Xero Reviews

"Xero Issues ;)"

Comments: Fantastic. I still remember attempting to learn MYOB 5-6 years ago and being absolutely stumped, Xero took something that used to be clunky and difficult and made it simple and accessible to business owners who don't have time to figure out complex software like MYOB. (PS. MYOB is probably much better now than it was back then but the point remains... Xero were the ones that led the way and made account/bookkeeping simple)

Pros: Everything. It's the simplest bookkeeping/accounting software I've ever used, has beautiful UI and once you get your head around how to best set it up with the help of a good bookkeeper it pretty much does most of the work of reconciling your accounts for you.

Cons: Honestly, I can't think of anything. I suppose it would be nice if there was a simple undo action button for when you accidentally reconcile something wrong. Kind of like the "undo" popup that appears on gmail when you send an email that you last second realize has a mistake in it. That would make it even better but it's pretty close to perfect already.

"Beautiful Accounting!"

Comments: Xero helps all of my clients better understand their money and therefore better their business! It's also much quicker to work in than other accounting software. It's easy to add users giving CPAs access to books and the 1099 report is flawless. Xero helps by making daily, monthly, quarterly, and end of year bookkeeping quick and painless! Everyone we have moved over from QB has loved the switch.

Pros: -Customizable reports
-Easy-to-read dashboard
-Budget manager
-Incredible app connections
-Automatic bank feeds
-Customizable invoice settings
-Cash coding + Bank rules

Cons: Slight transition in training moving out of QB but you will love it!

"Appalling Software - Avoid at all Costs in My Opinion"

Comments: Overall, Xero costs us a lot of time we didn't spend before, does things on it's own such as create new suppliers for an expense and to me, it seems the software was written by ex Bookkeepers who didn't really understand bookkeeping anyway and had a good go at designing a software package that would compete I am guessing with the likes of Sage and failed abysmally. We use Xero because our accountants do the bookkeeping for us and this is what they use, if not for this, I wouldn't touch Xero if my life depended on it.

Pros: Nothing, nothing at all. The software is nothing more than a glorified analysed cashbook. Support is poor and some of the replies from Support demonstrate the advisor doesn't understand accounts, the accounts structure or the damage that can be done by the advice they are giving.

Cons: All purchases whether a supplier, or a bottle of milk from Tesco's is a contact. A bottle of milk for the office should be coded directly to the nominal code, not a new supplier "Tesco's" created. Cash in an out of bank should be the same as the bank statement on a live bank feed, but it excludes transfers from savings to current account so not a true reflection of cash in and out. Xero doesn't reconcile customer receipts, even through the name on the receipt in the bank is the same as the customer account exactly. Xero dump a lot of support on to the accountant who provides the service. Xero creates accounts for customers and suppliers on it's own if it doesn't recognise a payment or receipt in the bank account. Software should never be allowed to decide if it wants to create something automatically. Xero isn't as automated as Sage Accounts, for instance when bulk invoicing over several days, you can't set the date at software level, you have to keep changing the date. When importing from Sage into Xero for the first time, if Xero doesn't understand an item on the invoice, it simply creates a new line on the invoice whether you want it to or not and there is no way apparently to undo this once done. Xero works with receipt bank and you can spend hours trying to tell it an expense is not to be coded to a customer. I could go on.

"Good - But With Issues"

Comments: Mostly good apart from the above which really grate with me. They don't seem to be developing the core product at all. It has barely changed in my 4 years of usage.

Pros: Easy to use for non-accountants. Inexpensive.

Cons: 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. No bold, no italics - nothing! The inventory (products and services) listings cannot be accessed by administration staff unless given full access to financial reports. So the accountant or business owner has to make small modifications to the inventory even though they are not familiar with product descriptions, prices etc. This is very poor.

"Making software functional and pretty"

Pros: Xero possibly has the best customer service of all, this is where they are really winning.
Xero has tons of free quality content and videos with tips and training for business owners and accountants alike.
They organise regular meet ups where you can discuss issues and opportunities with your peers.
Being apart of the Xero family makes me feel like i am in the "cool club" in high school, only we're cool nerds.
If you are the less-bookish accountant and the more customer-oriented fun accountant then this is definitely your type of software.

Cons: Difficult to get older clients who are used to invoice books and cheque books to switch over to cloud accounting. (con not exclusive to Xero)
If you are switching over from another cloud system, it can take a few hours to get used to the software/app's functions.

"Bye Bye Payroll"

Pros: Xero ws very easy to use and it was a clean feel

Cons: Customer Service was horrible. You could not talk to someone when you wanted to. You had to email, wait and then schedule something.

"Good solid system that has a LOT of potential"

Comments: Huge time saving an visibility into my accounts. Plus I use it across a few businesses which helps.

Pros: Matching recipt transactions to Bank Accounts is so easy and simple, and the reason I moved away from another (albeit free) solution. The basic chart of accounts is a good starting point for a non-accountant like me, plus I like the ability to add custom tracking options (although there is room for improvement!) Managing expenses is simple. The limited customer service interaction I've had to date has been average, although still waiting for a resolution.

Cons: You can't invoice different people at the same company using the Xero address book; there are a myriad of various work around a but no simple and obvious solution. When I researched this on the community forums I saw it is a long standing and high demand customer request which to date hasn't been addressed or satisfactorily acknowledged by Xero. Further, in this research I noticed that they seem to struggle to effectively communicate with customers via the support forum and are lacklustre in acknowledging when something is wrong. Growing pains of a booming SaaS business? Possibly, but it doesn't take much to get this right and they don't seem to.

"Simple and Intuitive and great integrations"

Comments: Overall I love it and it's my favourite accounts software. As it's so user friendly even non accountants can pick up basic bookkeeping quickly, but there's enough complexity and overview for formal reporting and more complex entities too.

Pros: The ease with which is links with the bank account and uses tech to predict cost allocations and bank reconciliation entries. Plus the integration with HMRC for VAT and payroll filing, and the export to google drive for reports and breakdowns saves so much time.

Cons: The user access is still my biggest complaint - its not possible to grant view only access or control what users can see outside of their very limited user types. For example you can't have employees only with PO raising access, or read only access to the sales invoices for credit control.

"Very easy to learn and even easier to use. Includes some nice features that QuickBooks does not."

Pros: Inventory tracking and cost tracking is built in. Other accounting software usually charges extra for this feature, Xero does not. The reconciliation is extremely easy, even for a novice. You literally can't make mistakes because the software won't let you. Very nice for a small business owner who can't afford a bookkeeper, or simply wants to manage the books themselves. Reporting is very simple and the reports are extremely useful come tax season.

Cons: The way it deals with sales tax. When creating invoices and quotes it is sometimes very easy to forget to add sales tax, or to add it incorrectly due to the amount of options available. This burden can be lessened by making sure you add items to inventory, it is still something that needs to be carefully watched.

""Beautiful Accounting Software". Enough said."

Comments: A complete look at my business from objective point of view. It was excellent for looking at cash flow and seeing where your money comes from and what it goes on. This, on top of all the other features generally used.

Pros: This software is the real deal that has whole package. Truely feel in control of your business with easy to use features from invoicing, reconciling, payroll, leave management, time sheets etc. I love the edition and enabling of third party software. I personally coupled Xero with a specialized job & inventory management system. However Xero does that too, and in a more than capable fasion for most business'. Together with Xero, it really is, Beautiful Business.

Cons: The only negative i had with the system was when coupled with the specific third party software that i had intergrated with Xero, it would double up on client invoices and created a little extra work. I did later findout from the Xero support centre that this was an issue i could resolve in features of Xero

"Amazing accounting software, Xero support"

Comments: Overall Xero is a great assess to the business, while it's not perfect I haven't been able to find a better solution, Xero means we can keep our accounting in house and spend about 10 minutes a week doing our accounting rather than paying an external accountant several 100 dollars per month.

Pros: Xero is a very innovative accounting platform, they were the first accounting suite to implement automated bank feeds, this means manually entering receipts is no longer required as they connect to your bank account and pull the data directly.
When running reports the period can be selected with some short cuts like last quarter or last month, this saves time as you don't have to think which dates make up which months.

Cons: There are some limitation:
- Xero don't recommend using Xero above 100 staff so we had to use a different platform (eg Microkeeper) for payroll
- The expense app lets you take a photo of a receipt and covert it to a digital receipt, other expense apps can do this in less than 10 seconds, but Xeros app takes many hours, they must batch the jobs
- There is no phone support, they used to have phone support but now only email and they take over 24 hours to get back to you via, which means having a conversation with them is basically impossible

"Respect for the Little Guy"

Comments: We used Xero for 2 years and were pleased with the modern look and feel of the program. It felt more user friendly than other programs and it is gaining presence in the global market. In the end, we needed to change to a platform that was more universally used and accepted. That being said, I would highly recommend this software to someone who is doing their own accounting for a small business or personal use as it is much more user friendly and intuitive than many others.

Pros: The thing I like best about Xero is that it is trying to create a more user friendly accounting program for modern adults. With it's main competitor (to be left unnamed), the process can feel outdated or not intuitive. Not so with Xero. It is easy to find what you are looking for and track the items you need to. More and more software programs are communicating with Xero and that helps a lot too.

Cons: We struggled with the learning curve of Xero, even though it is more intuitive than the unnamed competitor. We hired someone to teach us the ropes and that went a long way in getting us on the right track. The other problem we had was that the customer service was often hard to reach. We ended up with a big mess of a problem in 2018 and communication with Xero was very slow going. In the end, they were unable to help us solve our problem.

"A "state of the art" of Cloud Accounting Software"

Comments: Xero it's been created as a real "web based" software; most of the other accounting cloud / web software are coming from a popular "client & server" version, and you immediately perceive this
It's a real complete Accounting Software, quite easy to use. You nee to have some basic Accounting notions to manage correctly all the functions
It's a software created for English speaking and with hte english notations countries; for example you can't produce an invoice with the comma decimal separator; so you can't use this (basic) function for an Accounting Software in most of European Countries
Xero has a wonderful list of reports that give you the entire control on your finances
Some online integrations (like with PayPal) are extremely useful
The list of the banks that you can connect for the reconciliations is quite poor

Pros: A real web / cloud software
Complete functions for the Accounting
Perfect to manage P&L and your accounting

Cons: It should have more compliance staff with European Countries
More Banks 7 credit Cards integrations

"Excellent invoicing software for small businesses"

Comments: Xero allows us to invoice our clients with ease, monitor and track inventory sales, generate transaction lists and more. Overall easy to use, however further training or online support could be helpful to fully take advantage of its features.

Pros: Xero is relatively easy to use and makes invoicing and tracking sales/payments a relatively smooth process.

Cons: I feel there are many features we are not yet aware of or sure how to use, however with further training, I'm sure we could take further advantage of all the features Xero offers. The feature to adjust stock quantities is somewhat time consuming, and I feel could be made more seamless.

"Almost makes accounts fun"

Comments: Over all though I love xero - it's made my accounting much faster and because my accountant has access too , any challenges or questions on my product or project codes can be quickly resolved by sending her a note from within the system.

Pros: I love that xero does everything for both my businesses on the same dashboard - I can just toggle between the 2. The invoices look great and are well recieved by my corporate clients making me look professional and bigger than I am. The VAT is calculated for the quarter at the click of a button and I can even post directly to HMRC from within xero. Most of all though it tells me that I've done a good job each time I get my reconcilations done - which always makes me smile.

Cons: Sometimes there can be challenges with the bank feeds - when they're running at their best it's wonderful the accounts are updates in real time but sometimes they get a bit cranky and take ages to upload - I don't think it's all xeros fault - I think sometimes it's the software that does the connecting but either way, it's the only thing that sometimes causes me grief.

"Xero is awesome, albeit expensive when running multiple entities"

Comments: We've moved from another software 4 years ago and have not looked back. Bank feed setup is easy, recon is a
breeze. There are lots of add-ons which can assist with specific needs and there are tons of integrations with sales force and other big guns.
The only issues I see is pricing. If you run multiple entities (i.e. for service companies or trusts) the subscription cost adds up quickly. This is because the most basic plan is essentially useless (5 bank transactions a month... if that's all you need, you don't run a business). Compared to emerging competitors pricing is very high.
Another issue, if you rely on it, is email support only. While responses come back within 1 to 3 days, players like Intuit have live chat support, which is amazing at their price point.
All in all, Xero is a solid solution for us though and while we've moved some (nonpayroll) entities off it and onto QuickBooks, it remains our accounting mainstay for the core operations entity. Hope this helps.

Pros: easy to use
ticks all boxes for SME accounting
many integration

Cons: price, in particular, once you need multiple add-ons
email support only
slow load times (this should be fixed once they moved from Rackspace to AWS apparently)

"This has revolutionized our bookkeeping and reduced our accounting fees."

Comments: Save time, greater control over my business, fewer errors, save money, more visibility of overall financial health of business. Allows me to work remotely.

Pros: I have no bookkeeping background and was able to easily learn how to use Xero. My business partner and I can login from anywhere in the world and get an up to date picture of our finances, pay invoices, review reports, check profitability and more. Our year end process is much faster and streamlined and we feel like we have much more control over our business. We have integrated data from our POS system (Touch Bistro) using the Shogo Integration tool and allows us to track sales by category alongside costs. We have also integrated Payment Evolution with Xero so we can run payroll and make EFT payments to suppliers directly. Invoices are closed out automatically and remittance notices provided saving time, money and keeping our suppliers happy.

Cons: Some of the reporting features don't show the information that I need - for example the sales tax report. I also find it frustrating that I can't integrate my online banking with Xero - we use a credit union so this might be the bank's issue. Some of the navigation is not great. For example the search feature can be a little fussy and when you complete an action you don't get returned to the page you left.

"Xero - Overall Great Product"

Comments: The benefits are the ability to have all our accounting record keeping in one place, and to get reports on any side of our accounting process with the click of a button.

Pros: Easy to use and provides all the information to run our business - from an accounting standpoint. What I like most is the ability to import bank transactions.

Cons: The feature I like the least is Fixed Assets. I find it confusing at times and cannot understand why we cannot attach a copy of the Vendor Invoice to a Fixed Asset file. Find this frustrating when we seem able to attach invoice copies to most other types of transactions.

"One stop Accounting solutions for Small to Medium organisations."

Pros: - Brilliant design and straight forward full accounting system yet detailed enough to allow user to create management reports.
- It allows direct bank feed letting the book-keepers not to worry about importing bank statements and processing detailed bank reconciliations.
- It also integrates with third party softwares to import direct feed which helps automation possible helps save time.
- It also offers partner programs for external book-keepers and accountants to work on different client books which is a new features other softwares have failed to offer.
- Great price.

Cons: - Payroll function is capable to deal with straight forward payroll matters. when dealing with complex calculation, Xero seems limited in its functionality.
- The tracking categories are limited to only two lists. It would have been great if it would have had an option to increase the number of categories to suit individual need.

"Fantastic! I finally have the tools from Xero to drive my company to its greatest potential."

Comments: Understanding the numbers! I'm finally educated about my own business, which sounds ridiculous, but so many business owners are creative dreamers that never look at the numbers. Even ones that are successful don't look at the numbers because they feel like it's not necessary - and that's the biggest lie in the world. It's so easy to share the reports with people at all levels in the company, and I feel a fantastic sense of control with the numbers because of Xero.

Pros: Cloud availability, choice between manual or automatic accounting, incredible reports, easy to print, beautiful, fun to use, don't have to be an accountant to use it, fantastic break-down of categories and overhead vs. cost of goods. Shows great percentages - growth overall, percentage of sales per category and percentage of expenses per category - easy to understand the nuts and bolts of your business with Xero and make quick changes to your business model when a problem arises.

Cons: 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. It's not possible to see a comprehensive financial picture - perhaps what makes it so great for non-accountants is its simplicity makes it hard at times to get into the nitty gritty. The billing aspect of Xero is atrocious, just really, really bad. Invoices on "repeat" stay in a strange ticker until you command them to be sent, it creates a lot of problems. Definitely have a separate billing software if you use Xero, especially if your clients are on subscriptions. I wish it integrated better with a growth planning tool - integrates with CRMs fine but doesn't help you look into the next couple of years, or present a future picture to investors.

"XERO reconciliation is an issue"

Comments: 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.

Pros: I loved how easy it was to integrate XERO with my bank accounts and Paypal. XERO seamlessly connected and kept my balances up to date. I also liked how easy it was to invoice clients and connect invoices to Paypal or Stripe.

Cons: Unfortunately, the reconciliation process in XERO is a no-go for me. Rather than the Quickbooks and standard approach, where you do a monthly reconciliation against a bank statement, XERO had no such function. Once an item was matched up to a bank transaction, it was considered "reconciled." No option to close out a month and double-check transactions. I went back to QBO to get that feature.

"Best in Multi-currency accounting for SMB"

Comments: Xero was the best choice back in 2015 (when no one gave multi-currency) and still is in 2021 (when there are some who do). I have now added another company to Xero and cannot imagine shifting to another platform....ever.

Pros: With most clients abroads, we find its best to bill them in their local currency. Luckily for us, Xero is there to help sort our books out and keep them in order. It integrates with many bank feeds & popular wallets/fintechs like PayPal, Payoneer & TransferWise so accounts are upto date - always. Another feature we really use is their tracking fields. Xero allows users to setup 2 tracking fields that can be added to invoices, expenses, bills and assigned to each line. This helps us keep track of project based work and has been our way since before Xero ventured into Project based accounting (that users need to pay additional fee for) It also integrates with online payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe, GoCardless, and a few others; thus payments are a breeze for clients. As a non-accountant, Xero is easy to use even when you get into all the features it provides.

Cons: They have made some changes to their UI esp where invoices and expenses are concerned. Luckily for older users, expenses are still free however, for new users it isnt and each person filing expenses on it needs to pay a small fee. I think it should be free for a small number of users (atleast 2) and then charged.

"Xero is the ideal accounting tool for emerging or very small businesses"

Comments: Xero has worked out well for my new and growing company. The integrations have worked out well and the packaged reports fit my needs at this time.

Pros: This is an easy to use software that integrates with a number of other tools that a very small business / sole proprietor is most likely to use. It's ideal for a business just starting out and is priced well below competitors.

Cons: Growing businesses will hit a ceiling with this tool. The lack of customization will become an issue and the tradeoff between simplicity and costs will quickly reach its limit.

"Great Accounting Software"

Comments: Great experience overall, never had any major issues. From the get go it was easy to learn and navigate.

Pros: Easy to use, Has great in-depth features for compiling company specific reports, managing channels and customers.
Invoicing is a breeze, keeping track of invoices and bills is super easy and user management is also quite flexible.

Cons: I've struggled with forecasting using Xero so I have generally done this seperately outside the program.

"Perfect Accounting Software - Nothing Comes Close"

Comments: Xero changed the face of accounting for our business. It has made accounting work far less painful than it used to be. And the true cloud-based setup makes it so much easier to access from anywhere.

Pros: Ease of use - seriously. Nothing comes close. And trust me, I've tried a number of accounting software and they're all a nightmare to use unless you're an accountant.

Cons: Customer support could be quicker, and phone support would help.