Small Business Accounting Software
Wednesday, February 9, 2011 at 9:41PM There's a new kid on the block in the world of accounting software. It's bang up to date in following the cloud web-based paradigm and is refreshingly simple and painless to use - even fun.
My past relationships with accounting software have been disappointing, first with all Accountants' favourite: Sage (all the accountants seem to love this, a de-facto standard), then Quickbooks and lastly Microsoft Accounting Professional.
With Microsoft withdrawing support for Microsoft Accounting Professional in November 2009, I decided to look at what was on the market, and being a cloud fan I looked at hosted solutions as well as the old-fashioned install-locally variety. After a few weeks of trial and error I chose Xero as my chosen platform.
The huge benefit I found with Xero is that it heavily automates these two time sinks: sales invoicing & reconciliation.
With the 'repeating receivables' invoicing function you can set up an unlimited amount of repeating invoices that will be emailed automatically each month (or whichever period you work with - quarterly, semi-annually, even yearly). This means that in my case all I need to do each month is add any new client invoices, and modify the invoices for any clients that change their monthly service plan. Xero then automatically emails the sales invoices out on the first of each month.
Reconciliation is the other big time eater and Xero will automatically open your bank's statement download (in my case I use Lloyds Bank's .QIF statement format). Xero then lists the statement details on the left side of the screen and on the right what it helpfully guesses to be the correlating transactions that you have already entered into the system. If you are like me and post the payables directly from the statement, then Xero allows you to enter the transactions right there on the same screen. Over time it learns what you have done, and pre-fills whatever it can.
These two things alone have saved me at least one day's bookkeeping costs each month so it's a significant saving.
Xero's support team are also very good, at least the few times I have needed to email them. I have asked them a few questions via email during the first few weeks of using the software, and each has been answered satisfactorily within a day or less, even over this holiday period.
So for my first few weeks of using Xero I give it a full five stars, or in the nomenclature of their website, a green smiley face - it almost makes accounts fun!
Reader Comments (1)
We are looking at Xero for clients so I am curious what support outside Xero would you welcome? I am thinking of an on-boarding service where we go back to the beginning of the accounting year so Xero learns for the client.