Xero vs QuickBooks 2024 Comparison
When you log into your Xero dashboard, you’ll immediately see your team’s expenses and tracked time. This feature makes it incredibly easy to see which inputs you might need to adjust to cut business expenses. Xero offers more than 80 reports, including standard financial reports, and lets you add tracking categories to monitor performance in different areas of your business. You can generate traditional financial reports, but they aren’t available with all plans.
FreshBooks vs. Xero: Comparing Top Accounting Software Platforms
We also evaluated whether an electronic bill pay integration was available. We believe that it is easier to use and more intuitive than Xero, especially for freelancers and users with limited accounting knowledge. Xero is a more capable accounting software, but it has a learning curve. If you have an experienced accountant in your business, pick Xero, but if you intend to DIY accounting, FreshBooks is better. NerdWallet’s accounting software ratings favor products that are easy to use, reasonably priced, have a robust feature set and can grow with your business. The best accounting software received top marks when evaluated across 10 categories and more than 30 subcategories.
With FreshBooks, you’ll confidently create invoices, input expenses, and do your bookkeeping in half the time. And with the best customer support in the industry, disposal of fixed assets: how to record the journal entry it’s easy to see why Xero customers switched to FreshBooks. We recommend Xero for businesses looking to streamline their vendor payments, especially when you deal with many vendors.
- She uses her experience managing her own successful small business to write articles about software, small business tools, loans, credit cards and online banking.
- Xero also has robust file storage that lets you manage and share documents, bills, contracts and receipts on the cloud.
- Xero comes with built-in payroll capabilities, allowing users to handle payroll tasks directly without needing to rely on a third-party solution.
- FreshBooks doesn’t offer built-in payroll features and requires integration with Gusto for payroll services, which may involve additional costs.
- FreshBooks is a freelancer’s dream accounting software, as it comes with unlimited invoicing, estimates and time tracking.
- The larger your business is, the better equipped Xero becomes to meet your needs.
Bill Pay Features
FreshBooks doesn’t offer bank reconciliation with its least expensive option, FreshBooks construction worker benefits that make the job more appealing Lite. And while the software automatically suggests some transaction matches for you during the reconciliation process, you cannot create your own custom bank rules. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services.
All Xero plans come with accountant access, but FreshBooks’ least expensive option does not. In the same vein, FreshBooks does not provide audit trails for accountants. Audit trails show all changes within the software, who made them and when they were made to help accountants track down errors or unauthorized entries. If you’re in the market for accounting software, you might be feeling overwhelmed by all the options out there. While Xero and QuickBooks are wildly popular, they’re not the only options available. There are a number of alternative accounting software programs that can offer powerful features and a user-friendly interface.
Xero also includes unlimited users, whereas FreshBooks only provides access to multiple users for an additional monthly fee. This makes Xero a better choice for growing businesses that are constantly adding new employees. Unlike FreshBooks, however, Xero does not charge for additional users to access the software.
Pricing and plans
Least expensive plan lacks double-entry accounting reports, bank reconciliation and accountant access. Xero also offers two stand-alone apps — Xero Expenses and Xero Projects — for users on its Established plan. These apps allow you to capture photos for receipts, submit expense reports, track time, and attach billable expenses and time to individual projects. We especially like that FreshBooks includes in-house payment software that removes the friction of getting paid tax write off from invoices. Customers can click a button on an email invoice that brings them directly to a webpage where they can enter their credit card information.
QuickBooks is also better for businesses that need to track inventory, as it has built-in inventory management features. Xero also has inventory management, but it’s not one of its core functions. Each additional user costs $11 per month if you wish to grant access to more employees.