Xero announces new features with Microsoft, Google, and Stripe

Filing expenses can be a huge pain, both for companies and their employees.

From meals, to gas, to supplies – keeping track of all the expenses that need to be reimbursed can quickly turn into a messy, time-consuming hunt through a stack of crumpled receipts.

To address this, Xero has just announced that it will soon be rolling out a new way to automatically generate expense claims by snapping a picture of a receipt.

This new feature will pull photos of receipts right into the Xero Expenses Android app.

Users can then automatically create an expense report without leaving the app.

"We're thrilled to join the Google Photos partner program to deliver a beautiful experience to small businesses using the Xero Expenses app," says Xero Americas product and partnerships VP Herman Man.

"Using the Google Photos Library API means that our customers will get the choice to be automatically prompted to submit an expense when a photo of a receipt is taken, saving them time and streamlining their operations.

"By allowing customers to integrate with Google Photos, Xero Expenses makes the transition from personal to business use seamless, meeting the expectations of the modern business user.

This innovation is being made possible through the Google Photos Library API.

The Google Photos Library API provides the ability to filter users' photos by different categories.

The Google Photos partner program was announced during Google's annual I/O conference.

Earlier this week, Xero also announced new integrations with Stripe and Microsoft Outlook.

The feature means that Microsoft Outlook users will soon be able to pay their Xero invoices straight from their email inbox.

Leveraging Xero's relationships with Microsoft and Stripe, invoice emails sent from Xero to Outlook accounts can be paid with just a few clicks, using credit or debit cards saved to a customer's Microsoft account.

When the customer receives your invoice, the invoice details are presented within a new interactive card in Outlook.

After reviewing the information, the Outlook user can choose to pay the invoice using their method of choice saved in Microsoft Pay.

This capability will begin rolling out to a limited number of Outlook.com customers in the US over the next few weeks with a broader release in the coming months.

Your customer will simply click "Review and pay," choose the card to make the payment and click "Confirm" to pay.

If they don't yet have a card on their Microsoft Pay account, they can add one on the fly.

Stripe charges the chosen card, and the invoice is paid.

Since the charge is made through Stripe, the payment experience leverages Xero's deep integration with Stripe.

Processing fees are automatically accounted for, and all Stripe transactions are automatically matched against the right payout for easy reconciliation.

The feature is now in beta, with anticipated ability in New Zealand in July or August this year.