Live Contacts is a new offering from Xero that gives small businesses and advisors a better way to manage customer and supplier information; This is done by linking Xero's accounting platform to the public information of millions of businesses.

In partnership with Australia and New Zealand's largest credit bureau, Veda, Xero can deliver businesses information on registered business names, addresses, ABN/NZBN numbers and industry classifications to ensure accurate customer information.

Carol Chris, managing director of Veda New Zealand, says cash flow is the single biggest pain point for small and medium sized businesses.

“These businesses that work with larger companies are often left particularly vulnerable to slow payments,” she says.

"By coming together with Xero, we aim to help small businesses access the data they need to make better decisions and proactively manage their cash flow,” explains Chris.

“This is an exciting time for small businesses. They are now empowered with more information than ever before!"

Moving forward, Xero hopes to enable its customers to identify work with other Xero-enabled businesses, receive proactive alerts when contact information of their customers' changes and have confidence that the information is always accurate.

According to Xero, the introduction of the new platform will enable further innovations to make businesses more productive, while the Veda partnership will enable Xero customers to see current Trade Payment Rating of their Live Contacts.

Craig Walker, chief technology officer at Xero, says the company was developed to help its global accounting partners and small businesses do beautiful business.

“That means empowering our community with rich data that can inform better business relationships, decisions and risk management,” he says.

“We've re-imagined Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in the cloud as up-to-date public information of all companies is available,” explains Walker.

"This is just the start of what we can do.