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What's New on Analytics powered by Syft

Your regular rundown of changes implemented on Xero Analytics to improve your product experience.

Lauren avatar
Written by Lauren
Updated this week

💡Introducing New Navigation

Syft's new navigation redefines how you interact with your financial data, offering a streamlined and intuitive experience.

The "Graphs" category provides a powerful visual toolkit, where "Dashboards" deliver customizable, at-a-glance overviews of key metrics, and "Visualisations" allow you to deep-dive into the story behind your numbers with a variety of interactive charts and graphs.

Complementing this is the "Planning" category, which empowers proactive financial management. Its centerpiece, the "Cash flow manager," provides a real-time, AI-powered forecast of your short-term cash position, enabling you to anticipate and manage inflows and outflows, and make data-driven decisions to ensure your business stays healthy.

💸 Introducing Cash Flow Manager

Cash Flow Manager empowers you to predict your businesses’ financial overview, cash in and cash out. You can customize, share, and export overviews of your cash flow projections to manage your cash in- and outflows more effectively. Let's take a look at this in more detail.

Outline

  • Use the Cash Flow Manager to better manage your short-term cash flow.

  • Cash Flow Manager projects your future cash movements with the power of machine learning.

  • This projection is based on your past bank transactions, and combines historic patterns with manual cash entries to provide the most accurate short-term forecast.

Getting started

To get to the Cash Flow Manager, navigate to Analytics powered by Syft. You will see a selector that says “Dashboards” at the top of your screen. Click on the drop-down arrow next to that and select “Cash flow manager”.

Use Cash Flow Manager

There are three sections within Cash flow:

  • Overview: Get a snapshot of your current cash position, along with a projection of your future cash flow. See what your cash position is today and where it's headed.

  • Cash in: A breakdown of upcoming inflows of cash, including invoices, quotes, recurring and once-off transactions.

  • Cash out: The details of all upcoming expenses, including bills, recurring and once-off expenses.

To ensure that you cash projection is as accurate as possible, you can manually add cash transactions at any time, from anywhere within the feature. This means you can quickly input an expected income or expense on a once-off or recurring basis. Merely select the "Add cash in/out" button, add the details of the cash in/out and select the frequency.

📓Note:

Anything you add here will only impact your cash projection. It won't change any actual bank data. Any adjustments made won't reflect elsewhere in Xero.

Overview

The Overview tab is the default view of the Cash Flow Manager.

From here, you are able to manage your bank accounts and select the desired Cash Flow view.

Managing bank accounts

Use Bank Options to manage which accounts are included in your projection. Exclude accounts you don't want to see and add adjustments or overdrafts to accounts to improve the accuracy of your projection.

Cash flow views

There are different views you can use to understand your cash flow. These are:

  • The Graph view: a visual summary of cash in, cash out, bank balance, and net movement presented in a clear graph.

💡Pro Tip:

While Cash flow manager always projects 90 days into the future, you can use the graph days selector to visualize and focus on the movement for a smaller or longer timeframe. The graph view also comes equipped with a detailed balance breakdown.

  • The Table view: a visual summary of cash in, cash out, net movement, and bank balance presented in a tabular format.

  • The Calendar view: a visual summary of cash in, cash out, bank balance, and net movement presented in a calendar format.

💡Pro Tip:

All views come with daily drill-down options, so you can dig into the details whenever you need to.

Cash in

The Cash in section consists of:

  • Invoices

  • Quotes

  • Recurring cash in transactions

  • Once-off cash in transactions

This information comes directly from your Xero accounts, except for transactions that you have manually added.

Invoices

The invoice table shows both sent and draft invoices. While draft invoices can be seen in the table, they will not be included in your projection unless you toggle them on.

In order to give you better insights into when payments can be expected, Analytics powered by Syft predicts the expected payment dates of invoices based on a customer's payment history.

📓Note:

You can switch off this prediction functionality if you don't want to use it. This might be useful, for example, if a user want to focus on specific data points and analyze cash flow based purely on existing, confirmed invoices, without the AI's estimation of payment dates.

Invoice amounts and due dates can be edited either by clicking on the date or amount or by using the More Options (...) menu. Keep in mind, these changes won't pull through to the original invoice. If you do change a date or amount, an icon will appear to show you what has been changed.

Quotes

In the quotes table, all quotes are excluded by default and should be toggled on before they are included in the projection.

To edit a quote amount or expiry date, either click on the date or amount, or use the More Options (...) menu. These changes won't pull through to the original quote.

Recurring cash in

You can manually add recurring cash in transactions. However, Analytics powered by Syft also predicts recurring cash in transactions based on your transaction history. Predicted transaction are indicated by an icon.

Clicking on this icon allows you to see how this transaction was predicted.

📓Note:

Predicted cash in transactions cannot be edited, but you can exclude or delete individual predicted transactions or switch off this prediction functionality entirely.

Manually added transactions can be edited; you can edit the description, date and amount by clicking directly in the table or using the More Options (...) menu.

Once-off cash in

All of the transactions in this table will be manually added transactions. You can see who added each transaction and when.

The description, date and amount for all of these transactions can be edited, and any changes made can be seen by hovering over the 3 lines to the right hand side of the description column.

Cash Out

The Cash out section consists of:

  • Bills

  • Recurring cash out transactions

  • Once-off cash out transactions.

These tables function very similarly to their cash in counterparts.

Bills

The bills table shows all of your upcoming bills and when they are due. You can switch between current and overdue bills. You can also group your bills by no grouping, suppliers, or due date. Bill amounts and due dates can be edited either by clicking on the date or amount, or by using the More Options (...) menu. Keep in mind, these changes won't pull through to the original bill. If you do change a date or amount, an icon will appear to show you what has been changed.

Recurring cash out

Recurring cash out transaction are predicted based on your transaction history. Predicted transactions are indicated by this icon.

Clicking on this icon allows you to see how this transaction was predicted.

📓Note:

Predicted cash out transactions cannot be edited, but you can exclude or delete individual predicted transactions or switch off this prediction functionality entirely.

You also have the option to manually add recurring cash out transactions. Manually added transactions can be edited. You can edit the description, date and amount by clicking directly in the table or using the More Options (...) menu.

Once-off cash out

All of the transactions in this table will be manually added transactions. You'll be able to see who added each transactions and when. The description, date and amount for all of these transactions can be edited, and any changes made can be seen by hovering over this icon.

🔎 Hover views

All of the tables in the cash in and cash out sections have a secondary row of information that shows on hover. You can manage when and how you want to see this information in the Show menu.

You can also use these selectors to specify how you want to view the table and to switch between current and overdue, expired and historical transactions.

Summary

The Cash Flow Manager tool in Analytics powered by Syft is a game-changer for understanding and controlling your business's financial future. It leverages AI to provide a real-time, detailed overview of your short-term cash position, intelligently forecasting cash inflows and outflows by analyzing historical data, invoices, and bills. This means you get a live daily forecast, a clear picture of your cash runway and buffer, and the ability to easily perform scenario planning.

What makes this tool especially useful is its ability to transform complex financial data into easily digestible visual formats life graphs, tables, and a calendar view, allowing you to proactively manage liquidity, avoid cash flow surprises, and make smarter, more informed decisions about your business's financial health.

📊 Introducing Performance Dashboards

Dashboards are fully interactive displays that show you all the financial metrics you care about in a single view. You can use dashboards to visualize your organization’s customer, product, and financial health data in one place. Let’s take a look at what you need to know to make the most of this tool.

Getting started

To get to the Dashboard, navigate to Analytics powered by Syft. You will see a selector that says “Visualisations” at the top of your screen. Click on the drop-down arrow next to that and select “Dashboards”.

As is the case with other features, when you load your dashboard for the first time, you’ll see demo data. This gives you a taste of the feature while your own data loads. As soon as your data has loaded, it will replace the demo data and you can begin tweaking your dashboard.

Default view

The default view of the dashboard is the Performance overview. This is the dashboard format that you are able to access on every plan. If you are on the Comprehensive/Established plan, you will also have a number template options for your dashboard, which you can find out more about below.

Depending on the card you are looking at, you will have a range of comparatives options, such as current vs prior, current vs prior last year, and total prior year.

Dashboard templates

There are a number of different templates available. These include the following:

  • Performance overview: a view of how well your organization is performing financially, including metrics related to cash, profit, money owed to you and money you owe.

  • Cash position: a view of your cash flow and balances over time. This focuses on money coming in and out of your organization, showing how much cash you have and how it changes over time.

  • Sales tracker: a comprehensive view of your customer and product data that allows you to identify active and new customers, growth in product sales and opportunities for enhancing sales or customer experience.

  • Balance Sheet: a snapshot of your organization’s assets, liabilities and shareholders’ equity that helps you to assess overall financial health and stability.

  • Operational health: a view of how well your organization is performing in terms of its operational efficiency and financial health, considering profitability, top customers and accounts, major expenses and potential cash flow issues or risks within accounts receivable.

  • Products: key insights into the performance and status of the organization’s product offerings, helping you to track and analyze various product-related metrics to help stakeholders understand how products are performing.

To add a dashboard from a template, click on "Manage dashboards" and then "Add dashboard from template."

General settings

Within the general settings for the dashboard, you have the following options:

  • Change the number of columns (choose between 2,3, or 4)

  • Choose to include/exclude the currency symbol

  • Include or exclude the graph key (this is on by default)

  • Choose the currency and date format

📓Note:

These choices will apply to all your dashboards.

Create a dashboard

To create a new dashboard, click on “Manage dashboards” and choose a new template as your base. Please note that “dashboard” refers to the whole page, composed of numerous cards, whereas “card” refers to an individual graph within the dashboard.

To add a new card to your dashboard, click “Add card” and select the category of data you would like to choose. Once you’ve selected the category, you can then select specific metrics or the financial type, depending on what you have selected. You can choose between the following categories:

  • Profitability

  • Cash

  • Customers

  • Products

  • P&L and Balance Sheet, including summarised statements and account graphs

  • KPIs

  • Image

💡Pro tip:

You can add up to three images in a carousel, as PNGs, JPEGs, or GIFs.

The dashboard will automatically scroll to the new card you’ve added so you can see it right away.

Edit cards within your dashboard

📓Note:

Editing the cards within your dashboard is different from editing the dashboard as a whole. The cards are the individual graphs or images you’ve added to the dashboard. For more information about editing the whole dashboard, read the later sections of this article.

To edit a card, open the More options (the vertical ...) menu. This will open a floating strip with settings for the card that’s active. You can change the following:

  • The card size - standard, medium horizontal (2 x width of standard), medium vertical (2x length/height of standard), large (4x the size of standard). If you change the size, the dashboard will rearrange the cards to fit the dashboard to the adjusted card size.

  • Graph type - bar graph, line graph, donut graph, large number, table, stacked horizontal & stacked bar (in future)

  • Comparison periods

  • Periods to show (24, 12, 6, and 3)

  • Color themes for the graphs in your card - the maximum number of colours per card is five and you can apply to all cards or just the one that you’re in. By default, this will be applied to all.

You can also duplicate or delete cards.

In certain instances, you may also be able to set which specific accounts to show.

Interact with your cards

When viewing your dashboard, you can hover over a metric to see the trends of which that bar or point is comprised.

Manage your dashboard

You may want to edit aspects of your dashboard. Let’s consider what you can amend. To get started, navigate to “Manage dashboard.” From there, you can:

  • Edit your existing dashboard (rename it by clicking on the name box and typing in a new name, or delete it by clicking on the trash icon)

  • Add a new dashboard from a template (depending on your plan)

  • Add a new blank dashboard (depending on your plan)

  • Drag and drop to reorder dashboards

📓Note:

The dashboard at the start of the list is your default dashboard.

🚨NB:

All of these settings can be found in the top white block. The settings in this block apply to all your dashboards. Meanwhile, the settings in the floating block relate to specific dashboards.

Important to note

Shared dashboards are view only pages. You cannot edit them in the shared mode. If you would like to edit anything in your dashboard, you’ll need to return to the dashboard in Analytics powered by Syft. However, you can access AI insights within the shared dashboard.

On each page, you can see the last sync and the option to refresh now. By default, your dashboard refreshes every 15 mins. You can toggle on “Show demo data” if you’d prefer to showcase dummy data.

Share dashboard

Use a live link to share your dashboards with clients, stakeholders, investors, or members of your team. You can share these as view-only dashboards, which can be set to refresh daily, weekly or monthly.

📓Note:

The feature of sharing a live link to your dashboards is currently not available in the Australian region.

You also have the ability to delete dashboards so that they will no longer be accessible. To delete a dashboard, simply disable sharing. To generate a new link, re-enable sharing.

📓Note:

Dashboard shares are automatically disabled after 90 days.

✨ Introducing KPIs, Cash, and Organization Logos

Welcome to our second release update. From new graphs and insights to improve your decision-making to a simple but effective way to add branding to your reports, there's a lot to explore.

Let's get started.

🌐Add an organization logo

First up - a little taste of branding. You now have the ability to brand your visualizations and reports on Analytics powered by Syft by uploading a logo or selecting an icon. This adds an element of professionalism to the appearance of your visualizations, making them ready to be shared with external parties.

How to add a logo

To add a logo, click on the icon next to your entity’s name. This will open a dialogue box with the option to upload. If you click on “Upload your logo,” you can then choose a logo from your computer files.

📓Note:

For best results, select a logo with an aspect ratio of 1:1.

Alternatively, if you don’t have a logo, you can search for an appropriate icon in the search bar below and use that to represent your entity.

✨Introducing KPIs & Cash Graphs

As the old axiom goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. That's why we believe in the power of visualizing your data - helping you to understand what's going on in your business, from key metrics to cash in- and outflows with the power of graphs.

In addition to the new logo options, the team is happy to introduce a beautiful way for you to gain deeper insights into key performance indicators (KPIs) and cash data on Xero through KPI and Cash Graphs.

Let's take a look at what this entails.

💰 Visualize your Cash

The Cash tool is handy for getting a visual sense of your cash flow and balance. Sometimes, when you see your cash in a graph, you pick up on trends you might otherwise miss.

This is a powerful cash management tool that enables you to see what is happening to your cash and the key reasons for the inflows and outflows so that you can drive the inflows and reduce the outflows in the future.

Visualization options

You can visualize your cash in five different ways:

  • Cash in vs Cash out

  • Cash in

  • Cash out

  • Cash balance

  • Net cash flow

Frequencies

Want to narrow your focus to a particular month, quarter, or more specific date range? We've got you covered.

You can choose between several frequencies to view your cash flow and cash balance. These include basic frequencies:

  • Daily

  • Monthly

  • Quarterly

  • Annual (12 months)

  • Annual (financial year)

And more advanced frequencies:

  • Monthly (month to date)

  • Monthly (financial year to date)

  • Monthly (day-to-day)

  • Year to date (calendar year)

  • Year to date (financial year)

You can also select the date and year you would like to view.

Graph options

In the Graph options menu, you can choose:

  • Which bank accounts to show, be that all or only certain accounts

  • How many periods to display - either 3, 6, 12, or 24

If you click on the tear drop, you can choose between various color schemes so that your graphs match your organization's branding.

🔎 Magnify

Magnify refers to the hover states available in these graphs and it's one of our favorite features. This is because, like a magnifying glass, it is able to enlarge vital details that you may have missed just by looking at the line or bars of your chart.

How does this work? Well, simply put, if you hover over a line or bar in your graph, you will be able to see the following:

  • Trend: the trend of the relevant accounts compared to the prior period

  • Top transactions: the top transactions making up the number

  • Contacts: the top contacts impacting this number

📓Note:

The trend displayed will differ depending on which graph you are viewing.

Export

Want to share your cash information with interested parties? No problem. You can export these graphs to email, Excel, PDF, Slack, WhatsApp, or Microsoft Teams to share them with clients, investors, or other stakeholders.

📊 Visualize KPIs

Key performance indicators or KPIs are quantifiable measurements of performance over time for a specific outcome. They help you determine targets to aim for, set milestones to assess your organization's progress, and provide insights to various members of your team into how they could improve performance or make better decisions.

Graph types

With Analytics powered by Syft, KPIs can be visualized in either a line graph or a grouped bar chart. Simply click on the relevant icon to change the graph type. Here are a few reasons why you might choose each option:

  • Line graph: gives you the ability to track trends, making it easy to detect patterns and identify periods of growth or decline. The continuous line also means that it's easy to uncover even small fluctuations in the data, which you might otherwise miss.

  • Grouped bar graph: is effective in comparing the values of different metrics side by side (for example, debtors days alongside creditors days). These graphs are intuitive and easy for most people to understand, even if you aren't used to working with graphs.

KPI data

The KPIs you can choose to view in these graphs include:

  • Performance (amount):

    • Total Income

    • Gross Profit

    • Total Expenses

    • Net Income

    • Net Assets

    • Cash Balance

  • Return (percentage):

    • Gross Profit Margin

    • Net Income Margin

    • Return on Assets

    • Return on Equity

  • Efficiency (days):

    • Debtors Days

    • Creditors Days

    • Inventory Days

  • Leverage (ratio):

    • Quick Ratio

    • Debt to Equity

    • Current Ratio

Frequencies

Just as with Cash graphs, you can customize your view further by selecting the specific viewing frequencies that make sense to your business and where you would like to focus your attention. You can choose between several frequencies to view your KPIs.

Graph options

In the Graph options menu, you can choose:

  • Which KPIs to display: select from KPIs that are stated as numeric values, percentages, ratios, or days

  • The number of periods displayed: 24, 12, 6, or 3

And, as with the cash graphs, you can choose between various color schemes so that your graphs have the look and feel of your organization.

🔎 Magnify

Once again, this tool includes the beloved Magnify feature. On hover, you are able to identify:

  • The trend of the KPIs compared to the prior period.

    • For instance, perhaps your debtors days have gone up by 6.5 days compared to the debtors days last month. If this is the case, then you may want to investigate why that happened and look for ways to bring that number down going forward.

  • The equation which makes up each KPI.

    • For instance, debtors days is calculated as (Average Accounts Receivable/Trading Income) *Number of Days.

📓Note:

KPIs will either be displayed as numbers (including values, days, and ratios) or percentages. As such, the trend will either reflect as a number or percentage increase/decrease.

Export

You can export these graphs to email, Excel, PDF, Slack, WhatsApp, or Microsoft Teams to share them with clients, investors, or other stakeholders. As easy as that.

✨Introducing Graphs

Financial information is most useful when it is easy to understand and is structured in a way that aids decision making. Xero Analytics powered by Syft helps you by automatically transforming your financial data into customizable graphs and tables that can be analysed or downloaded with ease!

Let’s take a look at how it works.

The Basics

In Analytics Powered by Syft, you have the following options across the top of your screen:

  • Profitability

  • Profit & Loss accounts

  • Balance Sheet accounts

Once you are in each of these sections, you have a number of options to choose from in terms of what you want to see and how you’d like it to be presented.

📓 Note:

The accounts you see are the accounts you have on your P&L and BS.

You will see a key for the graph on the right-hand side to help you identify what you are looking at.

Frequency options

You can choose the frequency you would like to see, choosing between basic frequencies and more advanced options. The basic options are:

  • Daily

  • Monthly

  • Quarterly

  • Annual (12 months)

  • Annual (financial year)

The more advanced frequencies are:

  • Monthly (month to date)

  • Monthly (financial year to date)

  • Monthly (day-to-day)

  • Year to date (calendar year)

  • Year to date (financial year)

You can also choose which month and year to show by clicking on the drop-down arrows.

📓 Note:

The date you select is the end date.

To choose how many months you would like to look at, use the period selector.

Graph options

In graph options, you can choose:

  • Which data to display within the graph you’ve selected. For instance, within Income vs expenses, you can choose between Income and expenses, Income, Expenses and Profit and Loss.

  • The number of periods (24, 12, 6 or 3)

📓 Note:

Graph options differ according to which graph you are working with.

Filtering

You can filter your graphs according to specific tracking categories, such as Location or Revenue. You can then apply these filters to any category (any category that meets the criteria) or an exact category (a category or categories that meet the specific criteria).

What’s the difference between any category and exact categories?

  • Any category is equivalent to an OR equation. This means that at least one of the categories must be true. For example, anything that exists in the location you’ve selected OR in the account you’ve selected will appear.

  • Exact category works like an AND equation. This means that both of your chosen categories must be true simultaneously. So, this would need to be a transaction in the specific location AND account, for instance.

Example:

If we take the example of J’s Cupcake Company, Jay may want to see transactions that occurred in her Zootopia branch as well as transactions within her Cake Sales division. She would select any category to see any transactions within Zootopia or Cake Sales. However, if she wanted to narrow her focus to see only Cake Sales that occurred within Zooptopia, she would select the exact category.

Color themes

You can apply a colour theme of your choosing to the graph, deciding between the following options:

  • Xero blue

  • Confetti

  • Misty mountain

  • Zanzibar spice

  • Ocean waves

  • Summer day

  • Unicorn birthday

  • Dawn

Magnify 🔎

You can hover over the graph line to identify trends, top transactions and top contacts, giving you a comprehensive view of what constitutes key figures.

Export options

All graphs can be exported to PDF, Excel, Slack, WhatsApp or Microsoft Teams by clicking on the Export button and selecting the relevant option. Sharing to Slack, WhatsApp or Teams makes it easier to send graphs directly to team members, clients or stakeholders.

Settings

Under Settings at the top right of the screen, you can choose from the following options in terms of display:

  • Accounting basis

  • Decimals

  • Data labels

  • Graph key

  • Data points

  • Currency symbol

You can also change your reporting currency.

📓 Note:

When you change these settings, your changes will persist across all graphs.

Last refresh date

At the bottom of the screen, you can see the last time this data synced to your underlying accounts. You can also click on the revolving arrows to refresh it now.

📓 Note:

If you see any mismatches in your data, this may be because it has not refreshed recently.

Show demo data

If you would like to look at dummy data as opposed to your actual data, you can toggle on the “Show demo data” option to get a sense of what the graphs look like with demo data. This is helpful for giving clients or staff a taste of the data without inputting sensitive information.

Give feedback

At the bottom right of the screen, you’ll see you have the option to provide us with feedback on Analytics powered by Syft. Please let us know what you think so we can continue to improve this feature.

Now, let’s get into the nitty gritty details of the different visualizations.

Profitability

When looking at the Profitability section, you can choose between the following metrics to focus on:

  • Income vs expenses

  • Sales

  • Cost of Sales

  • Other Income

  • Expenses

Profit & Loss Accounts

Under Profit & Loss accounts, you can choose between a wide range of graph types, namely:

  • Line graph

  • Grouped bar graph

  • Stacked bar graph

  • Horizontal bar graph

  • Normalised horizontal stacked bar graph

  • Donut graph

As with the other graphs, you can change the dates to view and toggle between different graph options.

Account display options

With the line graph, grouped bar graph and stacked bar graph, you can select the accounts to display as well as the number of periods to view them for.

Within the horizontal bar graph, the normalised horizontal stacked bar graph and the donut graph, you can see:

  • Top accounts

  • Specific account

For certain graphs, you can also select the comparison period to view.

Using the “Specify accounts” button, you can choose which exact accounts to show on the graph. You can tick the box next to each individual account that you would like to see.

As with other graphs, you can filter according to tracking categories, change your graph colours, or export.

Balance Sheet Accounts

Balance Sheet accounts work very similarly to Profit & Loss accounts with the same graph types available, and the ability to choose which accounts to display. For example, you may want to include total accounts such as Total Liabilities, or perhaps some non-current asset accounts such as Motor Vehicles to focus on those specific details.

You can also choose the number of periods to display (i.e., 24, 12, 6 or 3).

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