At Xipster, we understand how complex modern business accounting can get. With so many payment methods and vendors, it can be hard to keep track of it all. Thankfully, there are several software products our solution integrates with that can help you regain control of your business’ accounting.
QuickBooks and Xero are two of the industry’s leading cloud accounting software applications, and have each built up a substantial reputation that reflect their robust features. But which popular accounting software should you choose? Keep scrolling to find out how they compare, from user interface and financial tracking features to additional features.
User Interface
Both QuickBooks and Xero feature a centralized dashboard with excellent overviews of expenses, account balances, invoices and more. However, QuickBooks’ dashboard is a bit more robust than Xero’s, with several different types of colourful graphs displaying information across the screen. It does an exceptional job of displaying all of the most important information at a glance.
Xero takes a more minimalistic approach to its user interface. Its dashboard offers a similar account overview, with an easy-to-navigate interface that uses bar and line graphs in the brand’s blue and white colour scheme.
Managing Income & Expenses
QuickBooks and Xero offer direct integration with most major banks, making it easy to track incoming and outgoing expenses across multiple accounts. For income management, both tools allow businesses to accept online payments, send reminders and automatically track sales tax.
They also offer similar ways of storing, tracking and paying bills directly in their app. Each service provides a detailed overview of upcoming payments and their status, with the ability to set reminders and even schedule payments to ensure vendors are always paid on time.
Xero and QuickBooks also make managing business expenses quite easy, allowing employees to directly submit expenses to the application. You can capture receipts directly in their app, which are automatically matched to bank transactions. You can also use the app to track mileage, with options for manually entering mileage or automatically tracking through the phone’s GPS.
QuickBooks includes receipt capture as part of all of their plans, with employee expense management being part of their Advanced plan. Xero offers expense management as an add-on charge per user per month, which is needed for standard receipt capture as well.
Running Reports
Running reports is an essential way for businesses to stay on top of their finances and plan accordingly for the future, which is why Xipster offers dynamic financial reporting to all users. This can be supported by QuickBooks and Xero, which both offers additional in-depth financial reports.
These reports can be customized to fit precise parameters and accurately compare budgeted projections to actual data. Both applications can export reports as a PDF, so you can easily share with your employees or investors at the next meeting.
Xero’s reporting options are quite solid but QuickBooks offers more robust reporting options on their Advanced plan, including a fair amount of management reports.
Asset Management & Payroll
Each solution offers more features than your basic accounting, beginning with inventory management. Xero makes this feature available on all of their plans, while QuickBooks requires a Plus or Advanced plan subscription.
However, QuickBooks adds onto this upgrade by providing a wide range of automation options such as low-inventory notifications and location tracking. Xero also offers a fixed asset manager that tracks the value of machinery and equipment, calculating its depreciation. QuickBooks offers a deprecation calculator as well, but only in their desktop app, which is a separate subscription.
QuickBooks and Xero both offer add-ons for built-in project-tracking and time-tracking to help keep employees organized and working efficiently. While both integrate with third-party payroll managers, QuickBooks offers its own advanced payroll solution.
Available for an extra monthly fee, QuickBooks Payroll can set pay schedules, automatically calculate tax forms and gives employees access to their paystubs. It syncs with QuickBooks Time to make a business’ payroll as accurate as possible.
Integrations
Both QuickBooks and Xero boast an impressive number of business software integrations, such as Xipster. QuickBooks offers over 750 integrations in addition to their own add-on services such as QuickBooks Payroll and QuickBooks Time.
Xero offers even more options, with an astounding 1,000+ integrations available to businesses. Both of these services integrate with CRM tools, e-commerce programs, inventory managers and more.
Which to Choose
So which accounting software should you choose? QuickBooks boasts more features at its lower plan, and by limiting the number of users a business can have, QuickBooks is better suited for businesses that outsource their accounting or have teams of under 25 users who need access to their accounting software. This is especially the case in North America, where QuickBooks is more popular.
As for Xero, with its lower entry cost and unlimited users, it is well-suited for startups and small businesses with an in-house team of bookkeepers. It also suits newer companies with its intuitive minimalist interface. Xero is more popular in Europe and New Zealand, so keep that in mind if your business is located in those regions.
Whichever solution you choose, both QuickBooks and Xero integrate seamlessly with Xipster to fully automate your financial processes. Xipster allows your business to get paid faster, automates personalized customer experiences, executes effective text marketing campaigns and more while painlessly blending into your workflow. Click here to take your business to the next level with Xipster.