phones, the website builder and screen readers.
New to Work Planner? See our plans or book a demo.
