Item: Xero
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Xero is used across our whole business for invoicing, credit control, and budget management. It is very intuitive to use, quick to train people in, and produces management reports at the click of a button.

Pros and Cons

Invoicing - quickly code things to the correct accounts code, but also has the ability to recode later (we have a double check system and occasionally have to edit invoices that have been incorrectly coded. Xero makes this very easy).
Budget management - the budget variance view lets you see at a glance how performance compares against forecasts, which is invaluable for managers.
VAT Return - the submission through Xero will take into account changes following the return, to be added to the next one.

I would love to see a proper cashflow feature - using the due dates of invoices, and likely payment dates from customers.

Return on Investment

It has demonstrably saved us money and time over the past 5 years.
Tracking performance of different business areas has helped us to recognise trends and base strategic plans on a solid foundation of knowledge.

Alternatives Considered

Sage

Xero is much more flexible and user-friendly than Sage, it requires almost no training or specialist understanding to use as a standard user.

Other Software Used

Basecamp, Trello, Deltek TrafficLIVE

Likelihood to Recommend

For a small business, Xero is perfect. It has literally halved the amount of time we are spending internally on bookkeeping, and it has halved the amount of time our accountants need to spend at year end to get everything in order.

Users and Roles

6 - Xero is easily accessible for all of our senior management team to look at management reporting at a glance. It's used on a daily basis by project managers to check in on project billing and payments, and our accounts team to manage accounts payable and receivable.

Support Headcount Required

Our Office Manager occasionally provides Xero support but in general the system is so intuitive that not much is needed by way of support.

Business Processes Supported

Invoicing - and the fact that invoices can be easily edited after sending e.g. to add a PO number, change the reference name at the client organisation, or even change the VAT treatment if there has been an error.
Reporting month-to-month and longer term trends
At a glance views of financial performance and balances - allowing even the inexperienced user or time-poor senior management to get a good grasp of the big picture.

Innovative Uses

When we changed the way that we code income on services, we were able to go back and recode previous months to get up-to-date records for the entire year which was extremely helpful.

Future Planned Uses

Creating more detailed reports on income and customer profiles

Likelihood to Renew

10

It is very intuitive and easy to use so minimal training time is needed, and this means that if key staff are off for any reason, the invoices can still go out which is very important to us a as a small business.

Visibility of key issues is very clear so management can login and see things for themselves, rather than having to ask staff for reports. It's great that multiple people across the business can login and see an up to date picture of the finances.

Products Replaced

Yes - We had been manually recording transactions in spreadsheets and creating invoices from an Excel template. As the company grew it became necessary to have a more sophisticated system in place, particularly to record the performance of different business areas and to facilitate reporting by client and cost centre. It goes without saying that this also massively improved the accuracy of data, reducing the number of mistakes caused by human error, and saved us accountancy fees in the long run.

Key Differentiators

Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
Third-party Reviews

Our accountants had recommended Xero to us and after attending a demonstration, I could see that it was easy to use. The low cost made it an easy decision for management to take, along with the fact it is user friendly and cloud-based, meaning none of the expense related to systems such as Sage and associated training.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I believe there are now more other solutions on the market similar to Xero, and I'm sure that they have their benefits and problems compared to this. If we were looking now, I would be more interested in how the system integrates with other software solutions already in use for example project management software, CRM systems etc - I believe Xero is still a good contender in these areas though.

Usability

9

It's very easy to use and the display is clean and clear

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Familiar	None

Easy Tasks

Invoicing is very easy, as is processing of purchase invoices, whether they are net or gross amounts.
Reporting is great - from the menu dropdown I can see at a glance budget variance reports, profit and loss, etc.
The clickable links through to the breakdowns are intuitive and easy to navigate.
Creating PDFs of reports to share is easy, and things can be exported into spreadsheet for further analysis at the click of a button, it's really reduced a lot of legwork in preparing reports

Difficult Tasks

Cashflow viewing is the one area I feel lets down Xero - it should be possible to create a realistic picture using outstanding invoices and customer previous payment times, but this is still something we have to do manually.
It would be great if Xero integrated with project software so that we could set up the invoices for different billing phases at the start of a project

Xero - saves you time and money on day to day accounting.

Overall Satisfaction with Xero