Xero Accounting, Excellent Features and Affordability for the Small Business or Organization
Updated November 11, 2015

Xero Accounting, Excellent Features and Affordability for the Small Business or Organization

Matthew Toenjes | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Xero

We provide bookkeeping and accounting services to small businesses and non-profit organizations. Over the past year we have added Xero to our list of supported accounting software and we currently are the only Xero Partner in the State of Kansas. Xero helps us to keep in contact with our clients and collaborate with them on a real-time basis with their accounting needs. It's up-to-date 24-7 accessibility over the Internet is one of the program's strongest features.
  • Xero allows a business' staff, bookkeepers, and accountants to collaborate on the accounting on a timely basis. It is accessible 24-7 and also has integrated notes that users can post on individual transactions for discussion back and forth from within the software.
  • Xero facilitates data entry with it's automatic download of bank and credit card transactions. This cuts down the time needed to process transactions.
  • Xero speeds up the account reconciliation process, and thereby facilitates keeping the accounting always up to date.
  • Some of Xero's features are not as intuitive as they could be, requiring a new user to rely heavily on the help center to learn how to process certain transactions.
  • Xero's reports could be improved to be more user-friendly.
  • Some of Xero's accounting terminology is not familiar for U.S. users and takes some getting used to.
  • Xero does not yet have a fully integrated payroll module that covers the entire U.S. That feature is currently being implemented on a state by state basis.
  • Xero does not (yet) have a full inventory module. Inventory tracking is still very basic.
  • Xero can have a very positive impact on a business' accounting processes, by cutting down data entry and reconciliation time, thus increasing the overall efficiency of the business.
  • If used in conjunction with a third-party CRM program, Xero helps improve customer service by providing up-to-date information.
  • Xero helps cut back on the time required for accountants to review and process period-end adjusting entries, thus saving businesses from higher accounting fees.
Xero is a competitor to QuickBooks Online (QBO). Both have advantages and disadvantages when compared with each other. Data entry and account reconciliation is faster with Xero. On the other hand QBO has more robust inventory management and payroll features.

Both programs integrate very well with third-party solutions, with QBO currently the stronger of the two in that area as it has been around longer. However Xero has recently made great advances with third-party integration.
Xero is very well suited for small to medium sized businesses and organizations, especially those that have remote staff and/or accountants. However if the entity requires detailed or complex inventory management then it may not be a good fit. The same applies to payroll.

That being said, there are large number of third-party solutions that integrate well with Xero, allowing those current limitations to be overcome and used by those businesses or organizations.

Another thing that users have to be aware of is that it is very easy to import the same bank or credit card feeds more than once, requiring time to delete the double transactions. Therefore it is very important to reconcile transactions on a regular basis.

Using Xero

2 - My business is a sole proprietorship and there are currently only two of us.
We will definitely continue to use and support Xero. It is constantly being improved and upgraded and gets better and better as time goes on. It seems very likely that Xero will be a major player in the small business accounting world for the foreseeable future. It's affordable pricing and ease of use make it an excellent choice for most small businesses and organizations.

Xero Support

Using Xero

Xero Reliability