Quickbooks is the baby of Intuit, an accounting giant. Born in the USA, this was developed way back in 1983, and today, it is the top player in the American market and has a market capture of about 85%.
Xero was developed by Rod Drury in New Zealand in 2006. It was awarded the best accounting software by Cloudswave Awards. It now serves more than 593,000 businesses in more than 100 countries.
Ease of Use – Quickbooks vs. Xero
The one feature that sets Xero apart from its competitors is its ease of use. The layout is designed innately and navigation is a breeze with Xero. Help guides and descriptions make it easier for a person without accounting knowledge to use the application effortlessly.
Quickbooks need to work on its application and make sure that it is easy for users to work on. There are some trivial defects in the application which hamper the efficient use of the application. Some redundant steps in navigation are often marked as a serious downside by end-users. It does not offer a comprehensive knowledge base which makes the matter even worse.
Reliability – Quickbooks vs. Xero
Xero wins big in this domain. When you are stuck with a bug in Xero, reps are available 24/7/365 to support you. This is completely missing with Quickbooks. People are available from Monday to Friday and for some time on Saturday. Quickbooks hence loses out on the reliability bus.
Moreover, Xero has a specialized support system covering phone, web, and mail support. All you need to do is send your contact number and your problem, and a service rep from Xero will call you within no time and solve your problem with ease.
With its unique knowledge base and video tutorials, users can solve problems themselves without being hassled. NO such support system exists in Quickbooks. This is a tough call in a SaaS apps cloud war. Downtime is negligible for both online accounting applications and is less than .05%, which is indeed a laudable effort.
Speed – Quickbooks vs. Xero
Given the easy access to dashboards, Xero is quick and fast as it could get. It is way too faster than Quickbooks; as it is easily available just with Internet access. Xero also has a unique matching transaction, which recommends where there is a mismatch between accounting entries. You would have to wade through a huge search option in Quickbooks to match your accounts.
Since these are cloud-based, information available is real-time. The hardcopy files can be clicked and sent to Xero files to get them documented. It definitely increases your speed in prepping your accounts while someone else does your documentation.
Features – Quickbooks vs. Xero
Xero gets copious features that enable it to spearhead the online accounting solutions –
You may seek help from accountants and other workforces who could render constructive advice to nurture your business. Multi-layer security offers peace of mind to users. Complex payroll requirements are rendered easy by integrating the application with
You could also design custom rules to perform complex transactions with much ease. Applying for leave requests is easier than before – employees can submit leave requests and view pays lips from their mobile while they are on the move. The dashboard is the king of the segment and you could view precisely who owes you the money and stay updated. One could also keep track of particular segments of your business.
At the heart of Xero lies an efficient inventory management system that helps the
Xero also boasts of forty reports which are configurable and come with comprehensive exports and snapshots. Invoice reminder is yet another feature worth mentioning.
Bookkeeping is rendered easy by Quickbooks and users could easily send invoices, manage expenditures and keep track of organization-related data. Creation of invoices is a breeze with Quickbooks – you could generate billing statements and reports easily. You could send precise bills to your clients on time.
Bills could be customized to include relevant company-related data. Memorizing bills is no longer a headache – memorized billing transaction feature helps Quickbooks to deliver the bills at specified recesses. You may also keep track of details like the status of bills.
The automatic Invoicing option helps to safeguard precision. The
Security – Quickbooks vs. Xero
When it comes to the security aspects, XERO triumphs over Quickbooks with its venerable range of security features like encryption of sensitive data, HTTPS backing, and the like. It is also compliant with the PCI-DSS standard, which is touted as the final word when it comes to security standards.
However, Quickbooks is deprived of the features mentioned above, which makes it perform at a hair below average security features. Quickbooks get good security features like SSL encryption and this online accounting application is subject to regular penetration testing which enables it to shine well against its rivals.
It also gets regular external security audits. Both Xero and Quickbooks need to implement multi-factor authentication options to prove their mettle when it comes to safety features.
Summary – Quickbooks vs. Xero
Although Quickbooks has a huge market base and almost a monopoly in this industry, Xero has tons of features to make it a tough competition in this line of business. Xero’s unique capabilities, ease of use, and support system, makes it the best choice for your business. It also comes free for starters.