On the other hand, FreshBooks may be a better fit for freelancers and solopreneurs, as the capabilities are easier to navigate. It allows you to estimate and prepare quotes that you can convert into digital invoices. Monitoring the time and cost spent on jobs or projects is also made easier using the built-in timer and location-based tracking on the Xero app. Additionally, you can also keep track of your projects’ or jobs’ profit margins to avoid unnecessary overspending and losses. Although the Early and Growing plans essentially have the same features, the difference lies in the Standard plan’s capability to create and send an unlimited number of invoices.
- With Xero, you can enjoy the convenience of having your bank transactions automatically fed into your Xero account on a daily basis.
- However, it is not the most comprehensive mobile app because it doesn’t allow you to generate reports, receive payments from customers, or record time worked.
- For most customers, Xero’s direct bank feeds are available at no additional cost.
- It also has bank rules and cash-coding features to make the reconciliation process easier and faster.
The Early plan costs $15 per month and lets users send up to 20 invoices and schedule up to five bills per month (Figure A). Other features include reconciling bank transactions and capturing bills and receipts with Hubdoc. Xero offers more than 1,000 integrations – among the most of the accounting apps we reviewed. These apps include Square, Stripe, PayPal, Gusto, DEAR Inventory and Expensify. Integrations help growing businesses by allowing them to upgrade their digital infrastructure as they become larger. If Xero lacks a feature you need, or if you want to connect it to the other business systems and services you already use, you can probably find an add-on in the company’s app marketplace.
Read our comprehensive review of Gusto to learn more about the features and capabilities of this robust HR solution. If you decide to charge late fees or interest on an unpaid invoice, it’s crucial that your original contract clearly outlines that these charges may be assessed. An accountant or bookkeeper can be useful set of hands to help with the accounting heavy lifting. Includes tools that help automate the reconciliation process, along with a global search function; has a simple layout and a customizable dashboard. If you’re a beginning, Xero has a whole set of videos available to help teach you the software.
Track time and costs with job tracking and project accounting in Xero
Invoices can also be converted from the quotes you created for a particular job or project. In this section, let us examine the features included in Xero’s most popular package—the Standard plan priced at $32 per month. Xero is one of the leading cloud-based accounting solutions designed for SMBs as well as for accountants and bookkeepers.
If you’re a larger company with multiple bank accounts, go for a more robust accounting system like QuickBooks Enterprise. For heavily inventory-based businesses, we suggest an ERP like NetSuite ERP or Sage Intacct. Also, if you are already looking into a plan but feel like the features included are not quite enough, https://www.online-accounting.net/ you can always check out the app marketplace. For an additional cost, you can create a Xero platform tailored to your business needs by adding a Xero product or a third-party solution. In the A/R management portion, we evaluated major aspects like invoice creation, inventory adjustments, and customer payments.
Users are required to download the free Xero Projects app, which they can use to record time and costs and create invoices and reports. We especially like that this feature is free, although some time-tracking apps include additional functionality. Xero is a cloud-based, double-entry accounting software for small businesses not exceeding 2,000 transactions a month. It aims to improve bookkeeping processes like bank reconciliation and financial reporting.
The Standard plan is ideal for small businesses that have gone past the startup stage of establishing their business and are now in the process of scaling up. Danielle Bauter is a writer for the Accounting division of Fit Small Business. She has owned Check Yourself, a bookkeeping https://www.quick-bookkeeping.net/ and payroll service that specializes in small business, for over twenty years. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from UCLA and has served on the Board of the National Association of Women Business Owners. She also regularly writes about business for various consumer publications.
Can I get Xero for free?
During our demo of the software, we found that Xero’s reporting features can help you make sense of the data analytics at your disposal. Xero’s reporting tool distills your accounting data into easily digestible bar charts, pie charts and other graphs. A few popular tools include your business’s top 10 customers, Xero’s budget manager and the ability to drill down into your best revenue generators.
Access Xero features for 30 days, then decide which plan best suits your business. Wave is a solid choice for small businesses looking for free accounting software. We believe everyone should be able to make financial decisions with confidence.
New Ultimate plan offers most comprehensive Xero package for small businesses
Xero’s Early plan is designed for small business startups, especially sole proprietors who are still new to using cloud-based accounting solutions. This plan is also ideal for freelance accountants and bookkeepers looking for a simple, easy-to-use, and robust platform for their services. Xero also functions as an expense management solution to help you keep track of your or your employees’ expenses. The reimbursement process is made easier with the help of Xero’s powerful data capture feature that automatically extracts information from photos of receipts uploaded to the platform. All reimbursement claims can be easily approved from your end, thus making the process faster. In this article, we will look into Xero pricing plans—the features included in each and for whom each plan is ideal.
With the Growing plan, you can also keep track of an unlimited number of bills that you can access and pay from anywhere using any device. We also found that it’s impossible to combine multiple checks along with cash into a single deposit entry. Xero does provide an account to hold undeposited checks, but the feature doesn’t track when checks are removed and deposited and doesn’t allow cash to be added to the deposit.
If using multiple currencies is a priority to you, consider other platforms that offer this capability at a lower cost. Zoho, for example, is accounting software with a free invoice platform that allows you to bill in multiple currencies. Also included in the Ultimate plan is Xero Analytics Plus, a set of tools to help small businesses gain a deeper understanding of how their business may be performing, and plan ahead. For small businesses wanting in-depth insights and advanced cash flow forecasting, Analytics Plus provides a greater overview of cash flow and financial performance.
Xero also grows with your company, integrating with your email, customer relationship management (CRM), or point-of-sale platforms to help streamline operations even further. With Xero, you have your own accounts payable tools accessible from any device. Xero’s accounts payable feature not only gives you a detailed view of your upcoming bills https://www.kelleysbookkeeping.com/ but also helps you prioritize which bills should be paid first. We appreciated that Xero includes time tracking in all of its plans (see the screenshot below from our demo). This contrasts with many alternatives, such as QuickBooks, which only offer time tracking as a separate piece of software or include it on more expensive plans.
Pricing plan details and offer terms
If you have a list of customers and suppliers, you can import that, too. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services. The report showed digitally enabled small businesses were significantly more resilient throughout the COVID-19 crisis, and outperformed their peers in most performance metrics.
Xero doesn’t provide a phone number on its customer support page, but a representative will call you if necessary. This is a serious drawback if you want to be able to pick up the phone and talk through an issue or are new to accounting software and have lots of questions. For example, you can give all employees the ability to send quotes and invoices, allow some to enter expenses and limit who can see the company’s complete financial picture. To keep things organized, Xero logs every action users make and compiles the history of every transaction. Today’s leading accounting platforms offer standard security features like data encryption, secure credential tokenization and more. While human error will always play some role in security breaches, you can be confident in your accounting platform when it comes to keeping your information safe.
