Reviews of xero accounting software.2022 Accounting Software Program Reviews
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Xero Accounting Software Review Of Pricing & Features.Xero Review
Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This may influence which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money. Xero is a cloud-based accounting software product that lets small-business owners manage their finances from anywhere and integrate with more than 1, apps.
All plans include basic inventory management. Automated bill and receipt capture through Hubdoc. Limits on bills and invoices with the entry-level plan.
You can add your accountant through email and assign them advisor permission. Xero has more than 3 million subscribers globally but is not as widely used as QuickBooks is in the U. Xero has three plan tiers for sole proprietors and very small businesses, growing businesses and established businesses.
Xero has an intuitive flow and offers a set of recommended online courses to help get you started. Online bank feeds and suggested transaction matching make reconciling easy. Then, you can connect your bank accounts to Xero and decide if you'll accept electronic payments via online invoices. When reconciling books, Xero suggests likely matches between bank statement lines and transactions entered in the software.
Click the "OK" icon between the two to verify the match is correct. If you have a list of customers and suppliers, you can import that, too.
Promotional discounts may apply. Xero lets new customers sign up for a day free trial to test out its features. Automated bill and receipt capture with Hubdoc.
Reconcile bank transactions and set up online bank feeds. All features in the Early plan, plus:. Unlimited invoices, quotes and bill entries. Ability to bulk reconcile transactions. All features in the Growing plan, plus:. Project tracking tools for recording time and breaking down job costs. Advanced analytics tools for predicting future cash flow, up to 90 days ahead. With Xero, you can add an unlimited number of users to your account at each subscription level. This is a notable feature for accounting software; often, lower-tier plans allow fewer users while only higher-tier plans allow unlimited users.
You can also set permission levels for each user. To keep things organized, Xero logs every action users make and compiles the history of every transaction. Xero helps transform the data you enter into actionable information at every subscription level.
Another page dedicated to short-term cash flow charts out how future bills and invoices can affect your bank balance over the next week. Reports also are customizable, with adjustable formatting and the option to add your own formulas and groupings.
Businesses that need to keep count of items can do it within Xero, instead of integrating with and paying for a third-party inventory tracking app. This is a serious drawback if you want to be able to pick up the phone and talk through an issue or are new to accounting software and have lots of questions.
In the Early plan, the least expensive subscription, you can send up to 20 invoices and schedule up to five bill payments only. That can be limiting, even for freelancers and sole proprietors. For unlimited invoicing and bill-paying capacity, you'll need to upgrade to the Growing plan. FreshBooks offers unlimited time-tracking in its lowest-tier Lite plan, whereas Xero users would have to opt into the highest-tier Established plan for that feature.
QuickBooks Online. As the industry standard, QuickBooks Online is ideal if you have a growing business with specific accounting needs — as long as you don't mind taking the time to learn the program's ins and outs.
Like Xero, it can easily scale with your business. Sage 50cloud. The tool also lets you adjust the time frame to see how your business has changed over time. Wave Financial.
Wave is a solid choice for small businesses looking for free accounting software. Zoho Books. Zoho Books' paid plans all come with free live chat and phone support. The free plan comes with email support only. Table of Contents Deciding factors How does Xero work?
Pricing Benefits Drawbacks Xero alternatives. Xero Accounting. Start a 30 day free trial! Shop Now. All plans support unlimited users. No live phone support. Deciding factors. Maximum number of users. Ease of sharing with accountants.
Ease of use. How does Xero work? Back to top. Send quotes and up to 20 invoices. Enter up to five bills. Basic inventory management. Send purchase orders. Works with multiple currencies. Claim expenses. Unlimited users. Customizable reports and dashboards. Inventory management in all plans. No phone support. Limits on bills and invoices in the entry-level plan. Xero alternatives. Bookkeeping and accounting software. Free add-ons available.
Free and up. On a similar note Dive even deeper in Small Business. Explore Small Business. Xero Accounting Start a 30 day free trial! Shop Now on Xero's website. All features in the Early plan, plus: Unlimited invoices, quotes and bill entries. All features in the Growing plan, plus: Works with multiple currencies.
Reviews of xero accounting software.Xero Accounting Software Review Of Pricing & Features
Xero is designed to work with just about any browser, and since the system is online, you don't have to spend any time downloading or installing an application. A welcome screen is displayed once you sign in to the application that allows you to set up the application in eight steps, including:. This process is designed to get you up and running quickly, though it's best to be prepared with your banking information prior to setting up the application as it won't let you progress past the bank connection step without completing it.
You do retain the option to import transactions manually from your bank if you don't want Xero to import them automatically, but I find it slightly annoying that I'm not given a choice as to whether I want to connect my bank or not. During setup, you also have the option to accept Xero's chart of accounts or build your own.
If your chart of accounts doesn't vary that much from Xero's default chart, the easiest thing to do is accept that one and make edits. Next up is entering vendors and customers, though you can just wait until you have a pending transaction and enter the information at that time. If you do get lost, just click on the question mark in the upper right corner, which gives you plenty of support options, including quick access to Xero Central support.
For those who do everything on their phones, Xero has a mobile app for both iOS and Android devices that lets you capture and approve expenses, invoice clients, and store valuable contacts, though it does not offer all of the features found on the full online version.
Xero is nicely scalable, with three plans available, so if you're just starting out, you can subscribe to the Early plan at first and change to one of the other plans later, as your business grows. If you can't find the answer to a question from any of the above resources, you can contact Xero via the support page to request additional help. Another clear benefit of using Xero is that you don't have to know anything about accounting in order to use the application properly.
Finally, if you have employees scattered all over the place, they can still do their work, as Xero is an online subscription service, available anywhere that has a decent internet connection. It can be difficult to figure out which accounting software application is the best choice for your business.
Some of the questions you may ask yourself are:. It's not likely, as there are three plans available, and you can upgrade to the next level at any time. There are mobile apps for both iOS and Android devices that allow you to enter and approve invoices, add payments, track expenses, and add receipts. Xero is perfect for those who don't know accounts payable from accounts receivable.
It uses terms we use in everyday life like bills, payments, and invoices. Mary Girsch-Bock is a former accountant and non-profit development specialist who began her freelance career reviewing software and never stopped. When not working on the next article or review, Mary spends time working on her first novel in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, where she lives with her family, two dogs, and two birds. We're firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers.
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Small Business Software Overview. Knowledge Knowledge. Recent Articles. Search Icon Click here to search Search For. Many or all of the products here are from our partners that pay us a commission. Terms may apply to offers listed on this page. Ratings Methodology. Rating image, 4. Bottom Line: Xero is an online accounting solution with apps for invoicing, expense management, inventory management, project management, and bill payment.
It includes a mobile app and supports unlimited users. Ease Of use. Rating image, 3. Scalable, with three plans available All plans support unlimited users Integrates with more than third-party applications.
No live customer support option available Mobile apps don't offer all features found in the full version Some features only offered on the most expensive plan. Designed for sole proprietors and small and growing businesses, Xero offers three versions, so you can scale up to a more robust plan as your business grows Who is Xero for? Xero's features Xero is loaded with a ton of features including invoicing, expense management, inventory management, project management, and bill payment, and it also offers a multicurrency option.
Dashboard One of the best features in Xero is its easily navigated Dashboard, as seen above. Business The Business module in Xero is just that. Projects You can also manage projects -- and time spent on them -- in Xero. The reporting tools are excellent, and the ease of use is so logical and straightforward, that it's simple l to self-teach even for a beginner.
On top of that when you have any questions the how-to guides are thorough in themselves, and support is excellent and very quick to come back to you with an in depth answer. The ease of use is fantastic, and a beginner is able to self-teach quite easily with the fantastic guides and webinars that are available from Xero.
The support is also exceptional and I have always had my queries answered in great detail and very quickly. My main issue was that I would like to be able to create different delivery addresses on invoices that have one invoice address but different delivery locations, as it's important to specify.
To workaround we write it in the body of the invoice, however with previous systems we have been able to enter multiple delivery addresses, for one invoice address and select the required one each time. We watched several comparison videos but it was the ease of use that sold us. I had used Sage and Zoho books in the past and knew that I didn't want to use either of them again, and I was so pleased that we chose Xero as has been fantastic for us. Industry: Marketing and Advertising.
I would recommend this to all small businesses, best value for the money. A great product that is very scalable to your business. Useful for both simple and more complex accounting needs.
The software is easy to set up and use and really helps keep small business accounting under control in its basic package. In addition there is great room to grow all the way up to larger business sizes with the features available. Customizations are easy and the product is flexible. Time used: Less than 12 months. Good enough tool for small and medium companies to manage financial aspect of a company. Very good platform for small companies. There's everything that's needed to manage the accounting and financial part of a company.
I've been using for almost a year now, and Xero been doing its job properly. Easy application to use without any major training. The options are easily available on the menus, and no need to go dig around to find them.
From the screens the buttons to generate invoice or create customers are easily found. I have a team without major accounting experience being able to easily use Xero. There might be quite a lot of out of the box features but it is very difficult and very often impossible to customise further if we want to add some automations or some quick features. More reliable and got better feedback for Xero compared to Quickbooks which seems to be a bit older too.
Industry: Consumer Services. Great value - half the price of Quickbooks for the same functionality. Easy enough to implement, good product - main complaint is the bank reconciliation process. Concept of "bank reconciliation" isn't intuitive at all and they use the work "reconciliation" to mean categorizing transactions.
I'm still confused by it and haven't done that process in nearly as regularly as I should. I was with Quickbooks, they raised their prices to a level I thouught was unjustified. I could get the exact same functionality I needed at half the price with Xero. I like the idea of Xero - being from New Zealand - and it does have a few good features but overall its not the best software out there.
I know some people rave about it but to me it is definitely not one I recommend to my clients. If my clients are using it and they are happy then so be it, I will continue to assist them.
I do like the BAS return function and the Payroll function. Can be hard to navigate in finding the right reports and retrieving the right information I need from the software. I've never chosen Xero, its always been what my clients use or I have adopted it over time.
Positive overall, there are no specific features for the construction industry, but standard functionality is great for the smaller scale companies. If you spend time working out your chart of accounts and financial processes, Xero can be a very powerful tool for reporting and analyzing finances. Kanopy has found Xero to serve its needs well, but ultimately we moved on and migrated to NetSuite years later.
We still keep Xero though for 1 international subsidiary that we found to be advantageous not to migrate. Xero serves well as an "out of the box" accounting system, not unlike Quickbooks. It also has more functionality and use internationally, making it a superior choice to QB if your business operates on a global, multicurrency basis. There are some solid automations which can be implemented with Xero as well, and the canned reporting generally suffices for the majority of basic financial needs.
Xero lacks the open customization options that software like Netsuite or Dynamics offers. For a small business this will often be fine, but a scaling operation looking to automate many functions based on unique business needs may someday find they have outgrown Xero and need to undergo an often painful ERP migration.
International features are superior, and ability to manage multiple subsidiaries based in different countries is more manageable in Xero. Industry: Health, Wellness and Fitness.
It is still good, better then Kashflow which is like from Or at least it feels like it is. It has great feautures that need tweeking. And it is also recognized worldwide which is so good. Collecting feeds from all the cards is good. What I like most is that it has access to realtime feeds from all the company accounts.
This is futuristic stuff in my country of Hungary. But I can look at all my balances and see if I have enough money for a purchase or not. It doesn't really handle subscriptions well What is the least favorite part is the reconciliation. I sell the same thing, many times as you do with subscriptions and there is no way that I found where I do not have to take the so many hours of reconciling everything manually. So there might be automatic invoicing which I couldn't really use and manual reconciliation.
There is no such thing as group reconciliation: All the parties that bought in May for 10 usd should be reconcilied one '10 usd' invoice for may. That would save so much time. Xero, please do that. I also hate that products are mandatory.
If a client orders something, in a new combination, or asks for a penny discount it is a new product. Why cannot I just invoice John for I understand you are trying to be smart, xero, but please keep the dummy functions.
I am a dummy. I need them. Lastly, according to my current knowledge, it does not integrate with payment providers like stripe or braintree without zapier - which is another subscription cost. Here I want to cut Xero some slack, it is not only their fault, but the payment provider's fault as well, and I am in deep conversations with them on what can we do.
Because Kashflow was terrible. Didnt allow me to make more then 10 invoices a month, and then i needed to buy a ridiculously expensive package. Since starting with Xero over six years ago, we couldn't be happier. We've centralised all our financial activity into one platform, which is great for non-finance people like myself!
Xero makes managing the finances for a business really straightforward. The user interface is intuitive and it centralises all my accounts information. One of my favourite features is the the dashboard, which is clear and customisable, and gives a great summary of the position position at any time. The software also integrates really well to other platforms for things like receipt capture and detailed business analysis.
I'm really happy with how it performs, however, our bookkeeper still does some levels of manual reporting, which he finds easier in Excel, than in Xero. The integration of BA tools does negate this issue.
At the time the product looked to have better features and functionality, and the user experience was excellent. It wasn't SaaS at the time and was only able to be understood and used by our bookkeeper. Industry: Education Management. Reconciliations are so much easier, integrating with other products is so much easier, there are so many apps which can easily integrate into Xero. Xero is very easy to navigate around and is user friendly. Even a non-finance employee is able to use Xero.
The product is able to integrate seamlessly with a school management system importing invoices and contacts which are managed in the school management system. The integration is almost automatic and does not require a user to sync. Company size: 1,, employees. The best accounting software that meets all of your requirements. In particular, my experience with Xero has been beneficial in that it has enabled me to organize and manage all financial affairs of the branch in which I work without the need for a full-time accountant in the branch, as it allows me to prepare financial statements, pay bills, and organize payment dates myself.
I appreciate that Xero is responsive and simple to use for everyone, as it does not necessitate a great deal of prior experience. Once connected to the Internet, the user will be able to connect with all of his bank accounts, both those through which he wishes to make payments and those to which he wishes to transfer money, and monitor and follow them accurately and professionally, as well as track and report on them. It is extremely adaptable to a wide range of requirements, including those of freelancers and huge corporations.
Furthermore, it serves as a vital database for all financial data, as it will allow you to download documents and invoices quickly and easily, and also through the phone application, where it is sufficient to scan documents and invoices in order to enter information from them into the system and schedule payments quickly and easily. I particularly appreciate the reports that are generated by Xero since they are comprehensive in that they include all of the financial transactions that occurred during the time period under consideration.
The issue of dealing with recurring payments does not operate as expected, as you must occasionally complete the procedure manually. Overall, Xero was a truly powerful software that took the dread of dealing with accounting and reconciliation and made it rather straightforward. The accounting process can effectively be handled by any person, which is rather refreshing. As an attorney, I'm not an accountant. So having something else to learn and utilize while already extremely busy would be a major inconvenience.
However, Xero took what would have been a terrible experience and made it manageable. Xero is a pretty straightforward product that is effectively almost immediately deployable. Xero's dashboard is not bulky or overwhelming like a significant number of other accounting software tends to be.
Xero's help manuals and tutorials were also very useful and are great for helping users quickly refamiliarize themselves with the software. With the software linked to your desired account, you can easily reconcile all incoming and outgoing payments and expenses on a given account. Once set up, you literally can log in right after making a purchase to reconcile your accounts without having to fumble through old receipts later to try to remember specific actions that were taken on behalf of a client.
The only con that I personally experienced with Xero was that I routinely was required to relink and subsequently "resync" my banking account with Xero. Admittedly, this may have been a banking issue and not necessarily a Xero issue. However, when the relinking had to happen, this created a significant amount of issues because I was forced to relink the account, reimport expenses and incoming sums and then ensure that all the amounts had actually synced appropriately from my physical bank account to the Xero software.
The price of Xero and the ability to effectively use the software almost immediately made the decision to choose Xero a straightforward one. We switched from Quickbooks because the software felt really cumbersome and was not very user friendly to someone that isn't an accounting professional.
Industry: Industrial Automation. We moved from Sage line 50 to Xero, this has mainly been a positive experience. From our day-to-day usage, sending invoices, chasing debt, bank reconciliation it is very easy to use. Our accountant set up Dext to import receipts and expenses which means we spend much less time with data entry now and we are much more paperless than we were.
The key driver for us was to work in a cloud based system that would integrate with other business management systems and Xero kept coming up as the one that plays nicely with lots of other services. Our managment accountant has taken a lot more convincing as the web-based interface can be a little more clumsy in some 'pure-accountancy' areas and getting the chart of accounts nicely presented has taken a bit of effort. Ease of use from a day-to-day perspective for a non accountant and integration with other cloud software such as Dext and Flowlens.
We have had a couple of glitches where bank feeds have stopped working for periods of time, manual import of bank statements can take a few attempts to get right. When I first began using Xero, I had heard a lot about it and was skeptical. Surely, no software could be so "all that"! I was introduced to it by a colleague who has converted the whole of her mid-size accountancy practice to it, and literally within a day and a half which did include watching some of the short but very clear tutorial videos I was not only up and running, but felt confident using it, finding my way around it, locating and fixing errors etc.
It's literally that simple and straightforward. It's also incredibly stable - I think in 3 years it's only been offline to my knowledge 3 times, each for a very short period. I've also not found ANY bugs so far - almost unheard of! Provided it's set up properly, Xero is probably the most friendly accounting software - to non-accountants that is - of any I've ever come across.
Back in the 90's, MYOB revolutionised accounting software for small business, but Xero takes it to a whole new level, by removing so much of the data entry work that takes time, leaves room for errors and is in general a pain, when you'd rather be - you know, running your business.
With Xero, it's up to the individual operator how much they want to automate their accounting transactions; if you want to, you can use the really powerful, but still simple tools to do a lot of the legwork for you.
If you prefer to do it more manually, that's OK too - it's still simple and very quick and easy to use. Xero is constantly adding and refining its software. Inventory control is an area I'd like to see strengthened, but that's already way ahead of where it was a couple of years ago. Similarly processing payments in advance. But these are relatively small niggles which for the majority of small businesses don't present any issue. I was contracting to an accountancy firm who had converted their entire practice to Xero.
I am very satisfied to be building my practice on Xero. They have a good product with a good company behind it. They seem to really care about their advisors and see them as key to their business model.
They have a great community and great support. What I like most about Xero is its open-platform ethos. It's not one particular feature, it's the whole way that Xero approaches what it does, and it shows up all over the product. One small example is how easy it is to manually import bank transactions via CSV file, and then how easy it is to undo that import if it went wrong. I want them to hurry up and integrate Hubdoc into Xero itself.
And when that happens, I want there to be a way to generate a report that shows which GL transactions don't have a source document.
In the end, I decided that the ability to integrate apps was going to be determinative over the long term. Xero and QBO are way out in front when it comes to integration and I expect that as the market matures, they will end up with a Coke-and-Pepsi-level of market dominance. They may already be there. I was looking for a software partner that I could build my practice on and Xero were the ones who showed me they wanted to be that and had a plan to make it happen. For Quickbooks, the advisor community will always be a means to an end.
Their products are built for consumers, not professionals, and I expect they always will be. Xero changed the face of accounting for our business. It has made accounting work far less painful than it used to be. And the true cloud-based setup makes it so much easier to access from anywhere. Ease of use - seriously. Nothing comes close. And trust me, I've tried a number of accounting software and they're all a nightmare to use unless you're an accountant. None of them were truly cloud based.
All of them were horribly complicated, made for accountants and not at all user friendly. Sage 50 Cloud was supposedly a cloud based software, but it wasn't truly cloud based, and it had all the legacy horrid pains associated with any Sage accounting system.
Industry: Staffing and Recruiting. Easy to deploy and use providing you have basic book-keeping knowledge. Solid and simple cloud accounting solution that is easy to navigate and customise. Great that our external accountants and legal support can access online as they need. Seems to be continuously evolving and its reassuring to see ongoing development of the product.
Customisable dashboard is a time saver and ability to customise templates helps with consistency for our company branding. Customisation of user permissions means the bonus of staff being able to enter their own expenses which is a further time saver. Being able to work across multiple currencies now is a plus, albeit I wish we could manually adjust exchange rates being used. Many advanced features that are standard for longer established accounting software solutions are available, but as "bolt on" packages, so costs can escalate quickly if you need full "bells and whistles".
I appreciate that customer service probably don't want to be wasting time with queries better addressed by professional book-keepers or accountants, but in our instance, as "advanced users", our customer service queries tend to be related to technical challenges with the product.
It would be great of Xero could analyse the types of queries coming from their customers and perhaps have a priority helpline on offer for "low maintenance" subscribers. Felt more user friendly, especially for team members who, at the time, had limited or zero accounting knowledge. I was reluctant to pay the extra costs to move to Xero from my previous cheaper package but I am more than happy that I finally made the switch. It is a fraction of the cost of having a book-keeper to pay and I feel so much more confident that my accounts are working correctly.
The option of additional plugins aid the automation for syncing with software such as woocommerce and amazon, ebay etc. It is a shame that they are additional costs but I would prefer that I had the option to integrate than not, and they are great time savers, which is the biggest help for small business owners.
Xero has a lot of automated features that make the process of accounts preparation easy and reliable. The bank feeds work smoothly and it is easy to set up rules to make the process automated on regular transactions - just a click to confirm entry. I have been able to integrate woocommerce, amazon and ebay transactions to ensure I am correctly treating VAT and International orders and purchases correctly.
As with any new accountancy software, there is a bit of technical detail to get your head around but that is probably to be expected. There are good help articles that are useful for the set up phase. I wanted a greater degree of confidence that my accounts were correct when dealing with complex transactions such as International sales etc.
This was especially important due to changes with Brexit etc. I was also keen to be able to automate where possible to save time. I am happy, can be connected with my clients all the time, can prepare reports anywhere, anytime. I think the price for South Africa is a bit high. I like the product is easy to use, no need high knowledge of accounting, the person who never was doing accounting can easily manage this product. Industry: Information Technology and Services.
Xero was the best choice back in when no one gave multi-currency and still is in when there are some who do. I have now added another company to Xero and cannot imagine shifting to another platform With most clients abroads, we find its best to bill them in their local currency.
Luckily for us, Xero is there to help sort our books out and keep them in order. Another feature we really use is their tracking fields. Xero allows users to setup 2 tracking fields that can be added to invoices, expenses, bills and assigned to each line.
This helps us keep track of project based work and has been our way since before Xero ventured into Project based accounting that users need to pay additional fee for It also integrates with online payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe, GoCardless, and a few others; thus payments are a breeze for clients. As a non-accountant, Xero is easy to use even when you get into all the features it provides.
They have made some changes to their UI esp where invoices and expenses are concerned. Luckily for older users, expenses are still free however, for new users it isnt and each person filing expenses on it needs to pay a small fee. I think it should be free for a small number of users atleast 2 and then charged.
There was no multi-currency in Quickbooks available. Bank feeds were also not there for some of the banks I wanted. For a similar price point Xero offered better features and a product that was easier to use for a non-accountant.
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