VIDEO: Xero Accounting Software Review

This review video is for Xero. Xero is a cloud accounting software for small businesses. It’s intention is to make accounting simple for small business owners, and save time. This review video is brought to you by TechnologyAdvice, as part of our mission to educate, advise, and connect buyers and sellers of business technology. Xero is an easy to use platform that eliminates the need to manually enter data for bank transactions, makes invoice creation a breeze, and paying bills easy with just a few clicks.

When you first log in you will open to the dashboard which you can customize to include the snapshots of modules you want readily available. To add additional modules, scroll to the bottom and click “Edit Dashboard.” From here you can show or hide modules of your choice. To navigate to the different modules you can use the clickable modules on the dashboard, or use the menu at the top. Under Accounts you can add bank accounts, create invoices under the sales module, record purchases, and write, print and manage checks.

Xero is very easy to use, to create an invoice you just click “New” include all the required information, and click save and submit for approval. Payroll can also be managed easily within Xero. Setting up payroll is easy. You first enter your company information…. followed by your pay schedule... then enter all your employee information... set up your tax requirements... and finally the accounts in which you will pay your employees…. From here your payroll can be managed with timesheets and scheduled payroll runs.

Reporting is a breeze in Xero. When you navigate to Reports on the top menu you are presented with several options. You can choose “All reports,” which gives you a quick link to all the different kinds of reports you can run. You can also click on a specific area, like Business performance or Balance Sheets. Additional functions include the ability to link bank accounts for your various banking needs. A tracking system for your inventory. And the ability to track depreciation on fixed assets.

Xero has a free 30 day trial which you can get a feel for. After those 30 days you will need to purchase one of of three plans. Starter, Standard, and Premium. The difference between starter and standard comes down to limitations. Starter limits you to 5 invoices per month, 5 bills per month, and 20 reconcile bank transactions. It also does not include payroll options. The difference between standard and premium is the number of employees you can register with payroll.

In standard, you can have 5 employees. With Premium you can have up to 10 employees, but you can also use multiple currencies. A limitation we discovered while reviewing Xero is customizable Dashboard. We found that there weren’t as many options available as we expected. There were about 5 modules that you could load, but you couldn’t customize each module’s display as needed. An additional limitations, and more of an annoyance, we discovered is with new contacts.

If you are creating a new invoice, you are given the option to create a new contact when filling out the form. This will save it in your contacts, but you will need to go back and fill out additional details later as only the contact name is updated. In Summary Assembla helps teams Get an bird’s eye view of all accounting functions in the dashboard Manage invoices, payroll and inventory all in one location Run reports easily. To find out more about Xero or other Accountingt software, check out our website, TechnologyAdvice.com, where we can help you find the best technology for your business.