Exact Online vs. Xero

If you are a big company and have an active accountant then this system can be for you, it has many options but you need dedication. But the price starts from €39 and then you are not there...Most of the time you need other options to make it complete. Like ERP functions + €199~ want to book hours? +€129. And this is all per month... It goes up so fast that it's not interesting for small companies. When there are better options on the market that are even free...

Incentivized

If they are using foreign exchange I always use Xero. If I need reporting to be customized we always use Xero. If the client is already working in a software and it is working for them we will leave them in the software they are in.

• Complete pack with many options, use it as CRM, ERP or simply for your bookings.
• Many connections with external programs, webshops, etc.
• Automatic backups.

Incentivized

• Their method of moving between screens was very logical and intuitive which is not a "given" attribute among software packages.
• Finding transactions was relatively easy with just common sense.
• The use of this software was generally well received in that the accountants did not discredit the software as cheap, poorly organized, or timely to learn. No one at Corporate had a vendetta against using Xero.
• It does a good job of allowing the users to drill down to the final detail of an account balance - which is fundamental to the accounting department's needs.

Incentivized

• Support... It's bad, and when you want to stop or step back it's near impossible.
• Price, they tend to increase it without warning, and with all the extras it goes up fast.
• If you wanna spend all your time in accounting buy Exact... It can be complex and many handlings needs to be done.

Incentivized

• I would like to have the ability to sign up a holding company and all its trading entities under one subscription, in order to have amalgamated and separate accounting records and reports for each trading entity.
• This is pertaining to my own Xero business clients: I would like to have a full featured, customizable practice client support /ticketing and task manager system, with reminders that can be sent to my clients and my team for various tasks due.
• I would like Xero to have a cheaper option for their packages that include invoicing and related documents, as in my country we have options with an opposition accounting firm that offers a subscription where clients can create up to 2000 invoices per year for free.

In addition to the matters covered in this review, my reason for renewing this product is that Xero's functionality and the constant updates that the company provides, makes the software even more business friendly. The software therefore builds a brand loyalty among customers.

Xero has all the features that you need, basically. From chart of accounts, reconciling books, to making annual financial reports. What I'm currently looking for Xero right now is to provide more broader integration with the other apps so we can use it for customer-facing experience also. All in all, everything works well!

Incentivized

We have been actively using and 100% Xero based for our ecommerce accounting practice for over 4 years. There has on been one real outage for more than 5 minutes. Xero was open and transparent about the outage, what they were doing to resolve the issue, and provided 15 minute updates. Showing how they care about their customers and partners. Plus, showing that their customers care too, were understanding, and went surfing or in our case took a nap. Couldn't run our business without Xero as a partner.

Pages generally load quickly, but it's a fairly common occurrence to have pages taking a bit longer than I'd like to load (as in, 4+ seconds). Occasionally I have to refresh a page to get it to work. Bank feed and integrations tend to be slow in general, but that could easily be due to API latency on the side of the other parties. Most of the time, though, the bank feeds refresh before I login so it's not a huge problem. Not necessarily good performance compared to a local app like QuickBooks desktop, but definitely good performance for a cloud application. Room for growth? yes.

Incentivized

Always respond and keep issues open until you are satisfied with the result. Generally good responses, in the past, I had some support responses that were really basic and really annoying. They type where "have your tried restarting your computer" style of answers. Well, of course, I went through all the basics before contacting them. Duh, but I suppose not everyone does. Otherwise, it would be a 10. The last year has shown a marked improvement in the support responses however.

The format was great; someone was there to ask questions or help if you were stuck.

Incentivized

All of Xero's training is online and available for anyone (business owner or accountants) to learn and become experts in their system. There is a range of content from product training to real world webinars from their partners. Xero is beautiful accounting software and their training is the same.

If it can be done, time the implementation near a new fiscal year so you can start clean. Otherwise, you have to go back and do historical data from the beginning of the fiscal year, which can be brain draining.

Incentivized

I would not select Exact Online, but I can direct you to better options. Due to the high price, getting behind the competition and support I would suggest options like Zoho Books for you bookings, or CyberStockroom as ERP. And here in the Netherlands e-boekhouden.nl is a real nice, cheap, and fast working booking platform for the smaller companies.

Incentivized

I've used a lot of different accounting systems. Many of them so big and powerful, but a hassle to get set up. Xero is light, inexpensive, and easy to use. When I originally selected them they seemed like they were developing new features at a quick rate as well. I was invited to be part of focus sessions to make the product better. That part has slowed down significantly though.

I have yet to fully stress test the product given the size of the company where I am using it. I am sure as we scale to more customers, more vendors and more reporting requirements, I will have a better understanding of what it is capable of in terms of bandwidth and processing

Incentivized

• Negative: High costs and implement time turned 1 client in to the negative, and after 2 years of use wants to stop.
• Positive: Once an ERP connection is running you can automate a lot in the process.

Incentivized

• Saved many hours through automatic invoices and followups
• Saved many hours by allowing transactions to start via bank feeds (ie I don't have to input a transaction and mark it against what is in the bank/cc account; rather, the transaction in the account is where you input the transaction into the books.
• Has the scalability my business requires, and not much more.

Incentivized