All marketing efforts for users in the activation stage should be focused on removing any friction that may prevent the user from digging in and engaging with the product’s sticky features. For example, Emails 2, 3 and 4 acknowledge that the user hasn’t engaged with their free trial yet and directs users to their support site to get answers or help from the Xero team. If the user has engaged with the product, these emails do not send (we cross-checked these emails across two different users, one who engaged with the product, one who did not). Xero’s onboarding sequence is adaptive to how users are engaging with the product, using different triggers to ensure the email journey is reflective of what steps users have taken to get Xero setup with their business. Many businesses fall into the trap of obsessing over acquisition at the expense of activation. Businesses need to be constantly working to improve their activation rate, as the activation rate is a key determinant of what is the maximum you can afford to acquire new customers.
As an accountant, it is easy to fix user errors and mis-postings. There is a proper audit trail and safety checks built in. There are so many time-saving features like find and recode, repeating bills/invoices/journals, bank rules. The move toward AI is exciting too.
Since then, we have processed over $16,000. Repetitive support requests have gone unanswered even though they claim to respond within hours. It has been OVER A WEEK with no response and no money. I contacted XERO to say if who is in charge of their vendor relationships, but was told that I needed to contact Stripe directly. Xero at least had someone I could talk to on the phone, even though they were not able or willing to help. As for estimated taxes, I’ve yet to see a single decent accounting program which also gives you easy estimated tax tracking.
General use of the software is good. The company and technical support made me consider going back to Quickbooks online. Instead I switched to Freshbooks. Very knowledgeable and patient.
The detail, features and holistic approach to managing company finances means that we are using this every day and with pleasure. I think the biggest con of the software is the price tag. Many of my clients have found this to be a stumbling block, saying that the monthly subscription fee is too high for their business.
Phone is great when you need a lot of interaction to solve an issue. No more going thru bank statements at the end of the month. Then they will apper in the RH colmn to be matched against bank feeds. I think the reason you may not be able to reconcile with bank feeds using the OK button is that the invoices need to be move from drafts, which is where they sit while being worked on. You can then search by invoice by number, reference, customer, or $ amount.
Job Costing Features
Don’t forget to purchase only the features your business requires so you don’t waste money for features that you won’t be using. The Xero accounting software uses a single unified ledger, which allows users to work in the same set of books regardless of location or operating system. Easy to create invoices, match transactions between Xero and your bank, and simple to view your daily balance. Invoices look professional with logo and custom business information, and you can email invoices to clients directly from Xero. You can also use their payroll portal, but we don’t use that particular feature. Xero also connects with Stripe, our credit card processing company, and automatically handles the processing fees. We appreciated how easily it integrated with Stripe.
It is so easy to use but support has to come from Accountants who are not customer service or techies and who are not adequately compensated for their efforts. It is enjoyable to use and definitely does the basics very well.
There was no multi-currency in Quickbooks available. Bank feeds were also not there for some of the banks I wanted. For a similar price point Xero offered better features and a product that was easier to use for a non-accountant. Invoices, purchase orders etc are not sent out from your own email address but from messaging-service @post.xero.com. This looks unprofessional and spammy, I have had customers reply by copying and pasting that email address and it’s binned by Xero. You can’t format email text in any way either.
Suggested Software
There is no phone number to ring for user support. User support is just about non-existent. The Authentication app they recommended to download clashed with my company Authentication app and it took me 2 hrs to correct the corruption with the help of my company user support desk.
There’s a lot of noise online, making it harder for brands to reach consumers. And it’s not simply enough to have a good product, good ad campaigns or to create compelling content – you must be able to get noticed. Xero removed the pricing plan section, so the landing page no longer speaks to how much Xero will cost. While pricing is likely less of a consideration for enterprise customers, it’s certainly a constraint for small businesses, so I would be interested to know how this change has impacted performance. At the moment, it would appear from data in Semrush that the largest proportion of Xero’s paid search budget has been allocated to bidding on phrases containing competitors such as MYOB and Quickbooks. To support this strategy, Xero uses competitor landing pages coupled with ad copy that invites users to change to Xero.
This is reflective of the low penetration of cloud accounting software in this demographic. It’s time the mid-market accounting software companies woke up and realised it is 2018 – and that there is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity lying right in front of them. Not only that, Xerocon is the perfect time for partners and customers to chat directly to Xero’s developer and product teams.
Back in 2006, he felt that traditional desktop accounting software had become outdated and set out to create a cloud-based product. By considering these factors, you will easily be able to narrow down what types of accounting software features you’ll be needing. QuickBooks is one of the most popular entry-level accounting solutions on the market. It has become one of the most popular go-to solutions for companies moving from Excel spreadsheets to full-fledged accounting software. To sum it up, we highly recommend FreshBooks if you are looking for an excellent alternative to QuickBooks as it offers a similarly easy-to-use interface and comprehensive functionalities.
It looks like a simple accounting software for small businesses, exactly what it says in the headline. One thing that is clear from reading Xero’s financial reports is that they are big on recording and improving metrics. Though this shouldn’t be a surprise given the business started out as an accounting software, it’s something that we see a lot of companies neglect. Like many great businesses, Xero was founded when founder Rod Drury was having issues with his existing solution.
List Of Features
Your new review needs to make clear to your readers that Xero now lacks basic features and sometimes subjects users to massive price increases. On the old $70 plan users get to keep expenses but are now paying $159! and it only gets worse the bigger an organization you had in Xero. Reading the reviews on here, I can only conclude that the marketing department at Xero has been working overtime writing them. Our firm used this software for over 3 years, signing up clients on it all that time. And even when there are periods where the bank feed works for a sustained amount of time, the software consistently fails to pick up transactions that did occur in the bank account. There is no way you can figure this out except that bank balances do not reconcile, forcing someone to go back through months and months of transactions, reconciling to the paper bank statement.
I also liked how easy it was to invoice clients and connect invoices to Paypal or Stripe. Overall, it’s a decent program, with all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a cloud based accounting program. Unfortunately working without being able to reconcile monthly made life too difficult. And not many accountants work with it, so that made it difficult to have professional eyes on my accounting. 1099 reports are too limited. Tracking categories are too limited. Support can phone it in when you first reach out to them, but if you set up a time to chat with someone they are extremely helpful.
- Otherwise, no company would ever trust them to put its book in their hand.
- What is good about Xero are 1) Real-time bank feeds and bank reconciliation – this is what scared the pants off of Intuit and forced them to develop new functionality.
- We love Fattmerchant as a credit card processor for its predictable pricing, excellent service, and integrated billing features.
- From my own experience, I found that Xero is very user-friendly and its accounting interface is streamlined, almost seamless, and uncluttered.
- Overall I would absolutely recommend Xero for people who are more serious than working in spreadsheets but who are turning over £50k-£3m+ with a fairly simple process.
- As an accounting firm I would be very cautious with using Xero or recommending it to clients.
When I spoke with a representative, I was told “there should be no reason to create a JE to cash.” This is typically true, but there are times when I need to and it makes my life a lot easier. If I enter a date wrong on a bill that’s been paid, I can’t just edit it, I have to delete the bill payment and then the bill and redo it. I’ve had to find work arounds for things I do in one step in QuickBooks online. I’m transferring back to QuickBooks Online. In my own experience, customer service at Xero has become an iffier proposition than it was back in 2013, when I first reviewed the software. Obviously, personal experience means a limited sample size, so I’m always interested in hearing about end users’ experiences–and I take those experiences into account each time I update the review.
We wanted to create like client A1, A2, A3 in the contacts info so that we know who’s the one in-charge for each project. But our accountant told us that it would appear in the invoice as client A1, A2, and A3 in the invoice instead of just client A only. He said it would create confusion on the person in-charge for the payments since it’s not their usual company name. We contacted Xero about that and they said they will work on the feature and hopefully it will be added in the future. Where you can entire Client A with someone as the contact person and Client A with someone as the contact person. The last time I know you can really just create one contact entry for each client. Balance sheet leaves much to be desired – harder to figure out than the rest of the software and difficult to understand in conjunction with the profit and loss.
For two, cloud numbers that are described , are by dataset/ABN, whereas desktop accounting tech is rarely licenced by dataset/ABN, with one licence often covering multiple active businesses. All small and medium sized businesses and accounting and bookkeeping practices. The platform provides powerful tools that enable firms to manage streams of assignments, due dates, and budgets.
A beautiful piece of software that turns a once tedious chore, into an easy and intuitive process. I always recommend my clients to use Xero as I believe it makes the workflow much smoother and simpler for everyone involved. As a former quickbooks user of about 20 years, it was a big deal to switch platforms. At first glance it looked like it would do everything we wanted. I loved the price point, the interface and relative ease of use.
Any bookkeeping software requires some knowledge, training and experience in the theory and process of accounting. Xero is no exception, despite what may be claimed. Having said that, Xero is the least difficult to comprehend of the better softwares available. Xero has an interface that’s easy to read and to navigate. The setup process is well presented and the support is good in response to tickets and also in their excellent training programs.
Users can then pay super from within the application to all their staff as per the SuperStream requirements mandated by the Federal Government. MYOB has received “fantastic feedback” from AccountRight Premier customers, who number in the “tens of thousands”, Scollay said. “That group of customers are our largest and most sophisticated.
Illustrated above, connecting partners and customers within the network is where partnerships turn into fruition. Speakers – World-class speakers who are cloud-accounting experts sharing the latest knowledge. As stated on their event website, they bring speakers who share their inspiring world’s to both business and personal life. Education – Inspire and educate existing and potential prospects around the latest updates in accounting technology by world-class speakers. When it comes to conferences, it’s about giving customers and partners that feeling of being the centre of attention which then enhances growth levers for all parties. One purpose for running events comes down to customer psychology – Xero is making their audience work for them, without their customers and partners directly realising it.
Quickbooks ethics and support was enough to drive me crazy. When you would call QBO support 5 times, you will most likely get 5 different answers and they will usually contradict each other. QuickBooks introduced a special product for Etsy integration, but early adopters had problems with data disappearing and no way to recover it. Otherwise, the cost of QuickBooks to cover the same features I use in Xero would have been very expensive; even a QB consultant told me it’s overkill for a business of my size. I forget which other products I looked at, but Xero was recommended by several owners of similar businesses.
