In what feels like another life, I used to work at a very small outpatient clinic in the middle of a very big city. Everyone, and I do mean everyone had to multitask to make what was a primarily psychiatric facility function enough to keep the doors open. That meant that the Records coordinator was also the Janitor, the Administrator was also HR and myself? Well, if I wasn’t dealing with patients, I was dealing with IT and on occasion even some accounting. Now, usually this wasn’t too bad. Actually, who am I kidding, running decade old machines with a server that could equal a decent potato in terms of speeds was always a pain in the neck, especially when using offhand accounting software. With these headaches of memories in mind, I decided to try out Xero and see how it fared.
A Bit of History
Some people, even people in the know, probably haven’t heard much about Xero before. Starting out in New Zealand, this accounting software was made in direct competition some years ago as a way to beat Quickbooks, which is often seen as the king of the accounting stack with estimates stating that the software has about 85% of the market share . It’s been about 11 years that Xero has been on the chase, and many people who have used both seem to be of the opinion that the two really are neck and neck. With around 16,000 global firms using Xero primarily, it may not have the numbers to match Quickbooks in terms of current licenses, but it has won the Forbs Innovative Growth Company award back to back, which is pretty impressive.
Getting Started with Xero
Now, when I think of accounting software, I think boring. Basically Excel on steroids, not that Excel isn’t an exciting program, but it’s as visually appealing as a slap to the face is seen as a sign of friendship. Such is not the case with Xero, as right from the login you get a nice Web 2.0 vibe that I can feel safe in assuming is due to a liberal smattering of CSS and JSON. If you’re new to the accounting game, you’ll also find the program littered with helpful videos on how to use the software and easy explanations of where to put what, from making contact forms to doing your first invoice. Each of the windows are easy to use, and customizing your invoices couldn’t be easier, allowing for a professional looking document in seconds. What was not fast however was trying to import a test group of accounts from .CSV over to Xero, which was a bit of a headache. And by headache, I mean pain due to tearing my hair out over having to reformat nearly everything to match their desired template. On the plus side, most of the options you start with after import are easy to work with, including connecting Xero to the company account for a better monitoring of your finances. Speaking of which, let’s take a look at their price breakdown.
Cost of Xero
Features of Xero
Conclusions about Xero
All in all, Xero makes an excellent case for itself as to why it should be the Pepsi to Quickbook’s Coke. The price is right, the features plentiful, and the security is tight. The few gripes I did have with the system can reasonably be fixed (especially that tax issue; seriously shooting yourselves squarely in the kneecaps with that one), and hopefully will be soon. It’s far more appealing than most software of its type, and is easier to use than any I have previously encountered. For this reason, I’d give Xero an 8.5/10, and a hearty recommendation for anyone wanting to switch up how they do accounting.