Xero accounting package

[hardwareguy]

Hi

Our accountant is giving us the hard sell on Xero. At the moment we use an Excel cashbook and lamentable bridging software (but it does work) to upload to HMRC.

I can see that there would be benefits to using Xero but I can also see a great many negative reviews on Trustpilot and want to make sure we don't get burned.

People moan about failing or faulty bank feeds, Xero's lack of good support, slow interface, missing navigation bars from time to time and that they believe their accountant missold them the software etc etc.
In the interests of balance others have also said the support person they spoke to at Xero was brilliant and understood their issue instantly, that Xero is infinitely better than what they were using before etc.

I would love some anecdotal thoughts from anyone who is using Xero either unhappily or happily. We are a small-medium sized business of about 10 employees with turnover of about £500,000. At the moment we pay £1,300 a year in accountancy fees but our fees would rise dramatically to nearer £3K if went with Xero due to all the training and support our accountant wants to sell us.

Thanks!

 

[Alison Moore]

Wow - an that's quite a cost increase just to change to a new program that suits your accountant.

 

[NickGrogan]

Xero is fine, better than excel or FreeAgent.

But more than doubling fees, for something which is going to help him? More like a reduction in fees.

You won't need much training and Xero provide a lot of online training, videos, webinars, etc.

Change the accounting package and accountants.

 

[mattk]

What are you going to be using Xero for? Does the £1,300 a year in accountancy fees include payroll, as that is very cheap.

I use Xero for invoicing, VAT and payroll and have never experienced any of the problems described, although I've never needed to use support - the application is intuitive enough IMO.

 

[NickGrogan]

I'd get Xero for Dummies its about £12 and will give you a good idea of what it can / can't do.

I think they do free trials too, so you can always test it out before jumping in.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

People moan about failing or faulty bank feeds, Xero's lack of good support, slow interface, missing navigation bars

Well, you don't use these at the moment, so what's the issue? When you have 1.4 million users, you are bound to get a few unhappy people!

Ask your accountant for a quote without the training. Assuming you will be doing the data entry into a format that they like to work with, I would expect the costs to be, at worst, about the same! If there is an extra charge, it might be for Xero access, but the accountant will be getting a better deal than you going direct.

It is also a good time to speak to a few different accountants, just to review the benefits and value you are getting from your current one.

 

[Alan]

Xero is fine but I don't get why your fees go up, if you are using a better system than a spreadsheet. It should make things simpler and less mistakes so apart from the monthly costs it should make the accounting fees go down.

I actively use Xero, and whilst it is not quite as 'user friendly' as Quickbooks or Kashflow, it isn't exactly difficult to work out how todo things with it.

 

[CHUKTC]

If you do any overseas trading - imports or exports or supply services overseas beware. There software cannot cope with imputing import (C79) VAT with out using a fudge and is totally unable to cope with import VAT you may charge to your customers.

Our accountant was keen for us to use it - we took a free trial and quickly came unstuck. Zero are aware of the problem (there is a lot on their chat pages about this) and have been promising to fix it for over 3 years - no sign of a fix yet. Because of this we did not sign up - accountant not happy!

 

[Mike Parrish]

We used to use Sage (for over 20 years) and moved to Xero last year. Our company is about half as big again as yours, but we find Xero to be brilliant. Very easy to use for all bookkeeping and Payroll aspects (we have 7 people using various parts of it most of the day every day). There are some weak areas, but they have not been show stoppers for us (there are lots of plugin apps that can fill the gaps).
Your costs should not escalate that much - you don't need a huge amount of training or setup input (it's easy). Our accountancy partner provided excellent advice and assistance in migrating our accounts over and provides the software access for us at a discounted rate (They are a Xero premium partner)s. Our costs for accountancy services and software access when combined have actually come down.
I'm not saying that Xero is perfect for everyone (and there are plenty of accountancy packages out there to choose from - cloud, SaaS, desktop, etc), but for us it has been fantastic.

 

[SillyBill]

I had an accountant try and push me onto Xero for a new business we launched in Jan. I did consider it as heard great things about its ease of use and functionality but ultimately decided against it. Our other (larger) companies use SAGE and I decided it was better to have one software type that we are all familiar with and is consistent. I also (perhaps unfairly) have a view of Xero that is best for small to micro businesses. So ideal software for when the business is small but I don't start a business with the intention of it staying small. And changing systems/software for a sizeable outfit is an absolute PITA in my experience. So it is a case of running with SAGE for me on a business at a size where it doesn't need it, costs more but taking a longer term view. We'll see how that goes...

 

[David White]

Xero is a nice platform and we've been using it now for a while but those costs seem pretty extreme. I'm not sure why you would need training when you can access lots online for free.