Item: Xero
Rating: 10
Author: Jeremy Grant

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Xero is used across our organization. Aside from the standard accounting functionality that it offers, we use it extensively for quotes. The simple, intuitive nature of the user interface allows for a range of user skills, whilst at the same time providing an efficient tool for our business. Its integration with Insightly CRM allows our sales team to easily stay on top of their clients' account status as well. All employees make use of the Expense Claims module, allowing them all to track claims from time of entry through to payment.

Pros and Cons

Xero does the accounting and bookkeeping basics very well, and it also caters for the more experienced users to report comprehensively on the current status of their business.
Xero is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), therefore we don't worry about backups. Our friends at Xero do that for us. It's also available 99.99% of the time.
Xero is accessible on any machine. We don't need to manage databases, VPNs etc. It's all done for us, securely!

Reporting on the Quotes modules. It is very difficult to manage large volumes of quotes.
Access levels could be more granular. Certain areas of the package allow for great flexibility, however there are times when you do need to restrict certain functionality. This is not a deal breaker however!

Return on Investment

From a direct ROI w.r.t. Xero and other SaaS systems that we needed to implement in order to totally replace our previous accounting system, we realized immediate savings, so the returns were immediate.
At a ballpark guesstimate, it was an immediate 25% saving.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Online, Sage CRM and Sage 500 ERP

Xero was chosen due to its simplicity and cost. The decision was as simple as that. There are no hidden costs.

Other Software Used

DEAR Inventory, Insightly, MS SharePoint, Microsoft Power BI, WorkflowMax

Likelihood to Recommend

Xero is very well suited to the small-medium sized business. I am comfortable saying this as this is where our business is positioned. I cannot comment on its suitability to larger businesses with many users. From the ease-of-setup, to designing and generating more complex reports, there is not much that is not relatively straightforward to do. Add to this the wealth of knowledge available online, we're very self sufficient with Xero, as opposed to our older system, which required constant interventions by our consultant and days of waiting for any modifications required. With Xero, the system update responsibility is taken out of our hands. More reason to switch to a SaaS product.

XERO issues, XERO hassles, EZ use!

Overall Satisfaction with Xero