"Rod [Drury, Xero CEO] gets really excited about lasers on quad bikes - and they do exist - but the biggest thing we wanted to solve for the sector was how to get the farming team on one single set of data. The farming team is the banker, accountant, farm consultant and of course the farmer themselves all on the same system."
Conceptually, it was clear what Xero wanted to offer the rural sector but formulating an industry standard solution that would work for the sector and improve their performance and efficiency couldn't be done by accountants not experienced in agriculture.
"The first step for us was working with farmers, our rural accounting partners, the banks and industry bodies to develop what is an industry solution. Think about online banking and how radically it changed the banking experience. When we think about farming in the cloud, we think about what the opportunities are to really change and help evolve that sector.
"We've heard stories about farmers with multiple budgets, excel spread sheets all over the place, lots of different systems and because of that, there has been heavy compliance work to do. Financial statements turning up 18 months down the track, a total lack of benchmarking."
Strategically partnering with rural services company RD1, farming supplier PGG Wrightson and software firm Figured, an integrated and relevant solution has been developed.
"What we've done with Xero is provide a best of breed solution - we've got real-time data coming through from Xero and we're connected to the rural suppliers; it's connected to the bank and so transactions are coming in automatically and it's generating some real efficiency of information for farmers.
"We've got the farming team working together, the bank is able to be invited in, the accountant is doing all of their end-of-year accounting on the same platform, all the livestock accounting can be done natively. What it means its they can work together, and we're seeing the focus shift to a much more forward looking approach."
Shifting to a forward-looking approach would mark a substantial change in standard operating practice for most of the farming sector. There are plans in the future for integration with the likes of Fonterra's Farmgate software to help with forecasting and budgeting, as well as more informed decision making.
"It's not about replacing the farmer, they're still absolutely the brains of the operation.
What we want to provide is a toolset to help New Zealanders farm smarter, " says Richmond. "The next phase is to link some of the powerful on-farm software packages we see being used into the Xero platform.
"The cloud gives us that opportunity and my vision for it is to integrate that with the financial budgets and forecasts.
"With software that can predict things like grass growth and lambing percentages, we can build that into the forecasts and predict the financial implications."
Beyond further innovation in their agricultural offerings, Xero is now looking further afield to implement their all-in-one cloud farming solution. "Well before an official release date was considered, inquiries have flooded in from all around the world with farmers eager to implement Xero to improve their management.
"We look to go global with everything. Australia has been fast off the mark and we're currently in discussions with the banks there around the opportunity. There's an early adopter list of accounting partners on board who are extremely keen to be a part of this.
"We've also got a lot of interest from the UK and Ireland, as well as the United States which are all exciting opportunities for us to pursue. It's just a process of getting our localisations right.
"We want to follow the model that we've done here create an industry solution, test it and then take it to market. We're really looking forward to rolling this out globally."
