Xero vs QuickBooks Online

What’s Best For You?


Trying to find the right accounting software for your business can be a time (however worthy) consuming challenge. To make this easier for you, we’ve created well-formatted comparison articles of the most popular brands to streamline your research.

Today we’ll go through a Xero vs. QuickBooks review and walk through their similarities, differences, popular features, pricing and customer reviews for a wider more informed perspective. So without further adieu, let’s get started!

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Xero & Quickbooks Commonalities

These two are clear heavyweights in the industry, so it’s no surprise that they’ve got some of the best features in common like being cloud-based and offering cutting edge time tracking tools.

Here’s a quick summarization of other popular accounting software features both share in common:

1) Automated Reports: Both companies produce a number of financial reports that can keep you on top of your brand’s financial health.

2) Mobile Apps: Easy to use mobile apps are available on a variety of devices for maximum convenience.

3) 3rd-Party Integration: There are tons of different apps and third party widgets available to you for all your business needs.

4) Expense Tracking: These tools allow you to stay up-to-date on all your day-to-day business expenses.

5) Bank Reconciliation: Connect your banking info, and either website will automatically sync up any transactions made.

6) Invoices: Create and send out invoices with customizable features.

7) Collaboration: Both allow for multiple users and additional collaboration among employees or team members.

Where Xero & QuickBooks Differ

Now, let’s talk a bit about the differences between these two accounting software giants. Xero and QuickBooks represent two different types of businesses within this industry.

Xero is fairly new, having only been in business for the past 10 years, while Intuit (QuickBooks parent company) has been around since the early 80’s. But, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Other unique features include:

Xero

  • Xero offers easy conversion tools, so if you’ve used a different type of accounting software in the past, you can easily transfer all your data over to their platform.
  • They offer an inventory tool that helps keep an eye on all sales and purchases. There aren’t many companies that offer this, so we’re glad to see Xero including it in all their packages.
  • Employees can import information to Xero’s built-in timesheets and make managing hours a breeze.
  • They also have forecasting and budgeting tools that QuickBooks doesn’t have yet.

QuickBooks

  • If you integrate their payroll system into your account, you can get 50% off your monthly subscription fee for the first 6 months.
  • Multi-currency support is available through all packages. While Xero does offer multi-currency features as well, you’ll end up paying $70/mo for it.

Pricing & Packages

Another important distinction to make when comparing these two is how they structure their pricing/packages. Both companies utilize a tiered subscription-based structure where members or users pay a relatively small fee every month. But, even though they have a relatively similar pricing style, what each package contains can differ quite a bit.

Here’s a quick little breakdown of each and how they structure their software:

Xero vs Quickbooks

Then, there are some important distinctions to consider such as:

  • QuickBooks charges per service. This means as you move through their packages, the number of features/tools you’ll receive goes up with the price. The basic package (excluding self-employed) has things like invoices and expense tracking, but doesn’t include more involved features like bill pay and inventory management.
  • Xero on the other hand, charges based on the number of transactions. Their Starter package is pretty limited this way, since you’re only allowed to process 5 invoices, 5 bills and 20 transactions, but this does allow you access to all available features regardless of your package selection.
  • QuickBooks offers a package specifically designed for independent contractors that ranges from $5-$10/mo if you’re a solo freelancer looking for the basics. This package is also the only one to offer a mile tracking feature which uses GPS to track how far you’ve traveled for a job.

It’s also important to note that the QuickBooks pricing listed above uses an applied 50% off. If you’re looking to try out QuickBooks, you have two options. You can either use their free 30-day trial or take 50% your monthly subscription cost for the first 6 months.

Without this discount, QuickBooks pricing looks a lot closer to Xero, ranging from $10-$50 depending on your package selection.

Customer Reviews

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.

But, do keep in mind there are plenty more reviews all over the internet concerning both, we just like how TR breaks the important things down and their reviews seem exceedingly authentic.

Xero Reviews

Xero is killing it with customer ratings and reviews. They’ve got one of the highest scores in the industry, and over 120 reviews on TR. Here’s a wider look at each aspect of their software and how people are rating it so far:

Xero Rating Summary

Reviewers were quick to share how much they enjoyed the software’s availability, performance and scalability. We were hard-pressed to find any negative reviews, and the one or two so-so reviews we did find were quick to say that while there were a few things that could be improved upon, Xero is great overall.

Quickbooks Online Ratings_New

Moving on to QuickBooks, their long-standing history has garnered a lot of attention over the years, resulting in over 280 reviews on TR. But, while they have Xero beat by sheer numbers, Xero has the upper hand in Ratings. Here’s the QuickBooks breakdown:

Quickbooks_Online_Rating_Summary_New 2

QuickBooks currently has a 7.5, which is pretty good in comparison to others in the industry. We did encounter a few negative reviews, but most were positive. Commenters praise QuickBooks for their ease of use, accessibility and customer support.

Which Is Best For You?

Though it was a close race, we’d have to give the award to Xero for most of our readers.

Their customer feedback simply can’t be beat, and they offer a number of features QuickBooks hasn’t offered or mastered yet. If you’d like to learn more about Xero, click the link below to be taken directly to their website. Or, continue your research, cheers!
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