QuickBooks is a great bookkeeping solution for freelancers, small to medium businesses, and companies that want a full product suite. Its more complex interface and higher learning curve make it best suited to those with accounting experience or who are willing to hire an experienced accountant. Most bookkeepers are familiar with QuickBooks software, so finding someone to assist with your accounting needs is easy. On the other hand, Xero has more than double the integrations as Quickbooks, with over 1000 tools to add to your online accounting software. Link inventory and invoicing tools, and integrate with Gusto Payroll or Hubspot CRM. Yes, both have a fixed asset manager that allows you to track fixed assets and calculate depreciation.
QuickBooks Live for QuickBooks Online
The app has a built-in timer you can use to record time as you work, or you can use the location-based job tracker through the mobile app. Xero also allows you to create a project or job, track time to add to it and add details to invoices when you’re ready to bill clients. Xero also offers mobile receipt capture through its Xero Me mobile app (previously called the Xero Expenses app), though you’ll need to upgrade to the Established plan to claim expenses. The Xero Me app can track and enter mileage from business trips, and Xero offers a built-in integration with HubDoc to extract data from bank statements and financial documents and upload it into Xero. Unlike QuickBooks, Xero supports unlimited users and organizations for all accounts. It also offers a 30-day free trial so you can test drive the software before committing to a paid plan.
Best Small Business Accounting Software in 2024
A/P features include creating vendors and bills, recording purchase orders and converting them to bills, creating service items, and recording full or partial bill payments. QuickBooks Online takes the lead because it’s generally easier to use than Xero. While Xero is easier to set up, QuickBooks has a more intuitive and customizable dashboard and has time-saving features.
QuickBooks vs. Xero: Feature comparison
Wave Accounting is a free accounting solution for very small service-based businesses, contractors, freelancers and consultants. If you can’t justify paying for QuickBooks Online or Xero or they have too many features your business doesn’t need, Wave might be an ideal alternative. It has comparable invoicing features, but lacks an audit trail and doesn’t integrate with third-party apps. If you can’t justify the $99-per-month QuickBooks Online Plus plan, you won’t get inventory management, because QuickBooks Online’s lower-tier plans don’t come with it.
- At the end of the day, whether you choose Xero or QuickBooks Online, you’ll be using a top accounting software platform that will allow you to efficiently manage and streamline your accounting processes.
- It’s also a good fit if you want to integrate Gusto Payroll to your accounting platform.
- An accountant or bookkeeper can be useful set of hands to help with the accounting heavy lifting.
- QuickBooks Online has a range of product tiers to meet your business’s bookkeeping needs.
- Discover seamless app integrations for efficient accounting with Xero’s comprehensive accounting software.
Finally, QuickBooks Online Advanced is the most expensive, but also offers the greatest functionality. QuickBooks Online Advanced will cost $180 per month (again, the discount applies here). The QuickBooks Online Simple Start plan costs $25 per month, but QuickBooks currently offers a three-month 50% off promotion. All of this being said, however, in order to decide which option is best for your business, you’ll need to know more specifically what each software can offer.
Xero’s invoicing capabilities allow you to create and customize an invoice for clients and then accept credit card, debit card or bank transfer payments within the invoice itself. Account holders are able to customize online invoices to add a logo, accept payments instantly through the invoice, set automatic reminders for clients to pay and invoice directly from the Xero app. Xero processes payment through a payment gateway like Stripe, GoCardless and others. Keep in mind that these services charge a fee to process payments (usually around 2.9% plus 25 cents per transaction, though this varies by the payment processor). Another of the most notable ways in which this QuickBooks solution stands out when comparing Xero accounting vs. QuickBooks Online is with their tax tools. Although Xero includes sales tax software with all of their plans, they do not offer the same level of overall tax support as QuickBooks Online.
For instance, QuickBooks Online allows you to add an inventory item from the invoicing screen, something you can’t do with Xero. QuickBooks Online outclasses Xero in this category as it offers more useful features that aid in setting up the software. Xero took a hit for its lack of assisted onboarding support and new company wizard, but it does offer the ability to import beginning balances—a feature that QuickBooks Online massachusetts tax rates and rankings massachusetts taxes lacks.