Item: Xero
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Xero is an excellent tool to ensure all accounts payable and receivables are current. Additionally the financial statements help to determine the position of my business. The latter is a powerful tool that assists with decision making and identified areas I should focus attention on. As an example, the profit and loss report can reveal areas where costs are higher than expected.

Pros and Cons

Profit and loss
Payroll
Invoicing

Allow pricing tiers for invoicing e.g. retail, wholesale, etc
Reporting could be improved
Search functionality could be improved

Return on Investment

Cafeful attention to the P&L has resulted in improved margins across all my skus thanks to Xero
Input errors into xero by bookkeepers has caused incorrect payments which took time and money to resolve
Payroll administration has significantly reduced as xero makes this process easy

Usability

I believe there is a reasonable barrier to entry for a new user without previous accounting experience. This can mean a task like adding a bill can result in inaccurate reporting so inexperienced users must be supervised carefully. On the contrary, xero does a sufficient job of recording all activity and which user selected the action so it's simple to work out what happened

Cloud Costs

I unfortunately don't have significant experience with this feature but after reading the question am interested to learn more and see if this feature would provide benefit to my small business.

Ease of Integration

I've integrated xero with a number of applications including WooCommerce and Shopify and have always found the process to be straight forward and simple. Additionally there is usually helpful information on the support pages that provide a step by step guide to the implementation. For this reason, I can't see any significant ways the process could be improved.

Alternatives Considered

MYOB PayGlobal

I've previously used MYOB and think it's reasonable to say that MYOB has functional advantages and more power compared to Xero but prefer to use Xero based on the simplicity of use and how the user interface is a bit more user friendly. In a small business with lower accounting needs I find it to be a more successful option.

Key Insights

Do you think Xero delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Xero's feature set?

Yes

Did Xero live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Xero go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Xero again?

Yes

Other Software Used

WooCommerce, Shopify, Slack

Likelihood to Recommend

Xero is excellent for a small business. In my experience, it's a great tool to allow a small number of users to see what accounting tasks need attention. As an example, if two users are responsible for paying bills the user can very quickly see if the other user has paid a specific bill. I don't have sufficient experience with a larger corporation but assume the lack of a pricing tier based on customer is a significant disadvantage of the software as is the difficulty with inventory management.

Learn about your business with Xero

Overall Satisfaction with Xero