Xero - Great if you're small. Not so good if you're medium to large.
August 15, 2024
Xero - Great if you're small. Not so good if you're medium to large.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Xero
Xero is our primary accounting system in which we utilize the accounts receivable capability, bank account reconciliation capability, and general ledger from which we produce financial statements. No specific business problems are addressed or solved by Xero that aren't addressed in similar products. My use is as an administrator as I am the Contoller for my organization. I use the reconciliation, accounts receivable and general ledger capabilities with great regularity.
Pros
- Old invoicing provided the ability to fully document the invoice cycle by allowing for easy attachment of support documentation to the invoice for payment processing. The last time I tried New Invoicing, this capability had been removed.
- Xero is very easy to navigate.
- Adding to the chart of accounts, adding customers and vendors, and creating new transactions is quite easy.
Cons
- A major flaw in Xero is the limiting of available AR invoices to process payments against to 200. My company, as I'm sure many others, maintain outstanding AR invoices in excess of 200. When payments come in against the invoices, because of this limitation, multiple cash receipt entries must be made to clear the invoices from the payments received. Most all AR systems allow for the choosing of all outstanding invoices when doing cash receipts processing allowing for one cash receipts transaction to process a day's cash receipts. Xero has been made aware of this basic functionality that their system lacks and, I feel, their response has been that this is not something they consider a priority to address.
- Xero lacks the capability to allow users to create custom reports. Xero does allow for the modification of existing reports, but doesn't allow for the creation of unique reports that would be specific to my business. The addition of a custom report writer would be a welcomed addition.
- In my opinion, Xero has an aggravating habit of rolling out changes to their software without warning and it appears that they systematically use their customers / users as beta testers for their "improvements". Case in point was the roll-out of "New Invoicing". In my opinion, it was obvious that this had not been tested and was rolled out and Xero encouraged us users to convert to it. When I did, in my experience, the lack of capability that old invoicing had made it impossible to complete basic AR accounting tasks within a reasonable amount of time. New invoicing, as it was originally introduced, in my opinion, made AR processing very confusing and time consuming.
- Xero is a basic accounting system that performs basic accounting tasks easily and accurately. For that, it provides a positive impact on our day to day accounting operations.
- Because of Xero's basic structure, I feel it lacks some of the sophistication that some users want and need. The ability to create unique custom reports would enhance the impact Xero would have on meeting business objectives by providing current and useful accounting information.
- In my opinion, Xero's lack of focus on their customers - their users - is a real issue with me. In my opinion, those of us that are in the trenches that work with the system on a daily basis have to deal with the shortcomings of the system with the knowledge that Xero support refuses to address the operational issues that make their user's lives difficult. I feel if Xero would focus on truly making their software better from a users point of view, it has the potential to be a great system.
In our organization we have no remote users, however when a user is away from the office and needs to take care of a task remotely, the remote access is a plus. Having Xero in the cloud does save our company money by not having to have and maintain the computer equipment necessary to maintain an in-house accounting system.
Xero lacks the AR invoice payment processing capability of all the titles listed above. I view Xero as an application for Mom and Pop grocery stores where sophisticated, business critical software isn't a requirement. As a small manufacturing business, in my opinion, the lack of product costing capability in Xero is a real hinderance, a capability that both Sage 50 and SAB B1 have. Quick Books Pro and Xero are very similar, however I feel that Quick Books has a more sophisticated, professional feel to it. Quick Books reporting offers greater flexibility than Xero. I did not choose Xero. The decision to use Xero was made before I was hired. Had I had input, I wouldn't have chosen Xero.
Do you think Xero delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Xero's feature set?
No
Did Xero live up to sales and marketing promises?
I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process
Did implementation of Xero go as expected?
I wasn't involved with the implementation phase
Would you buy Xero again?
No
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