QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise vs. Xero

QuickBooks Enterprise is great for managing our inventory, purchases and income as we receive it. We use it to help budget and plan our monthly purchases, as well as keep each location on track when it comes to their expenses. It's also used for payroll and timekeeping at each store.

Incentivized

I am a massage and physical therapist. We are not a fancy business but business admin can take a lot of time and effort. Xero came recommended to me by colleagues in the sector. You raise invoices, you get paid. and you pay your bills. These are all daily scenarios for most businesses and Xero does this particularly well. Since my accountant can query my records directly, this greatly saves on bookkeeping time when it is time to do the company returns.

Incentivized

• Generally, a mouse is not needed!
• Updating as each transaction is posted means, in the event of a crash, power failure, whatever; all the posted transactions are securely in the data file and can be pulled up on another computer, if the computer being used crashes.
• Reporting is generally user friendly, in that one can see the desired results by setting a few parameters for the report.

Incentivized

• Repeating invoices (most of my business is monthly recurring invoices) - it does these very well.
• Reporting - particularly being able to dig into the different lines of the P&L statement.
• Tracking categories - I assign a category to every line of every invoice so it's easy to see how much has been sold of each type of service every month and year, and compare them to previous periods.

Incentivized

• Wish we had the ability to track gallons. We are a truck stop and need to know how many gallons we buy and sell.
• Matching up credits in Pay Bills can be challenging, especially if you make a mistake.
• Wish in some of the reporting that it would automatically total some columns.
• Downloading from the bank wish it would tell you the last time you downloaded and the dates you put in so you don't download the same information twice.

Incentivized

• Having different email addresses for different parts of a customer's business (eg invoices and statements to different places)
• Easily seeing the text of emails that have been sent through Xero
• More easily archiving old pay items. Our HR software updates rates when awards are updated which means a lot of old pay rates are in the system and they have multiple clicks to archive each one. Clicking the ones to archive in bulk and then just click archive for all would be much more efficient.

Incentivized

While QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise has been an amazing tool for many years, it seems it is getting phased out for QuickBooks Online. Intuit is decreasing the level of support it offers for QuickBooks Desktop in lieu of stronger support for QuickBooks Online. Although the desktop version is robust and helpful, it seems QBO is the way of the future for bookkeeping with QuickBooks.

Incentivized

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.

QuickBooks provides all staff immediate access to the data in whatever form each person wants it. The balancing on entries prevents incorrect data entry on payables/receivables. Reports are easy to customize and save for future use. The records are easy to audit.

Incentivized

As a standalone software, it allows users to fulfill most of the basic functions (e.g. transaction input and report generation) simply and conveniently. It also allows for multiple APIs to help augment various tasks that accounting-adjacent (e.g. claims processing). The cloud based model and portability to mobile devices allows tasks to be carried out in a more convenient way.

Rating: 7 out of 10
We rate QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise's availability a 7 out of 10. For the most part, the software is dependable and available when we need it. When hosted on a properly managed local server or through a reputable third-party cloud provider, uptime is generally consistent, and routine day-to-day operations run smoothly.
However, availability challenges do arise, particularly when accessing QuickBooks remotely or during periods of high system demand. Because it's a desktop-based solution, availability is highly dependent on our internal IT infrastructure. If our network goes down, a server needs maintenance, or if there’s an issue with a remote desktop connection, access to QuickBooks can be temporarily disrupted. These outages aren’t necessarily caused by QuickBooks itself, but they do impact our experience with availability.
Additionally, we’ve occasionally experienced application errors, especially after updates or when working with large company files. While Intuit support is usually helpful in resolving these issues, they can still lead to frustrating delays—especially during critical periods like month-end closing or grant reporting deadlines.
Planned maintenance, while infrequent, also affects availability, especially when using a hosted environment. Coordination with IT or hosting providers is sometimes needed to minimize downtime.
Overall, QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise is a reliable tool, but its dependence on local infrastructure introduces more potential points of failure compared to cloud-native solutions. Enhancements in cloud-based access or hybrid models could significantly improve both accessibility and uptime. That said, with strong internal IT support or a reliable cloud hosting provider, the availability can easily rise to an 8 or 9.

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.

I rate QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise's performance a 5 out of 10, mainly because while it’s functional for most routine tasks, it can lag significantly when handling complex operations, large data files, or during multi-user sessions. As our organization has grown, we’ve noticed that report generation—especially for customized or multi-dimensional reports—can be slow, sometimes taking several minutes to load or refresh. This impacts productivity, particularly during key financial cycles like audits, monthly closings, or grant reporting.
Performance degradation is especially noticeable when multiple users are active in the system at the same time. Even with a solid server setup, there’s often a drop in responsiveness when more than a handful of users are generating reports or entering transactions concurrently.
We’ve also experienced some slowdowns in third-party integrations, particularly when syncing with Vena Solutions or exporting data for use in external tools. While the integrations are valuable, they occasionally stall or require workarounds, adding friction to our workflows.
In short, QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise delivers the basics well, but its performance limitations become more apparent in high-volume or complex use cases. It would benefit from better optimization for large datasets and faster processing for advanced reporting. Upgrades in system architecture—such as deeper support for cloud hosting or more efficient data handling—could significantly improve the user experience and move this rating closer to an 8.

Incentivized

On a good day, things worked but after upgrades, things began to slow and or not work at all at times. I coined the moving circle while I waited as the "Xero Wheel of Death". Sometimes it never stopped and force quitting was necessary.

Incentivized

It takes a long time to get through to customer support. And sometimes you have to explain the situation multiple times before the rep actually understands the issue, but that's usually because the issue is complex and out of the ordinary. However, the rep is always patient, and will take as much time and effort as necessary to resolve whatever issue you're having. It's nice that they can "take over" your computer rather than having to talk you through the solution over the phone.

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.

It is a very easy system to learn, so with the help it was even easier. QB is a good solid system, but it lacks some of the complexity other systems have. with QB you need to get additional modules to get the same functionality that other systems offer standard

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

easy to learn system, specially with some kind of support. Just like with any other system, things get lot easier if you have guidance to lead you in your search for answers. having said that, QB is very easy to use and very easy to teach. you wont spend much time memorizing where to click.

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 you're loading QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions onto a computer that you're going to directly log into, you should be able to do it yourself. If you are going to connect to a server through a network or remote connection, you should probably have a professional IT person set it up for you.

Incentivized

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

We have selected this product as it is affordoable in terms of pricing and features too. Our clients is geeting lots of benefits by using this product. By using QuickBooks desktop client also manage the information realted to financials and also get the clear picture for the future by using the accounting information from this product.

Incentivized

Each of the products I listed had their own list of drawbacks, but the one thing they all had in common, which was right on top of that list of drawbacks, was ease of use. I struggled to get myself accustomed to each system and struggled, but when it came to getting a client to even try and use it was when the true struggle started. Just found it easier to make use of Xero from the very beginning.

I would rate QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise a 7 out of 10 for overall scalability. The product offers solid scalability features, particularly for small to mid-sized organizations like ours that are growing and need reliable multi-user access, enhanced data capacity, and cross-departmental functionality. It handles increasing transaction volumes and user growth quite well, especially with its support for up to 40 users and the ability to manage large lists (customers, vendors, accounts, etc.)—a significant improvement over QuickBooks Pro or Premier.
Its role-based permissions system also allows us to assign tailored access by department or user level, which is essential for maintaining control and security across teams like finance, HR, and program management. Additionally, features like advanced reporting, inventory management, and class tracking have helped us better manage multiple programs or sites within one system.
That said, the scalability still has some limits. For example, deploying the software across multiple physical locations or for remote teams requires additional IT infrastructure—such as hosting it on a third-party cloud server or setting up a VPN—which introduces cost and complexity. Also, while QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise can technically handle a high volume of data, performance can decline as the file size grows over time unless regular maintenance and optimization are done.
In summary, QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise scales well within its designed range, particularly for growing nonprofits and NGOs. However, organizations with distributed teams or very large, complex operations may eventually find the system’s desktop-based architecture less agile compared to cloud-native ERP platforms. With enhancements to cloud integration and remote accessibility, this rating could easily increase.

Incentivized

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

• Good value for the price. The initial setup was quick and easy.
• When properly set up and processes are followed it's decent at managing inventory which is something we had problems with. Have to have a dedicated employee to builds.
• Rolling up costs in multi-level BOM's is a project each time we have to review costs, it's very time consuming to manually update all assemblies.

Incentivized

• Xero is a basic accounting system that performs basic accounting tasks easily and accurately. For that, it provides a positive impact on our day to day accounting operations.
• Because of Xero's basic structure, I feel it lacks some of the sophistication that some users want and need. The ability to create unique custom reports would enhance the impact Xero would have on meeting business objectives by providing current and useful accounting information.
• In my opinion, Xero's lack of focus on their customers - their users - is a real issue with me. In my opinion, those of us that are in the trenches that work with the system on a daily basis have to deal with the shortcomings of the system with the knowledge that Xero support refuses to address the operational issues that make their user's lives difficult. I feel if Xero would focus on truly making their software better from a users point of view, it has the potential to be a great system.