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: Hospitality
- Company size: 10,000+ Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
AP and AR Automation System
Recurring billing and expense reporting.
Pros
Xero offers unlimited accounting tools at affordable rates unlike alternatives.
I like that Xero matches POs, accounts and invoices to detect disparities when paying vendors.
Cons
I have never come across any issue and I regularly use Xero.
- Industry: Entertainment
- Company size: 51-200 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Easy to Implement and Manage Global Business, Low Customization Options
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. The mature business with complex operations may not find all needs are met with Xero, especially if the desire is to integrate many other tools/software with the ERP in a bi-directional data flow.
Pros
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.
Cons
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.
Alternatives Considered
QuickBooks Online AdvancedReasons for Switching to Xero
International features are superior, and ability to manage multiple subsidiaries based in different countries is more manageable in Xero.- Industry: Accounting
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Monthly for 2+ years
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Review Source
Company could care less about customers and refuses to fix glaring issues
It has been a nightmare! I was an early adopter, but they quickly forced us to pay their increasing fees instead of honoring us in supporting what began as very buggy software. They stabilized it and it worked okay for some time, but has consistently become more buggy and irritating.
They refuse to fix bugs, always blame the customer for doing things wrong. They send canned messages that half the time have NOTHING to do with the actual question. They called me a liar in support. Their automated feeds NEVER work, and when they break, they cause a huge mess. For instance, it might pull transactions for 20 days out of the month, and you have to figure out which it did not pull. Of course, they never take responsibility or try to fix it.
Their greed has ruined the company and all they care about is fleecing more money from the customer. I never plan to go back to this company. Horrible!
Pros
Disliked the entire experience. They break everything that works well. Cash coding was excellent then they changed it and broke it.
Cons
Automated feeds NEVER work, always buggy, and the mess it leaves takes hours or days to fix. Customer support is a joke. They only send canned responses which rarely if ever answer the question. Their lack of attentiveness in support is appalling.
- Industry: Education Management
- Company size: 51-200 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Xero use in a School
Reconciliations are so much easier, integrating with other products is so much easier, there are so many apps which can easily integrate into Xero.
Pros
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. AMAZING PLATFORM!
Cons
Nil - Honestly there is nothing I dislike about Xero.
Alternatives Considered
MYOB BusinessReasons for Choosing Xero
MYOB was not able to integrate with a school management system.Switched From
MYOB BusinessReasons for Switching to Xero
Integration, Ease of use, ease of navigation, reporting- Industry: Entertainment
- Company size: 2-10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Xero has helped us transform and streamline our processes
Xero has streamlined our operations, and simplified our record keeping, and notification of when bills are due for payment or invoices due for collection. The dashboard is fantastic for an overall picture. 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.
Pros
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.
Cons
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.
