Xero vs QuickBooks 2024 Comparison
See how Xero helps make it easy for small businesses to stay on top of their finances, so they can focus on doing what they love. Meanwhile, Xero offers financial accounting for local and state school systems certification programs for bookkeepers and CPAs. You can hire independent Xero Advisors or integrate with Bookkeeper360 to get bookkeeping assistance.
Features: Xero Wins
It excels at invoicing, expense tracking, and time management. Xero offers more than 80 reports, including standard financial reports, and lets you add tracking categories to monitor performance in different areas of your business. In comparison, FreshBooks offers fairly interest rate risk between long-term and short-term bonds basic reporting tools. You can generate traditional financial reports, but they aren’t available with all plans. You’ll need the Plus plan to access a general ledger, trial balance or chart of accounts and the Premium plan to create any accounts payable reports.
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Its users need to integrate these services using Bench Accounting. Arguably, the smallest of small businesses benefit the most from expense tracking, so it’s downright bizarre that Xero doesn’t include it. Eric is an accounting and bookkeeping expert for Fit Small Business. He has a CPA license in the Philippines and a BS in Accountancy graduate at Silliman University.
FreshBooks is an easy-to-use accounting and invoice cloud platform popular among small businesses with clients in over 160 countries. The software enables the accounting of enterprises and self-employed with a wide array of features including tax tools, visibility and reports. Easy-to-use invoicing, payments, project management, accounting features, and so much more, is why over 30 million businesses in 160+ countries have used FreshBooks. For one thing, it’s hard to maintain balanced books if you aren’t tracking expenses alongside income. For another, many small-business owners rely on end-of-year tax write-offs to finance major purchases or keep their business in the black for another year.
Talk to your accountant and start a free trial to see how easy it is to work together. And if you need a hand our phone support with a live rep extends to both you and your accountant with no additional fees. FreshBooks is a super-easy-to-use accounting software built specifically for small business owners, letting you easily do everything yourself. However, when it comes to using all the tools available to you as a small business owner, your accountant should definitely be part of your toolbox. The safety of your private data is our top priority, that’s why it’s protected by 256-bit SSL encryption—the gold standard in internet security. You can even connect your bank accounts for automatic bank reconciliation trusting your data will always be private and secure.
Using straightforward dashboards and reports, companies benefit from accurate and valuable information. From centralized dashboards to reports like profit and loss, paid taxes and more, FreshBooks offers several reporting tools. With plans starting at $15 a month, FreshBooks is well-suited for freelancers, solopreneurs, and small-business owners alike. It’s not required, but it can help — and there are free and low-cost solutions.
Xero also offers two stand-alone apps — Xero Expenses and Xero Projects — for users on its Established plan. These apps allow you to capture photos for receipts, submit expense reports, track time, and attach billable expenses and time to individual projects. While FreshBooks has a live chat option for sales inquiries, you have to send an email or request a phone call for customer support. ET, so if you’re having a late-night issue trying to sort out an invoice, you’ll have to wait until morning for in-person help.
Xero and QuickBooks are two the of most popular accounting software solutions for small businesses looking to keep track of finances. While the two both offer similar features, such as tax management, financial reports, integrated payroll, inventory and file storage, the two are not without their differences. Forbes Advisor compared Xero vs. QuickBooks when it comes to the key features, pricing, customer service and reviews to help you decide which is right for your business. Xero is a cloud-based accounting software platform available to small and medium-sized businesses in over 180 countries. The company provides features and tools for businesses, accountants and bookkeepers to pay bills, claim expenses, make bank connections and more.
If you just need something to track your cashflow, look for a platform with fewer features and an appealing interface. If you want to add multiple users to your accounting software, Xero is likely a better choice than FreshBooks because it accommodates unlimited users in all plans. You can add new users via email and assign them one of seven different user roles, including “read only” and “advisor” access. If you want to further customize a user profile, you can give users additional permissions to particular features, like reports, projects and new expenses.
In Xero, you can view the platform as a demo company with pre-recorded data, which makes it far easier to see how the platform will look and operate when you input your own business’s data. There’s a reason FreshBooks made it on Zapier’s list of the best self-employed accounting software, while Xero made it on the list of the best accounting software for bigger businesses. You are charged an additional month beyond your cancelation date.
Many FreshBooks customers have service-based businesses that have them constantly on the go. And FreshBooks is a unique accounting software program in that it allows you to bring your software along with you while serving billable clients. If you’re not a fan of manual entry, Clients, Expenses, and Items can be imported by you with the steps below. For Taxes, you can email our excellent customer support the details below and we’ll take care of it for you. Xero has some of the worst customer service we have ever experienced, particularly for a company of their size. The entire premise of Xero is cloud-based accounting, but it feels like traveling back in time 25 years when trying to get anything done with them.
Learn more about our full process and see who our partners are here. Business News Daily provides resources, advice and product reviews to drive business growth. Our mission is to equip business owners with the knowledge and confidence to make informed decisions. As part of that, we recommend products and services for their success. That said, Xero makes up for its user-friendliness shortcomings through tutorial videos and a demo company feature.
FreshBooks is better geared toward freelancers and very small businesses that need to send a lot of invoices to clients. Though they have different functionalities, both made our list of the best accounting software. Xero limits users to 20 invoices per month on its basic plan while its other two plans offer unlimited invoicing access. Both FreshBooks and Xero offer online services and are cloud-based accounting software that can be used on the go. Customer support is essential for the user experience of business owners and freelancers alike.
- In contrast, QuickBooks Online builds user limits into each plan.
- While FreshBooks includes bills as part of its Expense dashboard, Xero has a unique centralized bill dashboard that was recently launched by the company.
- For instance, since Xero only includes project tracking with its most expensive plan, it’s a better pick for product-based freelancers and businesses than for service-based business owners.
When choosing software vendors you need to prioritize the one that fits your business needs. Don’t let the amount of data tied up in your current accounting software stop you from finding the right fit for you and your business. With Easy Switch, our specialists will handle the heavy lifting, moving all your important info (like expenses, invoices, and client details) from Xero to FreshBooks.
After the 4-month promotional period, you will be billed at full price for the plan you have selected. Like several competitors, Xero provides tools to customize the look and feel of your invoices. It’s full of user guides, help articles and other learning tools so you can hopefully find answers to your questions faster.
Xero and FreshBooks are just among many accounting software solutions that can be used to manage your e-commerce business and other businesses. Other great options you could try out include QuickBooks online, Zoho Books, and Stripe. FreshBooks offers almost the exact same integration features as Xero including offering developers APIs and integrating with Zapier for more add-on access. Where it falls behind is its original integration options as it grants about 100 integration to third-party apps. Track mileage, send invoices and get a snapshot of your business cash flow with both Xero and QuickBooks.
Now let’s look at the features and functionality of both accounting services to determine which fits you best. Xero’s data revealed sales volatility between April and June, rising +8.9% y/y (year-on-year) in April due to Easter non-trading days largely falling in March this year. However, sales were more muted in May, with only a 1.3% y/y increase, before falling 5.2% y/y in June. More than 750 app integrations, including live, in-house bookkeeping.
Xero’s difficulty is average for someone who has been using accounting software programs for quite some time. However, first-time users might find a little bit of a learning curve. We believe that it is easier to use and more intuitive than Xero, especially for freelancers and users with limited accounting knowledge. Xero is a more capable accounting software, but it has a learning curve. If you have an experienced accountant in your business, pick Xero, but if you intend to DIY accounting, FreshBooks is better. You’ll find both FreshBooks and Xero useful if you’re a service-based business that works on projects or bills clients by the hour.
Whether you want to accept online credit card payments, set up bank transfers, or get paid through FreshBooks Payments, you can easily set up the method you prefer. You can also set up different payment methods for different clients, depending on what is the form 2553 for your business what suits them best. FreshBooks and Xero offer easy-to-use software to send invoices, maintain your business’s books, and perform other accounting functions. Both feature mobile apps and sync with a variety of third-party business applications.