For any business, accounting is time-consuming, complicated, prone to mistakes, and boring. But, it is an important part of the business world. In such scenarios, companies rely upon cloud accounting tools. Although there are various options to select from, it can become difficult. So, we are going to do that on your behalf to help you have a better understanding. In this article, we will be comparing two of the most well-established tools, QuickBooks vs Xero.
Both QuickBooks and Xero all-inclusive and work wonders. However, they acquire different approaches. They come with their own pros and cons. So, we will take you through their similarities, dissimilarities, individuals features, and much more to determine the one that you wish to work with.
We will begin with the similar things that both the accounting tools offer.
QuickBooks Vs Xero: Common Features
- Quotes and Estimates – Produce and send Quotes and Estimates to your customer. If they accept the quote, you can simply convert it into an invoice for payment.
- Bills and Expenses – Record and store all of your business expenses, including one-off and recurring bills and expenses.
- Reconciliation – Reconcile all of your invoicing, expenses, payments, and more together with your checking account. This keeps everything in sync and will really help when it comes to managing your money and taxes.
- Invoicing – Quickly and easily produce and send customized invoices to your clients. You can also track overdue and paid invoices. This is one of the areas where you will save the most time using an online accounting app.
- Time-tracking – Track the time you spend on various projects and tasks, including hourly rates. Easily add times to your invoices and bill people quickly.
Managing the cash is merely one side of your business management tasks, but robust accounting software offers additional features.
QuickBooks
QuickBooks has pretty much every feature for a small and medium-sized business that could want out of accounting software. In spite of the fact that at the cost of being less beginner-friendly.
QuickBooks accounting software allows you to customize and send invoices, track and automatically log your expenses, generate reports, sort out your employee payroll. See an overview of taxes and even invite your accountant to work directly within your program to take even more pressure off you.
If you are looking into accounting software, it’s hard to get away from Intuit’s QuickBooks. It’s a mainstay on the market and has been for years. But it is the right choice for you.
Working
QuickBooks is the middle ground of the apps in the post. Also, it is not quite as beginner-friendly as FreshBooks. But, once you watch some of the help videos, it becomes easy to get started because of its slick design.
For the features that QuickBooks has, it does the best it can. When you are dealing with a full accounting suite, you are bound to be a little overwhelmed when using it for the first time. Especially if you are not an accountant or are inexperienced on the financial side of owning a business. Also, QuickBooks does the best it can to make sure that you are on your feet in no time
Features
- Connect to your Paypal, credit cards, bank, and other accounts.
- Automatic transaction import.
- Automatic calculations, transactions, and data organization.
- Keep records in accordance with FASB (Financial Accounting Standard Boards) for tax time.
- Access and automate reports and financial statements.
- Summaries for profitable customers, delinquent invoices, spending habits, and cost-saving.
- Online bill payments for clients.
- Track and schedule automatic bill pay.
- Snap and upload photos of business receipts.
- 24*7 chat support.
Xero
Xero has an almost similar feature set to QuickBooks. In spite of allowing you to give unlimited users access to your account instead of a maximum of five. So, naturally, this makes Xero a better choice for larger teams (small to mid-sized businesses).
They are so similar that there is very little more to say about Xero in particular or how these features work – everything is covered by QuickBooks entry.
As you research accounting software, you will encounter Xero. Its mission is to provide simple software for small business needs. And they supply all the features that your business may need for day-to-day operations.
Other Useful Resources:
How to Create a Company File in QuickBooks Desktop & Online
QuickBooks Install Diagnostic Tool- Fix QB Installation Errors
Working
Xero is a menace due to its features list and status as a full piece of accounting software. But unluckily, it does not fare as well as QuickBooks is getting you up to speed.
Xero’s design is great, but when you hover over the submenus for the first time, it is easy to get lost as you do not know where to start. This is not helped by the fact that Xero is totally web-based in that the entire page has to reload for each different section of the software, rather in QuickBooks where the top elements and sidebar preserve at all times.
Features
- Online payment option.
- Track inventory and manage stock.
- Payroll operations such as payroll, pay stubs, reports.
- Connect to your bank for easy transactions.
- Daily updates and easy bank reconciliation.
- Convenient customizable Xero dashboard.
- Pay bills.
- Record and manage receipts and expenses.
- Track projects.
- Professional quotes.
- Financial reports and budget.
- Online payment services like Stripe and Paypal.
- Purchase orders.
- Support multi-currencies.
- Sales tax computation.
- Manage fixed assets.
- 24*7 online support.
Comparing The Two
When it comes to QuickBooks vs Xero, both the setups take a bit of time. There is a little learning curve to either one because they are both very customizable. Though they have set up wizards to help, it may still be a little too much to get up and running as soon as possible.
Also, QuickBooks and Xero excel at helping small businesses by keeping track of financial details. Besides, their pricing is similar. But, if you are a freelancer, neither plan may make financial sense. They are based on the number of people or users under your employ. If you have neither, you may be paying more for perks you do not need.
Furthermore, as mentioned above, both QuickBooks and Xero offer similar capabilities when logging expenses, filing taxes and invoicing. Both of them are gear toward small businesses with employees. And if you’re self-employed, you may find these extra perks unnecessary.
Final Note
QuickBooks is a little harder to get up and running with, but with a few tutorials, you will have the best accounting software for small business. The main issue for preventing this app from expanding to larger businesses is its pricing model. It is already a little pricey. If you want to unlock all the features, there will be a rising monthly cost for extra employees on the payroll. This means that prices can quickly skyrocket.
Meanwhile, Xero is great for small to mid-sized businesses. Particularly for those who have a smaller number of clients at any given time. Although their pricing is more expensive in general and their cheapest plan limits you to five invoices and quotes.
We hope the QuickBooks vs Xero article helped you in making a decision. Nevertheless, you can go out and check these apps by yourself for a better experience.