It’s much more restrained, obviously, but there’s a similar sense of a club into which only true believers can gain entry. Indeed, in its own way, the emotion bookkeepers, partners and staff feel for Xero feels related to the way my eldest daughter used to feel about One Direction. He might have been the most extreme example of Xero fandom I met at Xerocon, one of three major events the company has around the world, but he was hardly the only one beaming. “I spend more time with my family, holidays. “It means I can work from anywhere,” he said. He spoke fearfully about the days of spreadsheets and manual data entry, then with wonder about automated bank feeds, and cloud-based software. My colleague and I had approached him with a microphone and a camera, and the passion poured out of him.

Bhaskar Krishna Bitra stood before me in a corner of the Brisbane Convention Centre, clutching a Xero branded basketball and a Xero branded backpack. “Xero gives me life,” he said, skin glistening, eyes blazing. Duncan Greive heads to their conference to find out why. Staff and customers of accounting software platform Xero speak of it in awe.

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