Best in Multi-currency accounting for SMB

Xero was the best choice back in 2015 (when no one gave multi-currency) and still is in 2021 (when there are some who do). I have now added another company to Xero and cannot imagine shifting to another platform....ever.

Pros

With most clients abroads, we find its best to bill them in their local currency. Luckily for us, Xero is there to help sort our books out and keep them in order. It integrates with many bank feeds & popular wallets/fintechs like PayPal, Payoneer & TransferWise so accounts are upto date - always. Another feature we really use is their tracking fields. Xero allows users to setup 2 tracking fields that can be added to invoices, expenses, bills and assigned to each line. This helps us keep track of project based work and has been our way since before Xero ventured into Project based accounting (that users need to pay additional fee for) It also integrates with online payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe, GoCardless, and a few others; thus payments are a breeze for clients. As a non-accountant, Xero is easy to use even when you get into all the features it provides.

Cons

They have made some changes to their UI esp where invoices and expenses are concerned. Luckily for older users, expenses are still free however, for new users it isnt and each person filing expenses on it needs to pay a small fee. I think it should be free for a small number of users (atleast 2) and then charged.

Helpful, user friendly and intuitive accounts software

I was reluctant to pay the extra costs to move to Xero from my previous cheaper package but I am more than happy that I finally made the switch. It is a fraction of the cost of having a book-keeper to pay and I feel so much more confident that my accounts are working correctly. The option of additional plugins aid the automation for syncing with software such as woocommerce and amazon, ebay etc. It is a shame that they are additional costs but I would prefer that I had the option to integrate than not, and they are great time savers, which is the biggest help for small business owners.

Pros

Xero has a lot of automated features that make the process of accounts preparation easy and reliable. The bank feeds work smoothly and it is easy to set up rules to make the process automated on regular transactions - just a click to confirm entry. I have been able to integrate woocommerce, amazon and ebay transactions to ensure I am correctly treating VAT and International orders and purchases correctly.

Cons

As with any new accountancy software, there is a bit of technical detail to get your head around but that is probably to be expected. There are good help articles that are useful for the set up phase.

Good - But With Issues

Mostly good apart from the above which really grate with me. They don't seem to be developing the core product at all. It has barely changed in my 4 years of usage.

Pros

Easy to use for non-accountants. Inexpensive.

Cons

Invoices, purchase orders etc are not sent out from your own email address but from messaging-service @post.xero.com. This looks unprofessional and spammy, I have had customers reply by copying and pasting that email address and it's binned by Xero. You can't format email text in any way either. No bold, no italics - nothing! The inventory (products and services) listings cannot be accessed by administration staff unless given full access to financial reports. So the accountant or business owner has to make small modifications to the inventory even though they are not familiar with product descriptions, prices etc. This is very poor.

Easy to deploy and use providing you have basic book-keeping knowledge

Solid and simple cloud accounting solution that is easy to navigate and customise. Great that our external accountants and legal support can access online as they need. Seems to be continuously evolving and its reassuring to see ongoing development of the product.

Pros

Customisable dashboard is a time saver and ability to customise templates helps with consistency for our company branding. Customisation of user permissions means the bonus of staff being able to enter their own expenses which is a further time saver. Being able to work across multiple currencies now is a plus, albeit I wish we could manually adjust exchange rates being used.

Cons

Many advanced features that are standard for longer established accounting software solutions are available, but as "bolt on" packages, so costs can escalate quickly if you need full "bells and whistles". Customer service response can be very slow compared to other cloud software providers we use - in the beginning they were responsive for engagement but over time they're clearly pushing all customers towards getting answers from their user community and/or through the Q&A section. I appreciate that customer service probably don't want to be wasting time with queries better addressed by professional book-keepers or accountants, but in our instance, as "advanced users", our customer service queries tend to be related to technical challenges with the product. It would be great of Xero could analyse the types of queries coming from their customers and perhaps have a priority helpline on offer for "low maintenance" subscribers.

Xero for Business

I am happy, can be connected with my clients all the time, can prepare reports anywhere, anytime. I think the price for South Africa is a bit high

Pros

I like the product is easy to use, no need high knowledge of accounting, the person who never was doing accounting can easily manage this product

Cons

there is still missing a few things as inventory shall be a bit changed as people with two inventories in different places can not have two storages, there are few things that missing and can make it easier to work with