Xero

What Xero does

Xero is cloud accounting software, founded in New Zealand in 2006. It covers the everyday bookkeeping loop for small and mid-sized companies: issuing invoices, pulling in bank transactions, categorising them and reporting on the result. Because it runs in the browser, the accountant and the company work in the same file rather than exchanging exports.

Features

• Invoicing: create and send invoices and track what is still open.
• Bank feed: transactions are imported automatically through a bank connection and categorised.
• Reporting: detailed financial reports on the bookkeeping data.
• Multi-currency: support for companies that invoice or buy in more than one currency.
• Integrations: Hubdoc, Stripe, Shopify and HubSpot are among the connections named by the vendor.

Strengths

• Shared file: company and advisor work on the same data, which removes a reconciliation step.
• Cross-border: the multi-currency handling makes it workable for companies selling outside their home market.
• Ecosystem: the integrations cover the tools a small finance function usually already runs.

Limitations

• Tiered functionality: the more advanced features sit in the higher plans.
• Learning curve: teams without a bookkeeping background need time to get productive.
• German statutory work: for German payroll and tax-advisor handover, Xero is not the market default — that is DATEV.

Alternatives

• NetSuite – full ERP suite when accounting alone is no longer enough.
• DATEV – the German market standard for payroll and tax-advisor handover.

These entries are currently available in German only.

• QuickBooks – accounting and payroll for small and mid-sized businesses.
• Sage – finance and payroll software with a broad international footprint.