Xero, Stripe Team On Small Biz Payments

Small business platform Xero has announced a partnership with Stripe to work on small business payments innovations.

The companies will develop new tools that aim to help small businesses get paid faster in various ways while also gaining more visibility over their business performance. The global partnership, announced at Xerocon San Diego 2019, revealed the first two innovations: a new Stripe feed that will bring comprehensive transaction data for all Stripe payments into Xero for easy reconciliation and greater insights, and auto pay, which will allow small businesses to set up and receive recurring payments for repeat billing customers directly through Xero.

Data has shown that on average, U.S. small businesses were paid 8.49 days late last year. Small businesses that enable Stripe payments with Xero invoices are currently paid up to 15 days faster globally, and up to 16 days faster in North America.

“Small businesses are fundamental to the growth of major and developing economies around the world, and ensuring that they get paid on time is vital to their survival and growth,” Craig Walker, founding CTO & executive general manager of platform business technologies at Xero, said in a press release. “We built the Xero platform to help small businesses grow with better tools, smarter insights and comprehensive connections to the information they need to run their business. Our partnership with Stripe today brings us even closer to helping small businesses spend less time chasing payments, and more time focusing on doing what they love.”

The companies will continue to work on new payments tools, with plans to announce additional features in the coming year.

“At Stripe, we build payments infrastructure that enables new kinds of businesses to start, run, and scale,” said Jeanne DeWitt, head of revenue and growth for North America at Stripe. “Together, Xero and Stripe will bring sophisticated payments tools to the growing community of small businesses, advisors and entrepreneurs who use Xero daily and who are critical drivers of our internet economy.”