Every year, Xero hosts an awards ceremony to recognize accountants and accounting app partners within their ecosystem who are doing amazing work. We are proud recipients of several Xero Awards - from the South African Xero Awards in 2021 to the New Zealand Xero Awards in 2022 and, for the third year in a row, the Xero Awards in the UK.

This past week, some Syfties rocked out at the Xero Awards UK & Ireland in London while others donned their finest threads for the Xero Awards SA in Johannesburg. Between the two, Syft now looks primed to debut a rock band and a James Bond movie... in between helping accountants and business owners make better business decisions.

Thank you to Xero for the amazing events of the past week and for the opportunity to meet up with other members of a thriving community!

The awards celebrate the work of Xero's accounting, bookkeeping, and app developer partners who help small businesses prosper and grow. This year's UK & Ireland Awards were hosted at Ministry Venues in London. Our Head of Sales, Swantje Fee Ebert, was there along with Co-Founder, Duran Hamer, and software engineer, Jonah Alter to meet with other members of the Xero ecosystem and to rock it out as the coolest rock band.

Syft won the Practice App of the Year, an award that recognizes commitment to innovation, excellent user experience, customer service, and commitment to education and engagement within the Xero app ecosystem. Xero notes that:

"Syft Analytics has continued to show a real commitment to UK partners, demonstrating proactivity and entrepreneurship in the way they have come on board to the app partner programme. With features built exclusively for Xero partners, it’s an excellent product that is well-loved by the accounting and bookkeeping community and is a deserving winner of the Practice App of the Year trophy for 2023."

We are thrilled to have had our hard work and commitment to innovation, education, and customer care acknowledged in this way, and we had a blast connecting with other awesome members of the Xero ecosystem.

Congratulations to the other finalists: Ignition and Spotlight! And very well done to all the other award winners!

The South African awards were hosted at a fabulous venue in Johannesburg, one night after the UK & Ireland awards and were attended by our Co-Founder and CEO, Vangelis Kyriazis, Account Executive for the APAC region, Andrew van Rooyen, Head of Education and Implementation, Jodilee Manuel, and myself - Engagement Manager, Alex Hoffman. We came dressed to impress and had a wonderful time meeting up with many of our incredible accounting partners and members of the Xero team.

Although we did not take home the award this year, we are honored to have been made finalists for the Global App of the Year Award and would like to congratulate Ignition on receiving the award!

It was so encouraging to see the growth of cloud accounting software in South Africa, the commitment to helping small businesses flourish and grow and to consider Country Manager of Xero South Africa, Colin Timmis's question of what comes after cloud accounting. Any ideas of what you think comes next - let us know!

Both of the awards ceremonies hosted by Xero this week were brilliantly organized, memorable events and we love being part of the community of forward-thinking accountants and business owners. Thank you, Xero, for hosting us and congratulations to all the other winners and finalists! Until next year.