Xero accounting software solution
Let’s talk about accounting solutions— any business is only as good as its accounting. Without knowing where your money is going or how you’re spending it, you can’t be as efficient with your spending–how you’re spending—whether you’re being wasteful or not. That’s especially important when you’re trying to get your new business off the ground. Without proper money management, you can’t be as efficient and without that efficiency, you won’t be able to grow as fast or not at all. That’s why what you use to keep track of your spend is as important as the product or service you are providing.
Most growing businesses tend to use what’s popular, in case they have issues and need to outsource accounting services to fix those issues, for example, and that’s why the more popular is QuickBooks, which is considered the tried and true when it comes to accounting software. Except that seems to be changing. Here at Collab we actually use Xero.
QuickBooks, while popular, especially with accountants, isn’t as intuitive, at least for us. We found its UI clunky, at best and its appearance can feel bloated and wasteful at times. Xero’s UI meanwhile, is best described as “no nonsense”. At a glance you know where everything is and what everything means. QuickBooks tends to use terms only someone who went to school for accounting would be comfortable enough using daily. Xero, meanwhile, uses labeling that makes sense for the rest of us. As an example, while QuickBooks uses words like “payables”, Xero uses “purchases” and “sales” – you don’t necessarily need the degree to maintain your books. If you have created a lot of online data already then Xero makes it easy to import—including from Microsoft Excel—using its direct-conversion tool. It can even import from CSV and TXT files too.
Xero integrates with more third-party apps than QuickBooks does too, a necessity especially for smaller to medium businesses. Speaking of, Xero has been experimenting with machine learning in order to make things more automated from the site side of things as well as better integration with finance related third-party sites. The best part is that when you do need outside accounting, said outsourced help can get the same reports as they would from QuickBooks.
Besides being easy to read, Xero is easy to use. If you’re new to any accounting software, there’s going to be a steep learning curve because there are a lot of details to maintain when it comes to general accounting. Xero seems designed to cater to those just starting. Its dashboard keeps things nice and tidy enough that you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for.
Xero separates most of its functions into different groups: Dashboard, Business, Accounting, Projects and Contacts – if you want to update a contact, you’ll go into contacts, if you want to access Invoices, then the Business tab is where you’ll go. It’s as easy as that. Xero also provides video tutorials in order to make that learning curve less steep. Keeping track of your books is already complicated enough, does your accounting software have to be just as complicated as well?
Xero is also more affordable—while QuickBooks starts at $25 a month and can go up to as much as $150 a month, Xero starts at only $9 a month with a 30-day free trial while its Xero established plan is only $60 a month. We like Xero a lot and we hope you will too after giving them a shot.
