The platform’s reporting suite is among the most powerful we encountered while reviewing accounting software. On top of that, we were disappointed that Xero’s expense-tracking tools are only available with its costliest pricing package. This is the exact opposite of QuickBooks, which makes these tools available to all customers.
- QuickBooks lets you see all of your customers and what they owe you.
- To compare QuickBooks vs. Xero accounting, we consulted product documentation and user reviews.
- This pared-down menu makes it easy for new users to find their way around the application without too much trouble.
The Online plans start at $30 per month, whereas the Desktop plans must be paid annually and start at $492 per year. The best choice depends on your needs — go through your existing business software and financial tools and see which platform they’ll integrate with. Also, consider whether you want to add other services, like payroll or inventory management, that are available through integrations. ZipBooks gives you unlimited invoicing and customers right from the start, with fully customizable invoices, colors, and logo upload. Save common line items for use on future invoices, send reminders to keep on top of outstanding balances, and let your customers pay right from their invoices in a snap.
Intuit also offers QuickBooks Desktop versions for companies that require it, but in this guide, we will compare the Online version. Whether Xero or QuickBooks Online is right for you depends on the specific features you need and how much you can afford to pay. Xero is more affordable than QuickBooks Online, allows you to add an unlimited number of users without additional costs, and offers inventory management and fixed asset accounting in all its plans. QuickBooks, on the other hand, has generally more developed features, such as bank reconciliation without bank feeds, makes it easy to find bookkeeping support, and has live customer support. To compare QuickBooks vs. Xero accounting, we consulted product documentation and user reviews.
Xero Pricing
Both Xero and QBO allow you to save frequently invoiced line items along with their prices and descriptions, to save you time. Both let you set up email reminders to prompt customers to pay their invoices on time (or to just pay, period, as the case may be!). Both offer customer statements that include transactions, payment history, and outstanding balances, though the QBO edition includes an aging table. Unloop is the first and only accounting firm exclusively servicing ecommerce and inventory businesses in the US and Canada. With the power of people and technology, our team dives deep into COGS and inventory accounting.
Accountant opinions
Some businesses need to track the time spent on a particular job or project. This is important if you need to create invoices based on hours worked. If your business works with an accountant, you’ll want to loop them into your online accounting software account. If you’re just starting out, both tools also allow you to import historical transactions. Overall, QuickBooks and Xero are relatively equal in terms of transaction and expense tracking unless tagging your transactions is an important feature to you.
Best Small Business Accounting Software in 2024
Last, but definitely not least, we’ll take a quick look at what actual members are saying. Customer reviews are a great way to see exactly what features are really impressive, as well as what needs work. In our research, we’ve gathered ratings and reviews from TrustRadius (TR) to give you an idea of how these two compare. Both applications are easy to use, and users can easily see results from the dashboard. There is easy integration with other QuickBooks applications such as QuickBooks Payments and QuickBooks Payroll. Plus, QuickBooks Online offers add-ons such as Mavenlink, Shoeboxed, Jobber, Bill.com, Time Tracking by TSheets, and Method CRM.
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Xero uses AI and machine learning, including HubDoc, to automate workflows, available in all of its pricing plans. Both Xero and QuickBooks Online can be used and synced with online payments processing transactions from different online payment processors. SaaS and other subscription-based businesses have their own financial challenges, like managing recurring billing and revenue recognition. The cheapest combo, QuickBooks Simple Start + Payroll Core, is $75 per month plus $5 per person. The monthly subscription price is a bit higher than Xero’s Gusto integration, but the price per user is lower, and it also has a few extra features like local tax filing.
You are paired with a dedicated bookkeeping team that prepares accurate financial statements, financial forecasts, and can also pay bills or run payroll for you. Come tax time, everything is organized and ready to go, so you don’t need to worry. As a result, you’ll have to process payroll for more employees, cater to more customers, and manage larger inventories. Thus, you must ensure your accounting solution grows with you and your business.
Plus, you can create reports based on customized tags so that you can see information for individual locations, product lines, or sales channels. Xero and QBO both have the option of creating recurring invoices and sending them automatically, though receiving payment automatically with Xero seems to be more complicated than with QBO. One advantage that Xero has over QBO in the invoicing department is the ability to create contact groups, and then send one invoice to everyone in that group. On the other hand, QBO lets you automatically pull unbilled expenses onto your invoices, and Xero doesn’t offer that capability quite yet. Beyond built-in integrations, QuickBooks offers more than 750 connections with other platforms — a quantity that impressed us.
All Xero accounts allow unlimited users; many other platforms cap user allotments. You can upgrade to a higher tier when the time is right, not https://quickbooks-payroll.org/ when you meet an arbitrary upper limit. With Xero, you get budget-friendly, high-quality accounting software today, tomorrow and long after.
Cons of Xero vs QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online’s customer support is better than Xero’s since you can interact with an agent through a phone call. You can’t initiate a call, but you can submit a ticket and wait for an agent to call you. While it’s not part of our case study, we evaluated accounting cycle 8 steps in terms of assisted bookkeeping. We consider this a draw since each program is designed for specific business needs. QuickBooks Online and Xero both have a large collection of integrated apps, which should be enough to cover your business automation needs.
Quickbooks Online (QBO) is a personal and business bookkeeping software developed by Intuit in the early 2000s to help small businesses with their bookkeeping systems. It’s tricky to declare that one software program is inherently superior to another when comparing Xero and Quickbooks. The decision on the Xero VS. Quickbooks Online topic ultimately comes down to your company, your required functionality, your budget, and the features that matter most to you.
Reviewers were quick to share how much they enjoyed the software’s availability, performance and scalability. No matter which QuickBooks pricing tier you opt into, the QuickBooks team will always guide you through setup. Xero is considered a top QuickBooks alternative because of its comparable core features and budget-friendly pricing. In evaluating pricing, we considered the billing cycle (monthly or annual) and number of users.
Xero uses a very structured setup process, which is great for those who like to have everything in place prior to starting work. You can enter as much or as little information as you need, and simply add the rest when it’s necessary. An important though often overlooked component of any software product is how easy it is to use. You may never need to call support, but it’s nice to know it’s an option. User preference can play a role in which style you prefer, but generally, the more self-explanatory a central navigation screen is, the easier it is for new users to find their way around.
Xero offers a 30-day trial to see if this accounting tool is the one for your business. Growing businesses can invest and upgrade to enjoy more advanced features, from Xero’s Starter, Xero Standard, to Xero Premium. QuickBooks is Intuit’s general accounting software, while QuickBooks Online (QBO) is specifically the cloud-based service. For QBO, you pay a monthly subscription rather than an upfront fee, and you get all the patches and software updates from Intuit. In this article, we’ll mostly refer to QuickBooks Online, which is what we think you’ll likely opt for instead of Intuit’s desktop version of QuickBooks. On the other hand, Xero has more than double the integrations as Quickbooks, with over 1000 tools to add to your online accounting software.
However, QuickBooks Online edges out Xero for dashboard features. For those moving their small business’ accounting over from another application, you can import data into QuickBooks Online using the Import Data function. Xero’s main entry screen uses a menu bar at the top of the screen for access to system functions. This pared-down menu makes it easy for new users to find their way around the application without too much trouble. You’ll rarely be asking yourself how to use QuickBooks Online as they offer plenty of guidance throughout the application; users can click on the question mark anytime they need assistance. Xero and QuickBooks Online offer very similar features and functionality along with summary dashboards to measure business health.
