AccountEdge vs. Xero

If you are handling a large client list, and are selling services, it is dead easy. If you are managing/selling a physical inventory, it seems like it has great options to do that quite well (disclaimer, I do not use those functions, but I have paid attention as that functionality was built into the software). If you want to link your bank account to a bookkeeping platform, this is not the software for you (at least so far).

Incentivized

I am a massage and physical therapist. We are not a fancy business but business admin can take a lot of time and effort. Xero came recommended to me by colleagues in the sector. You raise invoices, you get paid. and you pay your bills. These are all daily scenarios for most businesses and Xero does this particularly well. Since my accountant can query my records directly, this greatly saves on bookkeeping time when it is time to do the company returns.

Incentivized

• Complete Macintosh accounting software solution
• Robust inventory with price levels, quantity price breaks, and item assemblies
• Robust Job costing including progress billing, budgets, and profitability
• Mobile and web apps to add transactions from anywhere to sync back to your company file
• Integrated payroll
• Retainers and escrow accounts
• Three levels of transactions categorization-jobs, categories, and departments
• Multi-currency
• Network capable for multiple simultaneous users
• Ability to see profitability on an individual invoice
• Company file can be transferred back and forth between Mac and Windows with NO conversion needed.
• Can import text files of practically any kind of transaction

• Repeating invoices (most of my business is monthly recurring invoices) - it does these very well.
• Reporting - particularly being able to dig into the different lines of the P&L statement.
• Tracking categories - I assign a category to every line of every invoice so it's easy to see how much has been sold of each type of service every month and year, and compare them to previous periods.

Incentivized

• Probably our biggest beef is the sales pitch a while back to incorporate their POS system Checkout that was supposed to integrate hand in glove with AccountEdge (it never really did.) Now the company has abandoned the POS program (even the website is now a 404 error page). Checkout is glitchy, and rather than improving it, they just dropped it and left users like us who bought into it unsupported. That doesn't reflect well on the company's customer service in our view. We've been AccountEdge users from back when it was MYOB, but our confidence in their future dependability has been strongly impacted by this move, and if something else came along, our hard-earned loyalty might not be as firm as it has been in the past.
• Some tasks in AccountEdge take a long time to complete (go get a coffee while the spinning beachball turns).
• Don't know the feasibility, but it would be nice to have access to older transactions, maybe even in some kind of read-only format.

Incentivized

• Multiple addresses for singular contacts.
• Limit unit price decimals to 2 digits, currently shows 3 or more after the decimal on invoices.
• Discounted rates for multiple entities within the same group e.g. if you have a group of 3 or more companies looking to move to Xero, incentivize those clients with discounted monthly rates.
• Easier way to reconcile loan accounts across multiple entities.

Without a doubt, when you need to do accounting use the program that will get the job done in the least amount of time with the least amount of errors. Once you are using a program that works you stay with it year after year and you will find yourself even excited about the updates

Incentivized

In addition to the matters covered in this review, my reason for renewing this product is that Xero's functionality and the constant updates that the company provides, makes the software even more business friendly. The software therefore builds a brand loyalty among customers.

The intuitive interface does all the tasks we need our accounting software to do. Some tasks are slower to process than I would like but overall very usable. Customizable forms let us choose to either go with the easy ready-made out-of-the-box options or retool them to better fit our specific needs.

Incentivized

As a standalone software, it allows users to fulfill most of the basic functions (e.g. transaction input and report generation) simply and conveniently. It also allows for multiple APIs to help augment various tasks that accounting-adjacent (e.g. claims processing). The cloud based model and portability to mobile devices allows tasks to be carried out in a more convenient way.

One of the finer advantages of desktop software, it's always available. AccountEdge doesn't suffer from outages or sluggish internet like web based applications do. It's always there when you power on your device!

Incentivized

We have been actively using and 100% Xero based for our ecommerce accounting practice for over 4 years. There has on been one real outage for more than 5 minutes. Xero was open and transparent about the outage, what they were doing to resolve the issue, and provided 15 minute updates. Showing how they care about their customers and partners. Plus, showing that their customers care too, were understanding, and went surfing or in our case took a nap. Couldn't run our business without Xero as a partner.

The product is pretty stable in performance. However, sometimes the links to bank feeds are not available which can be frustrating if you need to update the application for important transactions. I currently have to manually upload credit card transactions so that is not ideal and makes for manual errors or duplication.

Incentivized

On the few occasions we have needed tech support over the years, they were responsive and worked to get to the root of the issues. However, even though Checkout POS is a separate application, it was pitched to us as a natural extension of the functionality of our AE software that would integrate seamlessly. The company's support for Checkout has been minimal at best, and now totally abandoned. That colors our view of Priority's support unfortunately. And to be honest, that's why it's a 9 instead of a 10. So to be fair, AccountEdge's support itself has been very good over the years.

Incentivized

Always respond and keep issues open until you are satisfied with the result. Generally good responses, in the past, I had some support responses that were really basic and really annoying. They type where "have your tried restarting your computer" style of answers. Well, of course, I went through all the basics before contacting them. Duh, but I suppose not everyone does. Otherwise, it would be a 10. The last year has shown a marked improvement in the support responses however.

The format was great; someone was there to ask questions or help if you were stuck.

Incentivized

All of Xero's training is online and available for anyone (business owner or accountants) to learn and become experts in their system. There is a range of content from product training to real world webinars from their partners. Xero is beautiful accounting software and their training is the same.

unfortunately no.

Incentivized

If it can be done, time the implementation near a new fiscal year so you can start clean. Otherwise, you have to go back and do historical data from the beginning of the fiscal year, which can be brain draining.

Incentivized

My hands down preference is to keep my accounting off of the cloud but that is not always the case with my clients. So, to make this comparison somewhat fair I will consider only the items containing parity in cloud vs desktop. AccountEdge vs Xero. AccountEdge has superior interface and key response because an internet connection is generally not as responsive as localized software. Period. I also feel that AccountEdge is far more robust in features as well as how my data is presented (visually). I require uniform naming/wording conventions so I can better assimilate data. While this is possible in Xero, it's not as easy to accomplish because of screen response and keyboard workflow. Mouse oriented vs. keyboard oriented. AccountEdge vs QuickBooks for Mac. Succinctly put: cross-platform. AccountEdge data files do not require "saving as" Windows copies or any other such nonsense conversion. They just work equally well on either platform. So for users whose platforms do not match their accountant's, there is simply no issue. Additionally, Acclivity will give a user's accountant a copy of the software for free.

Incentivized

MYOB has always seemed well behind in the functionality. We recently discontinued our DEAR subscription due to astronomical increase in subscription fees. While Xero doesn't do as much in terms of inventory management we can manage without that function for the lower price.

Incentivized

I have yet to fully stress test the product given the size of the company where I am using it. I am sure as we scale to more customers, more vendors and more reporting requirements, I will have a better understanding of what it is capable of in terms of bandwidth and processing

Incentivized

• If I didn't have AccountEdge, I would have to make do with Excel spreadsheets, or go back to paper, as I did before 1995, and I wouldn't be able to access client information as easily as I can here.
• It allows me to manage cash easily, so if clients are slow-paying, I can borrow funds to meet expenses, without incurring overdraft fees, until they come through.

Incentivized

• 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.