We use Xero as our general ledger, expense and payroll platform. It produces invoices and is used as a management tool for executives to manage the financial position of the firm.
Pros
Reports
Invoices
Bank account reconciliation
Cons
The charging model is a bit complex and requires you to purchase too many add-ons
The platform needs an overhaul from a look and feel perspective - this hasnt been upgraded in years
Xero supports our business with payment reconciliation, company budgeting/forecasting, automatic generation of tax and superannuation obligations, HR & payroll and supplier payments.
It allows us to automate or speed up critical financial processes, as well as remain compliant with government and financial regulations.
Pros
Easy-to-use reconciliation feature
Clear tracking of employee leave and salary
Supplier payment documentation and processing
Budgeting and forecasting reports
Integrations with payment systems
Cons
Recent functionality changes have reduced efficiencies
Limited integrations with other key platforms
Likelihood to Recommend
Xero allows us to easily track and reconcile expenses, manage our supplier payments and manage our employee payroll. Xero also has great reporting features, particularly relating to business performance and forecasting, including Profit & Loss. It is easy-to-use and navigate with a functional menu and clearly identifiable features, whilst it also caters to multi-user accounts with varying level of access.
I use Xero daily for raising invoices, reconciling my bank accounts, and processing bill payments. When I first started out, each invoice had to be produced in Excel or Word and saved as .pdf to be sent to a client. Xero does all that much more professionally. On a regular basis, at least monthly, I also review the profit and loss statement to check on my financial position and compare it to the previous year.
Pros
The bank feed integration makes reconciling transactions easy
Once you load a template for your invoices, every client gets a professional looking invoice
Bill paying and tracking of payments is also easy; you load your bill into Xero, pay it through the bank, and when the transaction is completed it comes through on bank feeds. If you need to query when a bill was paid, it is all there in Xero
Cons
I use WooCommerce for my website; I'd love to have an integration where orders placed on my website are automatically generated an invoice in Xero.
Customer reviews build trust. It's one reason why you are asking me here for a review on Xero. But Xero's invoicing templates don't allow me to create a link to "leave a review on Google/Facebook" I need this upgrade
I keep getting increased fees to use Xero for functionality I don't want or need. How about letting us choose the functionality we want and we pay accordingly?
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
I've been using XERO for several years and am quite pleased with it's foundation and usage with my Voiceover company. Support is readily available and are sympathetic to any issues.
You'll love this. Plus its cost is right on!
Pros
Invoices for current clients
Easy to add new clients to it's database
Reconciliation with your bank is a great feature
Cons
I'd like to see more adaptive variations to make your invoices stand out with color schemes.
Still need s a tab for QUOTES, which you have to look for in order to utilize it.
Our US team uses Xero for expense reporting. This is an alternative to submitting expenses using an Excel spreadsheet or a more fully functioned option such as Expensify
Pros
Upload images of receipts directly into app
Phone app integrates well with web
Cons
No ability to assign approvers (making it difficult to get expenses approved when the approver is away)
No ability to submit expenses for approval before incurring
No integration with any other apps, including credit cards
Likelihood to Recommend
Xero is suited only for a small organisation that doesn't need an pre-approval capability. Not suitable for a mid-size or larger company.
I am using Xero in my organization for all the accounting matters. We are doing taxes, profit & loss, Balance sheet and journaling using Xero. We are also using Xero to reconciliate all of our credit card with any receipts we have. Xero is not an expensive product, yet it's complete and helping us in the day to day operation of our organization.
Pros
Invoicing
Manage credit cards
Creates financial information (P&L, Journal report, etc)
Cons
Integration with Chargify
Invoice number not following
Modification of reconciliating a line with multiple items
Likelihood to Recommend
Xero is a great accounting software for organization that are looking for a simple tool, not so expensive, that can do great things. I don't think it would fit bigger organization with complex accounting problem to solve, but it is prefect for smaller or medium organization. I would definitely recommend.
VU
Verified User
Employee in Finance and Accounting (11-50 employees)
In my current organisation, we work together with an outsourced accounting service provider to fulfill financial accounting, financial reporting, budgeting, forecasting as well as tax compliance functions.
Xero is used by both my organisation (in more of a review and analysis capacity) and the accounting service provider (in more of a processing and reporting capacity).
Xero is the first cloud-based accounting software I've used, so the flexibility and mobility this model provided is a step up from the previous desktop or server-based accounting software and ERPs that I've used.
It is also relatively straightforward to use and the controls and user interface are less intimidating than the ones I've used in previous organisations.
As many of the accounting and accounting-adjacent tasks (e.g. claims submission and processing) are done over apps and other cloud-based software, Xero's wide range of APIs and collaborations with other vendors in the region helps us to build our tech stack with less worries about compatibility.
One clear example was the integration between Xero and our current reporting/consolidation software (Calxa). To move both accounting and reporting data from legacy systems (desktop accounting software + Excel) to both of them was a game changer.
Pros
Intuitive user interface
Simple one step processes (e.g. approving invoices for issue)
Real-time, anytime synchronisation with reporting software
Customisable fields to help focus review on key details
Simple interface to generate and customise required reports
Cons
Consolidation function not very developed
Likelihood to Recommend
In my opinion Xero is well suited for:
1) Standalone organisations,
2) Organisations where the accounting team bench strength is thin,
3) Organisations which are able to leverage on new technologies and apps
4) Organisations which get most of their tech infrastructure within the APAC region
Xero may not be as suitable for:
1) Organisations with group structures (especially complex ones)
2) Organisations which are constrained in their use of startup technologies and apps by startups
3) Organisations which get most of their tech infrastructure from the US or EU
VU
Verified User
Manager in Finance and Accounting (1-10 employees)
I use Xero to do the accounting for my small business and pay my 30 employees. I issue many invoices each week for therapy sessions.
Pros
Xero imports data from my bank accounts to make it easier to reconcile invoices and payments
Xero stores all of my employee data and allows me to do pay runs
Xero's profit and loss reporting is good.
Cons
In the age of AI, Xero need to be better at matching payments to invoices.
I compare results between last year and this year frequently, but Xero defaults back to monthly or period compaisons
Xero has had a major increase in fees, I think they probably think that it's too hard for me to change to another accounting system so they can increase fees and I will pay rather than leave :-(
Likelihood to Recommend
I like Xero. It's a very good cloud based accounting system that let's me run my business from anywhere and do payroll effectively for my 30 employees. However, the recent large increases in the cost of Xero and the lack of AI oriented payment reconciliation processing makes me wish I have choses a less expensive accounting package.
We use Xero as our accounting software. We love how it brings in lines from the bank accounts and can be easily reconcilled either on a computer or from the Xero mobile phone app. We use it to bill our customers. One issue we have is that you don't seem to be able to have different email addresses for a customer for different functions (i.e. send purchase orders to a particular address but remittance advices to another or invoices to one and statements to another). It integrates well with other apps, and we also have our own in-house software that we have been able to write code to sync to Xero. Our accountant uses Xero too so they update our annual returns right in Xero which means that what we see are the actual results for the year (once finalised). Our previous accountant didn't do this in Xero which resulted in the Xero files being inaccurate (depreciation etc) and having to have an additional hard or soft copy. It is great to get an accurate picture of where the business is now that we have an accountant who uses the same system.
Pros
Reconciliation
Tracking which users have done different things
Letting you know when a bank account is changed
Cons
Having different email addresses for different parts of a customer's business (eg invoices and statements to different places)
Easily seeing the text of emails that have been sent through Xero
More easily archiving old pay items. Our HR software updates rates when awards are updated which means a lot of old pay rates are in the system and they have multiple clicks to archive each one. Clicking the ones to archive in bulk and then just click archive for all would be much more efficient.
Likelihood to Recommend
We changed to Xero about 10 years ago and it remains a great product that they continue to develop. I haven't heard of any other product that has better features.
