Xero is what I use for my own company's bookkeeping
Updated January 08, 2018
Xero is what I use for my own company's bookkeeping
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Overall Satisfaction with Xero
We use Xero in our own organization, having switched away from QuickBooks, since it allowed better automation of daily bookkeeping tasks, and is user friendly by our office manager and billing assistant, neither of whom were trained as bookkeepers. We recommend Xero to most of our clients for the same reasons: user friendly, automated and, best of all, scaleable for the growing business through the many add ons.
- "Rules" for income, expenses, and transfers speeds up data entry
- No cost-per-user access fee means all the partners/board can see the reports without having to pay extra
- Simple, elegant user interface
- time saving shortcuts that make checking the books & reporting easier
- Job costing using 'billable' items and the ability to see whether an expense or time entry has been billed to a client. They have added Project codes recently, so this may be coming
- Manual reconciliation or better way to track down transactions that have been changed since reconciliation
- Sales by item reports (without requiring items to be tracked for inventory)
- System to track changes/sync errors with add on software
- Better collaboration with clients, allowing more off-site work (increasing productivity since no time lost to travel)
- Easy delegation within my firm through user management, allowing better customer service and support
- Automation of data entry tasks lets us focus on being trusted advisors and second set of eyes, allowing us to bill at a higher rate
QuickBooks for Mac is not a viable product. PC desktop makes off-site work difficult (and hosted environments are clunky and slow). QuickBooks Online is improving, but all recent innovations seem directly in response to, and taking a lead from Xero base product. Overall, Xero is a fresher more responsive company with a great product.
Xero Feature Ratings
Using Xero
10 - Office manager & her assistant, as well as all our client bookkeepers, use Xero. Most of our staff is Xero certified.
We provide full charge bookkeeping services as well as business consulting and coaching. Xero dashboards make it easy to talk with clients about the state of their books and what is on the horizon for them financially.
We provide full charge bookkeeping services as well as business consulting and coaching. Xero dashboards make it easy to talk with clients about the state of their books and what is on the horizon for them financially.
6 - Our full-charge bookkeepers perform both basic entry tasks (which have been significantly automated) as well as reconciliation and reporting. Our management staff train clients on using Xero and understanding what the reports mean. Most client Xero questions are pretty basic and easy to answer, but folks prefer to come to us for guidance over emailing the free Xero support.
- Confirming books are clean and up to date every day
- Cash forecasting and budgeting
- Managing A/R and using the automated reminders function and integrated payment link
Using Xero
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Bank reconciliations are fairly automatic, and don't need to be done in a separate module once transactions from the bank are entered
- Dashboard gives you all information at a glance
- Customized watch list lets you track accounts you really care about on the dashboard
- If a previously reconciled transaction is changed, it is really hard to track it down or figure out why the bank statement won't match Xero
- No good add-on or module to track billable time and expenses
Yes - really well! Full site available and useful from my iPad Mini