Overall Satisfaction with Xero
We use it as our sole accounting application for our business. Our accountant utilizes it to prepare our year end as well. We use it to track all revenue and expenses, and reconcile it against our bank statements. We use the reports it can generate to give us insight into our profitability and margins.
- Reconcilliation via automated feeds to our different online banking systems (chequing account, credit card, paypal) is a breeze and has lots of time saving features.
- User Interface is very slick and makes data entry speedy.
- Reporting is very strong and segmentation by Service Line, Product Item Code, etc., is useful for analyzing different parts of the business.
- From time to time (once or twice a year) the feeds that serve bank data to Xero break. Fortunately you just have to wait for Xero to remedy them.
- Payments that come through via the Invoicing feature do not automatically reconcile - I think it would be useful if a client paid an invoice via credit card/Paypal to have the payment automatically reconciled to the outstanding invoice.
- Using the Service Line feature has given me better insight into the P/L of our multiple locations.
- The Reconciliation feature has helped us ensure accuracy when it comes to our financial reporting.
We switched off of FreshBooks to Xero. It is somewhat apples to oranges, in that FreshBooks is not a general ledger nor does it claim to be (at least at the time 2 years ago). Our business grew though and having a general ledger with reconcillation features like Xero was important to ensure accuracy in our financial reporting, filing our taxes accurately, and increasing visibility into the p/l of our business.
Xero Feature Ratings
Using Xero
4 - Administrative Assistant, Service Delivery Staff (For invoicing clients)
1 - As the owner of a small business, I am pretty capable at day to day support of my staff in their use of Xero.
- General Ledger (Revenue/Expenses)
- Invoicing and Payment Collection
- System of Record for Client Revenue
- Service Line feature is pretty effective at being able to do profitability/margin analysis of different locations at our business.
- I need to invest more time in the reporting tool to pull out useful business intelligence. We are underutilizing this area.
Evaluating Xero and Competitors
Yes - FreshBooks. When we hired a new accounting firm, they encouraged us to move to Xero for it's general ledger and reconcilliation features.
- Product Features
- Product Usability
I chose an accounting firm that is a Xero firm, so that was the primary decision criteria.
No change.
Xero Implementation
- Professional services company
Fuel Accounting Corporation
Yes - Basically, ledger setup, importing of previous financial data/balances, reconcilliation of fiscal year data to date, and then end-user support to ramp me up.
Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled - Business processes end up having to bend/change slightly when implementing a new system, therefore being flexible to get feedback from end users so then modifications to process workflow can be made and standardized is important. Sometimes these required changes are not apparent until after the system launches.
- Bank integration feeds didn't always work early on
Xero Support
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
No - It doesn't really require it. The system is straightforward.
Yes - Years ago there was a time where there were broken feeds to our bank vendors, but Xero was aware of the matter and it was resolved on their end. I didn't have to escalate, just had to wait.
Not really, because I haven't had to use their support!
Using Xero
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using | None |
- Reconcilliation is very easy
- Reporting is intuitive
- Data entry forms load fast and are slick
- Editing old records requires you to "edit" and open up the editing screen. More in-line/in-screen editing features would be nice.
Yes, but I don't use it