Xero is a powerful cloud-based accounting software popular for small businesses, sole traders, start-ups and freelancers.
It is designed to handle all the basic accounting functions such as creating invoices and purchase orders, managing business expenses and cash flows at a reasonable price.
Unlike many traditional accounting tools, it does not ask you to manually enter your financial data, as it is connected directly to your bank accounts and credit cards.
All bank transactions are automatically added to the system, reducing the time required to stay on top of your finances. Xero also provides extensive reporting features, allowing you to keep track of income, expenses, and other key data.
It has a user-friendly interface that comes up with features like budgeting, expense tracking, and time tracking. It includes invoicing with quotes, bank reconciliation, purchase order and expense management, tax management and more from your smartphone or tablet.
Xero can be integrated with over 800 third-party applications, covering everything from inventory and logistics to cash flow, project management, customer relationship management, and e-commerce services.
From streamlined bank connections to intuitive online invoicing, Xero offers some must-have accounting software features designed to streamline financial management for your business growth.
Xero makes it easier to create and send invoices, customize templates, automate reminders and set up recurring invoices to automate billing processes or bills to get paid faster. With customizable templates and online payments, your customers can pay you in just a few clicks—without ever having to leave their desks.
Xero allows you to capture expenses on the go using the Xero mobile app, categorize transactions and attach receipts for accurate record-keeping. You can track and manage expenses in real time, view expense claims trends over time, identify top-spending customers or projects, receive alerts on duplicate receipts and more. It enables you to get better control over business spending and budget management.
Xero has different reporting and analytics tools that give you real-time insights into your business so you can make informed decisions about where to invest your time and money. With over 80 built-in reports, you can track everything from revenue and expenses to inventory levels and employee performance. It also lets you generate insightful financial reports, including balance sheets, profit and loss statements, and cash flow statements to know the financial health of your business.
Xero allows you to manage inventory, track stock levels and populate invoices or orders across multiple locations and channels. It has an integrated payroll management system that simplifies payroll processing, facilitating automated payroll calculations, tax filings, and employee payment distributions. Xero ensures compliance with tax regulations and streamline payroll administration, saving time and reducing the risk of errors.
Xero makes the bank reconciliation process easier by letting you know when bank statement lines are ready to reconcile. The bank account panel on your dashboard shows how many bank statement lines have been imported and need to be reconciled. With Xero’s bank feed feature, you can automatically import and categorize transactions for easy reconciliation. Also, detect and reconcile discrepancies swiftly, ensuring accuracy and integrity in your financial records.
Xero has various security measures that help make it safe, secure and reliable: such as two-step authentication, data encryption, secure data centers in enterprise-grade hosting facilities and multi-layered network security. Whether you work with an internal bookkeeper or an outsourced financial manager, you can allow the system to share all the relevant data with them which means no-one has access to your financial data unless you provide it to them, so you have complete control over who can and cannot view this data.
If your business deals in overseas trade (say, for example, through your online shop), Xero’s Premium Plan offers multi-currency functionality, with the option to choose from over 160 currencies. You can not only accept payments and receive bills in another currency but also send invoices, quotes and purchase orders. It saves you a lot of time and hassle as you no longer have to worry if you’ve got the exchange rates right and that you’re not overcharging clients or being underpaid.
Xero integrates with a wide range of third-party apps to streamline your workflow and run your business better. From payroll and CRM to eCommerce and point of sale, there’s an integration for almost every business need. It integrates with popular payment gateways like Stripe, Square plus Planergy also. So if you need AP automation software or procure-to-pay software that is compatible with Xero, you know where to come.
Xero offers a variety of benefits to businesses that may help to enhance financial management and facilitate overall growth. Let’s have a look:
Xero integrates with various business tools and third-party apps such as CRM software, project management platforms, and e-commerce solutions. This integration streamlines your workflow processes, eliminates manual data-entry errors, and enhances overall productivity.
Xero automates your accounting operations which include invoicing, expense tracking, and bank reconciliation. Businesses can save their valuable time and resources with time-saving automation features.
Xero provides seamless collaboration with business partners and their accountants or financial advisors, allowing secure financial data sharing and enabling real-time collaboration. These accountants can give timely insights, offer strategic advice, and ensure compliance, fostering a productive partnership that drives business success.
Xero has flexible plans and scalable features which makes it ideal for all types of businesses including startups or enterprises. From managing a growing customer base to expanding operations or entering new markets, Xero provides the tools and support to fuel business growth.
Xero helps businesses to gain real-time insights into their financial status, monitor cash flow, track expenses, and analyze financial trends with intuitive dashboards and customizable reports, ensuring informed decision-making and proactive financial management.
Yes, Xero provides multiple layers of protection for the information you transferred and stored in it. It prevents anyone from accessing your Xero account, even if they know your password. It comes up with two-factor authentication to make your login more secure. If you add employees to your account, you can set user permissions to control the data they can access. Xero is certified as compliant with ISO/IEC 27001:2013, the premier global information security management system (ISMS) standard with the environment, including firewalls, intrusion protection systems and network segregation.
If you’re looking for different pricing, specific features, or better support, below are some accounting software alternatives that will manage your business finances better.
QuickBooks Online is a robust accounting software known for its great service and ease of use. It offers features like user-friendly interface, automated invoicing, expense tracking, inventory management, bank feeds, multi-currency support, customized financial reports and much more.
FreshBooks is an easy-to-use accounting software for small businesses offering features like accounting, invoicing, expense tracking & time management features, mileage tracking app, payroll, team management, bookkeeping, estimates, projects, reports, payments etc.
Wave is a free accounting software for freelancers or small business owners. With this, you can track your income and expenses, create journal entries, manage multiple businesses, import and categorize transactions, send invoices, accept online pages and even process payroll with the Wave Payroll add-on.
Zoho Books is designed to manage inventory systems, CRM efforts, email automation, human resources, IT management and more. It provides easy invoicing, expense tracking, inventory management, seamless collaboration, workflow automation and detailed financial reporting.
Sage Intacct is the industry-leading financial accounting software system with a broad set of functionalities for small to mid-sized businesses.
It offers essential features like payroll integration, CRM, human asset management, time tracking, financial reporting, bank-reconciliation etc. for different industries such as construction, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing and much more.
Integrating your CRM with Xero opens up new business growth opportunities for small business owners. Since all your data will be in a single place, you can use it to improve your sales process, better understand your customers and make informed business decisions.
Let’s have a closer look at all the benefits you will get when integrating your CRM with Xero.
It may be possible to make a mistake while manually entering your data into CRM platforms which ultimately leads you to a big financial loss. Automating your data entry process in real-time is the best way to reduce the risks associated with human errors. For this, integrate Xero with your CRM to ensure the highest levels of data accuracy and streamline your workflow.
Xero generates a lot of useful data about your customers, like invoices and payment history. You can use this information to better understand the behavior of your customer and even improve your relationship with them.You have an option to create segmented customer lists and target them with special offers and discounts, a great way to increase revenue and profitability.
You need to stay on top of your cash flow in order to grow your business. When you integrate Xero with your CRM, it ensures you will always know each of your customers’ financial status at any given time from a single dashboard. Also, you can use this data to quickly view the status of your invoices and speed up the reconciliation process.
CRMs are proven to increase revenue and customer loyalty which is directly linked to the amount of available data. By connecting all your financial data sources to a central hub (your CRM), you will be able to understand what works and what needs to be changed and this will help you make informed business decisions for better cash flow management.
With Xero, you can use the generated data to analyze your business operations and create insightful reports for stakeholders or investors.For example, you will be able to see how many invoices are overdue at any given time or how long it takes for customers to pay their invoices.
Connecting Xero with your CRM quickly improves the productivity of your sales team which will help them focus on generating and closing deals rather than constantly gathering information from multiple tabs.
Xero is a cloud-based accounting platform designed to help small businesses manage their finances seamlessly. Whether you’ve decided to manage your books alone, or want to handle your books using a trusted bookkeeping service, there are multiple reasons why Xero is a great software for small business owners.
Xero is an excellent accounting solution for different industries such as manufacturing, real estate, ecommerce, retail, construction etc. However, it has some limitations also which are as follows:
