Where is Xero data stored?

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Kyanar

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#73396 13-Dec-2010 17:23

I ask in light of the recent decision by the IRD that storing your primary business records on cloud services outside New Zealand is an offence under the tax administration act:

http://www.ird.govt.nz/technical-tax/revenue-alerts/revenue-alert-ra1002.html

Alternatively, does Xero have a plan to address this? I've been considering moving away from MYOB which costs a fortune and obviously if there's question about the legality, that'd be a dealbreaker for me.

mattwnz

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#416641 13-Dec-2010 17:36

Kyanar: I ask in light of the recent decision by the IRD that storing your primary business records on cloud services outside New Zealand is an offence under the tax administration act:

http://www.ird.govt.nz/technical-tax/revenue-alerts/revenue-alert-ra1002.html

Alternatively, does Xero have a plan to address this? I've been considering moving away from MYOB which costs a fortune and obviously if there's question about the legality, that'd be a dealbreaker for me.

I would assume they would be stored in NZ, as that would make sense.

I can't see why they would store them offshore, and I wouldn't think they would need all that much storage either, seeing it is just accounts.

freitasm

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#416644 13-Dec-2010 17:41

Xero uses Rackspace, so I'd assume it's not stored in New Zealand. Then they have just posted a blog entry about this.

"New Zealand legislation hasn’t kept up with developments in technology compared to other countries. We are working towards certification of our current customers and in the longer term expect to see the legislation amended to better reflect contemporary technology. We’d expect this to end up in a similar position to Australia where there is no onshore storage requirement, only that your records are available if requested. There are a number of fall back positions if the industry doesn’t get there.

As a leader in the industry we’ve been proactively working on this issue for some time for the benefit of other software developers.

We have a great relationship with the IRD and working with them on a range of initiatives as they understand the benefits of cloud technology to reduce compliance costs and improve small business productivity."

Notice how they don't actually answer the question "where is the data stored?"

paulspain

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#416646 13-Dec-2010 17:44

Xero servers (and data) are hosted by RackSpace - a U.S. based company.

This note from IRD is madness since many firms already have their data held with head offices, etc offshore. A guess they just have to give advice based on the current laws so not their fault. But a level of madness all the same.

Paul Spain
Founder: Gorilla Technology, NZ Tech Podcast

Kyanar

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#416647 13-Dec-2010 17:46

They're saying they've got some blanket dispensation from the IRD for their customers - frankly, I'd like to see some assurance from the IRD of that, because I feel that if there were dispensations, the IRD would have mentioned them in the posting. But they didn't, so I'd be inclined to believe there aren't.

paulspain: Xero servers (and data) are hosted by RackSpace - a U.S. based company.

This note from IRD is madness since many firms already have their data held with head offices, etc offshore. A guess they just have to give advice based on the current laws so not their fault. But a level of madness all the same.

I'd suspect that in the case of head offices, etc, the branch office in NZ has the primary business records - which are what the IRD are interested in. For non-NZ companies which aren't registered here, it doesn't matter anyway.

paulspain

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#416648 13-Dec-2010 17:46

Oops - looks like I posted at the same time as freitasm. I agree that this NZ law is outdated.

Paul Spain
Founder: Gorilla Technology, NZ Tech Podcast