Overview
Too many good businesses fail for one reason: they run out of cash. Not because they weren't profitable, but because nobody watched cash and cash flow closely enough, early enough, to act.
If you run a business on Xero and couldn't tell me your cash cushion in months right now, you're flying blind. Most founders are.
Own Your Numbers (OYN) gives you ground control for your cash flow. Every Monday, in one minute, your Weekly Cash Score briefing shows:
- Your cash, net cash and cushion: your runway, how long your cash will last, in months
- A risk rating, from low to critical
- The debtors to chase and the bills coming up
- The five things to do this week to safeguard the business
It's the cash picture your financial dashboard, your cash flow software and your month-end management accounts would give you, ready every Monday and distilled to the one question that matters: how safe is the business this week?
No dashboards to build, no financial reports to configure, no cash flow forecast spreadsheet or projections to maintain: just connect Xero once and the app does the work for you automatically, every week, in plain English.
And because knowing isn't understanding, OYN helps you get on top of what drives cash: how to build and hold a cash cushion, and the difference between revenue, profit and cash.
Own Your Numbers is built and run by Ciaran O'Donnell, a fractional FD/CFO who's spent his career keeping founders' cash safe:
- FD/CFO of the Year 2019 (British Accountancy Awards); three-time Accounting Excellence Awards finalist (2023, 2024, 2026)
- Worked with 100+ startups since 2010; longest client 11 years and counting
- Experience at every scale: from 4-person teams to a $200m+ raise, a £33m exit, and £520k-a-month burn
Connect Xero and you also join a community of founders learning to know and own their numbers, with weekly sessions and plain-language education from Ciaran in the Own Your Numbers community on Skool.
Running more than one company? An accountant or bookkeeper looking after clients' books? OYN connects multiple Xero organisations under one account.
Read-only by design. OYN can't create, edit or post anything in your Xero, ever. Your data is read on demand and never used to train any AI model.
14 days free, no credit card. The fastest proof is your own numbers: connect Xero and see your first briefing in minutes.
Own Your Numbers + Xero
How OYN connects to Xero. Own Your Numbers connects to your Xero organisation through a read-only connection. You sign in with Xero, authorise the connection once, and there's nothing else to configure.
What OYN reads. To build your weekly briefing, OYN reads only what it needs: your bank balances, the invoices owed to you, the bills you owe, recent transactions, and your standard Xero financial reports. From these it works out your cash, net cash and cushion in months, a risk rating, the debtors to chase, the bills coming up, and the five things to do this week.
What OYN never does. OYN is read-only by design. It cannot create, edit, approve, delete, reconcile or post anything in your Xero: there is no write-back of any kind, ever. It never sees or stores your Xero password; sign-in and authorisation are handled securely by Xero.
How your data is handled. OYN does not keep a copy of your Xero data. It is read on demand to produce each briefing and then discarded; only the short briefing result is retained, and that is removed automatically over time. The plain-English analysis and risk rating are generated by Vertex AI Enterprise in Google Cloud (UK region). This is inference only: your Xero data is never used to train, fine-tune, adapt or improve any AI model, in line with the Xero Developer Terms.
More than one company. If you run several businesses, or look after clients' books, you can connect multiple Xero organisations under one OYN account, each with its own weekly briefing.
Sharing. You can give a teammate or adviser access to a briefing inside OYN, through OYN's own team-access model. They never receive write access to your Xero, and only you manage the connection.
Disconnecting. You can disconnect Xero, or cancel, in one click at any time. Disconnecting stops all access immediately.
Getting started
You'll be up and running in a couple of minutes, here's exactly what happens.
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Click "Get this app" at the top of this page. You'll be taken straight to Own Your Numbers and asked to sign in with Xero; there's no separate password to create.
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Authorise the read-only connection. Xero will show you exactly what OYN can see. OYN is read-only: it cannot create, edit or post anything in your Xero, ever. Pick the organisation you want to analyse and approve the connection.
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See your first briefing in minutes. OYN reads your numbers and generates your first weekly cash briefing straight away: your cash and cushion in months, a risk rating, the debtors to chase, the bills coming up, and your five actions for the week. After that it refreshes automatically every Monday.
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Have it delivered. Choose email or WhatsApp and your Monday briefing comes to you, so you can read it in one minute without logging in, and share it with a co-founder, accountant or adviser.
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Connect more organisations if you need to. Running several companies, or looking after clients' books? Add each Xero organisation under the same account, each gets its own weekly briefing.
Your 14-day trial starts when you connect, no credit card required. You also get access to the Own Your Numbers founder community on Skool, with weekly sessions and plain-language education from Ciaran.
Questions at any point? Contact us through the support details on this listing and a human will help.
Reviews & ratings
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Most recent reviews
Great tool for business owners
Response from Own Your Numbers
Great tool for a quick snapshot
Response from Own Your Numbers
Helpful - lets you know what's really happening in your business
Response from Own Your Numbers