Item: Xero
Rating: 10
Author: Dan Schmidt, CPA

Overall Satisfaction with Xero

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

EBCFO uses Xero primarily as the basis for our CFO outsourcing practice to entrepreneurs and small business owners (we also use it for our internal accounting). While we do utilize other accounting platforms, Xero is what is deployed to 85% of our client base. It addresses the need for high-quality GL accounting with the ability to bolt-on additional platforms to create a comprehensive finance and accounting solution. We also make extensive use of the add-on ecosystem, and if a platform does not currently integrate, we have the ability to code that ourselves also.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Open API.
Consistent features and functionality improvement (on average every 3-4 weeks).
Strategically, seeing the value of accounting as a business intelligence tool, not a compliance-only product.
Great UI - strong appeal to the tech and startup community, and also allows non-tech users to quickly grasp concepts and utilize the platform correctly.

Cons

Partner program reps have not always been friendly and responsive (my current one is amazing).
Search function in the Help section does not consistently return appropriate results.
Lacking functionality of running balances for each account (expenses also, not just bank accounts). This would significantly improve an accountants ability to find and correct errors.

Return on Investment

Increased efficiencies for employees
Better customer service due to the cloud model
Core platform for our finance and accounting systems
Scalability

Alternatives Considered

QBO - UI/UX and integrations are far superior. The only area where QBO is currently ahead is job costing

Freshbooks - we recommend for some pre-revenue and solopreneur clients only. Xero provides a full-featured solution

Wave - we recommend for some pre-revenue and solopreneur clients only. Xero provides a full-featured solution

Intacct - great functionality but cost-prohibitive. We recommend this service when clients are hitting the limits of the Xero database and ecosystem, or in certain cases where additional tracking and granularity may be required, such as non-profits with significant grant reporting requirements.

Xero Rating for Public Practice CPAs

There are two primary reasons for the 10 rating - UI (including platform stability) and the open API/add-on ecosystem. This allows a CPA to provide value-add services beyond traditional bookkeeping, and to truly fill the coveted "trusted advisor" status.

Percentage of clients doing full Business Process Outsourcing

76% to 99% of clients

Likelihood to Recommend

The areas I do not currently recommend Xero is to companies with a billable hour revenue model or who require job costing functionality. The core Xero module does not support either of these, and the add-on ecosystem is still lacking a strong partner with great integration. Fixes needed to correct this would be to add the ability to tag purchases as billable (with a % markup) and to pull hours worked through the API from time tracking partners and pre-populate an invoice based on this.

The tracking categories, when deployed properly, add more value than any other functionality or system we have tested.

Xero Feature Ratings

Using Xero

Users and Roles

Client Service, Bookkeeping, Accounting, Financial Analysis, Payroll, CFO Outsourcing

Xero Reliability

Performance

In 3 years of use, I've only broken the system once. And that was for 30 seconds.

Comments

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There Are Xero Reasons Not To Use This Platform

Software Version

Modules Used