Otherwise, the cost of QuickBooks to cover the same features I use in Xero would have been very expensive; even a QB consultant told me it’s overkill for a business of my size. I forget which other products I looked at, but Xero was recommended by several owners of similar businesses. Xero may be harder to learn than a simpler invoicing platform like Square Invoices or Zoho Invoice. We’ve recently improved the integration’s sales tax functionality in NZ, AU and UK – making it easier for businesses like yours to manage your tax obligations. The integration is designed to make it quick and easy for you to reconcile your Shopify sales against your payouts. For this reason, the integration brings across a daily summary of all sales per payment gateway – ensuring Xero has only the information it needs to support your reconciliation.
Xero Early ($13 per month) has monthly limits of 20 invoices and quotes and five bills. Xero Growing ($37 per month) adds unlimited billing and invoicing, quotes, and bills. Xero Established ($70 per month), the version we tested, is the only version to offer multiple currency support. It also supports projects, advanced analytics, and employee expense claims. Xero has all the features required to manage small and medium sized businesses across many different industries. With Xero, you can connect bank accounts, accept payments online, send invoices directly to customers, keep financials up to date, track your company’s inventory, and more.
This new form should speed up the customer billing process because of its smart simplicity, besides being more aesthetically pleasing. It looks more state-of-the-art and less cluttered, and unlike Classic, it auto-saves your work every few seconds. It contains all the fields and columns found on the old version, which you can choose to show or hide. Links in the upper right take you to housekeeping tasks like approving the invoice, previewing it, and printing a PDF. In contrast, QuickBooks Online Plus’s customer and vendor records are more comprehensive. They let you store more preferences, like preferred payment and delivery methods, language to use in forms, and so on.
Xero Review: Features, Pricing & Alternatives in 2023
Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and evaluating small business software and services. The rating of this company or service is based on the author’s expert opinion and analysis of the product, and assessed and seconded by another subject matter expert on staff before publication. Merchant Maverick’s ratings are not influenced by affiliate partnerships.
The Client Portal is where your clients can view and manage all their transactions. From here, they’ll be able to accept quotes, pay invoices, leave comments, and more. Xero lets you capture data without any manual work using a tool called Hubdoc. By enabling Hubdoc, you’ll be able to email, take a photo on your mobile, or scan your documents, and the data will automatically appear in Xero. Hubdoc does the data entry by reading key information from bills and receipts and turns it into usable data.
We also liked how easily you can switch between checking and savings accounts when reconciling transactions. The second mobile app, Xero Expenses, is for employees who need to submit reimbursable expenses but don’t need access to the main site. Employees can use this app to take pictures of receipts with their phones. Xero then pulls some of the key data from those receipts and deposits it on expense forms in the browser-based version. In testing, the app extracted data from a receipt I photographed very quickly, capturing the vendor, date, and amount in an expense form, with the photo attached. I added an account and description manually on the app, and everything appeared in web-based Xero when I logged in.
Software Categories
Users are required to download the free Xero Projects app, which they can use to record time and costs and create invoices and reports. We especially like that this feature is free, although some time-tracking apps include additional functionality. Xero offers more than 1,000 integrations – among the most of the accounting apps we reviewed.
Due to its scalability and cost-effectiveness, Xero is a great choice for growing businesses. Because it supports unlimited users, it facilitates employee collaboration and allows them to quickly submit expenses and send invoices. Xero also grows with your company, integrating with your email, customer relationship management (CRM), or point-of-sale platforms to help streamline operations even further. It provides a comprehensive view of a company’s cash flow by presenting upcoming bills and outstanding invoices in a clear, tabular format.
Accounting & Reports
Instead, it offers free and unlimited online customer support, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, at Xero Central. You can request a callback, however, by providing your phone number. If you’re looking for dedicated project management tools, check out our picks for the best project management software on the market today.
For instance, you can easily customize Xero’s default chart of accounts or import an already existing chart of accounts. This Xero software review has analyzed the Xero software in detail and has concluded that it’s a good value for your money. The ease of use is fantastic; even non-tech-savvy users can learn how the software works with the comprehensive guides and webinars Xero offers. When you start a purchase order, you can create bills with just a few clicks. If you use inventory tracking, your item quantity will be automatically updated after you create a bill.
Is Xero bookkeeping software worth it? Final points
You can view costs as they happen in real time, then make instant modifications. This way, you can avoid unnecessary shortfalls and payment problems. PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering lab-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology. The company has begun to roll out updates to reports in terms of both its content and design. There will be additional enhancements made over the next several months in areas like accessing and searching for data, and customization.
It works closely with some of the best third-party app providers to integrate with its own accounting tools. This can help growing companies expand on Xero’s features in specific areas. Xero’s project tracking tools are good, though they lack some of QuickBooks Online’s functionality, like the ability to add purchase orders and assign bills to projects. The Xero project tools are also not as easy to understand as QuickBooks Online’s.
Its inventory tracking is useful for businesses that need to manage their stock. If you want to improve efficiency, Xero also offers integration with a lot of software, such as HubSpot, ProWorkflow, and their alternatives. The Growing plan costs $37 per month and includes unlimited numbers of invoices and bills. In addition to the features on the Early plan, the Growing plan also includes bulk transaction reconciliation to speed things up. Xero is a cloud-based, double-entry accounting software tool that is designed with small businesses in mind.
Xero does that and much more – it’s an ideal companion for accountants and bookkeepers. Regardless of which plan you pick, we found Xero to offer superior tools for tracking and managing bill payments. Xero Established has enhanced its contact records since my last review. You can enter extensive contact information and financial details like default settings and accounts, currency, bank routing numbers, and due dates. Once customers have reached their credit limit, the blocking tool prevents you from approving or sending invoices until they’re within their limit again.
If the item you want to invoice is not in your inventory management list, you can also add them quickly through the “new invoices” page. If you use inventory tracking, the item quantity will be automatically updated when you invoice an item. You can set up the payment services you’d like to use for your invoices through the “settings” page. Unlike FreshBooks and QuickBooks Online, Xero doesn’t accept direct credit card payment.
- Customers can also add payroll with Gusto starting at $39 per month.
- Particularly automating the process of bank reconciliation is amazing time saver, it connects to banks and credit cards.
- I have been using the integration app for a year, and the initial setup was a minefield.
- The onboarding process is a combination of help articles and videos.
- Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and evaluating small business software and services.
This means that QuickBooks is a good choice for businesses who only need one person to use the software but need to send a high volume of invoices and bills per month. The Xero app store offers more than 1,000 prebuilt connections that integrate with third-party apps. This is more integrations than all its main competitors, including QuickBooks and FreshBooks.
What browsers are compatible with Xero?
You can even limit who can see the company’s complete financial picture. Xero’s inventory management feature allows users to track inventory levels, set up automated reordering, and generate reports to analyze sales and inventory data. Businesses can also set up and manage inventory items, create purchase orders, and manage stock across multiple locations. The feature also integrates with Xero’s invoicing and sales features, so businesses easily create invoices and track sales of their inventory items.
The chart of accounts has default accounts set up, but you can modify existing accounts or add new ones. You can also invite an additional user and set limits to their access. Keep in mind that support is only available via email or one-way call. If you’re a larger company with multiple bank accounts, go for a more robust accounting system like QuickBooks Enterprise. For heavily inventory-based businesses, we suggest an ERP like NetSuite ERP or Sage Intacct.
No other accounting software we reviewed even came close to offering this highly compelling feature. When you’re paying bills, all it takes is one click and filling out a few fields of payment information. Once your debit and credit cards are saved in the system, the process takes only a few seconds. Similarly, your clients Xero Review and customers can send money immediately with the Pay Now button on your online invoices. This function is powered by the best payment transaction apps, such as Stripe and PayPal, ensuring speed and security. Accounting software that makes incoming and outgoing payments a breeze is invaluable to businesses of any size.
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. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team. 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.