About Xero
What is Xero?
Xero is an online accounting system designed to simplify business tasks such as paying bills, managing expense claims, creating invoices, and more.
How do you use Xero?
Xero’s main hub is accessible online and used to manage staff and client data. Its Practice Manager tool is used to manage jobs, assign tasks, and track time. Xero can be integrated with external systems and connected to bank accounts to provide automated transaction feeds.
Who uses Xero?
Xero is primarily used by small business owners, accountants, and bookkeepers.
How much does Xero cost?
Xero offers three pricing plans. "Early" is for new businesses, sole traders, and the self-employed and is $5.50 per month. "Growing" is for small/growing businesses and is $16 per month. "Established" is for established businesses and is $31 per month.
Does Xero have an app?
Yes, the Xero Accounting mobile app (for iOS and Android) provides on-the-go access to invoices, contacts, bank account balances, spending, cashflow, and more.
Xero pricing
Xero does not have a free version but does offer a free trial. Xero paid version starts at £10.00/month.
Alternatives to Xero
Xero Reviews for UK Users
Feature rating
- Industry: Arts & Crafts
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Weekly for 1+ year
-
Review Source
Affordable professional level accounting software for small business
It's been easier to use Xero than I expected, but I had a nasty surprise at tax time when I realized the default accounts/descriptions for expenses did not correlate 1:1 to IRS categories. (I should have checked this more closely when I set up my accounts because it's a New Zealand company, and the previous product was local.) This means I will need to double-check all my transactions for 2018 and the IRS has my vastly overestimated tax payment until I can do that and file my return on an extension.
I've had a much better experience importing data from financial institutions because Xero uses a well-known importing service that is trusted by the institutions.
I like being able to match multiple invoices to bank deposits because I usually don't run to the bank for each check. This will be more valuable as my company grows.
I should probably find an accountant to assist me with this, but I haven't found an accountant who understands both craft businesses and Xero.
Pros
Professional double entry software at a very affordable price
Accommodates both cash and accrual accounting
Links to financial institutions to get transactions
Uses standard importer recognized by the financial institutions instead of just trying to log in remotely (and triggering fraud alerts)
Can match multiple invoices to a single deposit transaction imported from bank
Can keep using Xero as company grows
Cons
Pre-existing expense categories/descriptions don't map 1:1 with IRS definitions, so I'm having to go back to all my receipts to make sure expenses are entered in proper accounts because I didn't realize this when I switched
More difficult to focus on specific expense categories to check transactions
Have not been able to import historic data from previous app (possibly because it's not double entry) so I am still paying the subscription on that software to retain access to my data
No integration with Craftybase, so I have to enter supply purchases and customer invoices there independently
Alternatives Considered
Quickbooks OnlineReasons for Choosing Xero
Outright depends on importing data from financial institutions but they were extremely unreliable (apparently they don't use a standard importing service and my credit union kept flagging them as hackers for remote logins) and customer service kept giving me the runaround. It also isn't "professional" double-entry bookkeeping and can't be audited. Outright can't handle Cost of Goods Sold properly and requires manual workarounds. It can't generate professional reports needed when applying for loans.Switched From
GoDaddy Online BookkeepingReasons for Switching to Xero
QuickBooks introduced a special product for Etsy integration, but early adopters had problems with data disappearing and no way to recover it. 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.
- Industry: Accounting
- Company size: 2-10 Employees
- Used Weekly for 1+ year
-
Review Source
Xero is the One
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.
Pros
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. It's less about features (although Cash Coding and Find & Recode are brilliant) and more about design choices.
Cons
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.
Alternatives Considered
Sage 50cloudReasons for Choosing Xero
Quickbooks treats their ProAdvisors the way Scar treats the hyenas in the Lion King. 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.Switched From
Quickbooks OnlineReasons for Switching to Xero
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. Early on, I tried to get someone to sell me Accounting Power and/or Sage 50, but neither company seemed organized enough to close the sale. 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.- Industry: Accounting
- Company size: 2-10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
-
Review Source
ACCOUNTANT WARNING DO NOT PARTNER - I was 2nd partner in Canada not a smart move heres why!
Pros
Not much to say here anymore, they pretty much used to be good and totally lost faith.
Cons
As an accounting firm I would be very cautious with using Xero or recommending it to clients. Outside of Xero billing for things that were supposed to be free, which after complaining they claim they will reconcile but I had to threaten with a lawyer to get that reaction. As an accounting firm it is a very risky move to partner with the Xero software platform. As a firm Your clients will know your using Xero and as a result will likely start to follow Xero using social media. When this happen your clients will receive advertisements about other Accounting firms partnered with Xero. The problem isn’t that you will loose your clients, but this makes you look really bad in front of your clients that you are recommending a software that recommends other accountants outside your firm. This actually happened to me in Canada, and the response of the Canadian Xero team was simply that they didn’t intend on these promotions to be received by the clients of my firm. They didn’t care, they didn’t apologize, they didn’t even acknowledge what they did was wrong, it was evident that they prioritized their growth over their existing partners, at least in Canada. Even The Canadian director of Xero comments where limited to telling me ” I understand that you need to make important decisions in the best interest of your firm”. To me this was a clear message that he doesn’t care. As a small business the software was historically leading, recently, many clients are having issues logging in
- Industry: Real Estate
- Company size: 2-10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
-
Review Source
Xero - Overall Great Product
The benefits are the ability to have all our accounting record keeping in one place, and to get reports on any side of our accounting process with the click of a button.
Pros
Easy to use and provides all the information to run our business - from an accounting standpoint. What I like most is the ability to import bank transactions.
Cons
The feature I like the least is Fixed Assets. I find it confusing at times and cannot understand why we cannot attach a copy of the Vendor Invoice to a Fixed Asset file. Find this frustrating when we seem able to attach invoice copies to most other types of transactions.
- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 2-10 Employees
- Used Weekly for 2+ years
-
Review Source
Best in Multi-currency accounting for SMB
Xero was the best choice back in 2015 (when no one gave multi-currency) and still is in 2021 (when there are some who do).
I have now added another company to Xero and cannot imagine shifting to another platform....ever.
Pros
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. It integrates with many bank feeds & popular wallets/fintechs like PayPal, Payoneer & TransferWise so accounts are upto date - always.
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.
Cons
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.
