The cloud-based accounting software company Xero is a favourite among SMEs in Australia and New Zealand. Xero has a known strategy of acquiring complimentary businesses to expand its cloud ecosystem beyond accounting. They have recently acquired the European workforce management platform Planday.
Planday’s open platform integrates with Xero and other accounting solutions, such as Quickbooks and MYOB, as well as other third-party workforce-related apps. It offers a real-time view of a businesses’ staffing needs and payroll costs. This allows business to compare the payroll data with key business performance metrics and self-service functionality, connecting employers and employees. This ease of communication encourages collaborative scheduling, time tracking and payroll management.
When speaking about the recent acquisition Xero’s CEO, Steve Vamos, highlighted the increasing concerns about compliance with employment laws that small businesses have, especially in relation to shift-based workers. Technology like Planday helps them manage that burden.
“If you combine scheduling and attendance with accounting and back office financial data, you can produce forecasts and insights to help cashflow because you can predict busy periods of staff, or adjust rosters in quieter times.”
Planday was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Copenhagen. Currently more than 350,000 employees are being managed on the platform. The biggest markets being Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the UK. The product is currently available in 14 languages.The acquisition will give Xero access to the market in Europe and the UK, while Planday will also expand into new markets where Xero already operates.
After the acquisition Planday will operate as a subsidiary of Xero. Other notable acquisitions by Xero include the Sydney-based fintech company Waddle in August 2020 and the Canadian document management company Hubdoc in 2018 for $94 million. Xero has also just announced the acquisition of the European e-invoicing business Tickstar.
