USA Xero or Quickbooks?

[Steve Douglas]

Hi Everyone,

I am looking at moving my accounting software to the cloud and have narrowed my search to two companies: Quickbooks online and Xero. Does anyone have real world experience with both that can recommend either?

I've been using a very old version of quickbooks in my office so I was leaning more towards Quickbooks Online, however I have heard Xero is very good as well. I also will need to be able to recommend to clients/business owners which cloud accounting service to recommend so plan on using it myself and also recommending it.

Thanks,

Steve

 

[Steve-LevelUp]

Sadly, I have never used a cloud account system. Although I am a big fan of cloud computing, I have never been fully comfortable having my accounting data on the cloud. This forces you to continue to pay to access your data.

I'm biased on this, but QB desktop works just fine for me, and you can upgrade every couple of years without a fixed fee.

Beyond that, QB has a long track record, and I have heard more about it that Xero, but sadly, I do not have personal experience.

 

[Renuka Rana]

I agree with you both QuickBooks Online and Xero are equally good enough. But in my opinion, if you are going for QuickBooks, you should choose QuickBooks desktop over QuickBooks online because it has more features and offers better performance.

When you are using an earlier version of Quickbooks that is QuickBooks Desktop, then why to switch. To get the cloud features, you can host your QuickBooks on the cloud. In that way, you will not have to make any changes to the setup.

 

[Asha Kanta Sharma]

Quickbooks support sucks but I love Quickbooks over any other accounting software.

 

[techno-umesh]

Xero and QuickBooks Online are both powerful accounting software solutions for small businesses. However, when you compare features, QuickBooks Online is the stronger candidate, especially for business owners who prioritize scalability and the ability to loop in accountants. And if you want to gain deeper insight into the logistics behind your business as it grows, QuickBooks Online’s reporting capabilities scale up with each plan level.

Price - Xero	QuickBooks
Early: $12 per month. Growing: $34 per month. Established: $65 per month.	Simple Start: $25 per month. Essentials: $50 per month. Plus: $80 per month. Advanced: $180 per month.

Better For - Xero	QuickBooks
Businesses that need more than five users and self-employed people who don't need to send out more than 20 invoices per year	Businesses that plan to grow and want strong reporting capabilities

Maximum number of users. - Xero	QuickBooks
Unlimited	Simple Start: 1 user; 2 accounting firms. Essentials: 3 users; 2 accounting firms. Plus: 5 users; 2 accounting firms. Advanced: 25 users; 3 accounting firms.

Scalability - Xero	QuickBooks
Good - Xero’s Growing plan gives small businesses room to expand with the option of upgrading to the Established plan down the road.	Excellent -Advanced, customized reporting capabilities in higher-tier plans could be a big asset to experienced business owners interested in running more complicated reports down the road

Thanks