subject: 3 Online Accounting Software Options for Small Business [print this page] An upgrade to $34.95 per month gives you a host of other features including inventory tracking, automated banking (which allows you to download your bank transactions into your QB file), time tracking, industry comparisons and 3 simultaneous user access.
Payroll and credit card processing are available as add-ons and have to be purchased separately.
Either version allows a free trial and can be cancelled at any time.
Although the company is based in New Zealand, small businesses anywhere can use the software. The functionality is similar to Quickbooks except that he plan price differential is much smaller with Xero. The small plan at $19 a month allows for 5 customer and vendor transactions and 20 bank transactions per month which could be problematic for anyone who has more than 5 clients or customers. The medium and large plans at $29 and $39 per month, by comparison, allow for unlimited transactions. Also, unlike Quickbooks, Xero allows unlimited users for all it's plans and offers a multicurrency feature.
For small businesses whose need to track invoices, expenses, payables, receivables and bank balances, this seems like the ideal solution. For $10 a month, the user can enter unlimited transactions, create invoices, enter expenses, create financial reports and download their bank statements. User access is unlimited, and they support multicurrency transactions.
All three options provide a similar service, with some noteworthy differences. Quickbooks offers payroll, credit card add-ons as well as inventory tracking with their plus version, but does not allow for unlimited users or multicurrency transactions. Xero's medium plan (the small plan seems a little unrealistic for most small businesses) supports multicurrency and unlimited transactions, but is a twice as expensive as Quickbooks basic plan. Clarity is an extremely cost effective choice except that it does not support payroll or have an accompanying smartphone app. The choice, of course will depend on your requirements and what you are willing to spend. All versions provide a free trial, so it is absolutely worth it to try them out and assess which one you are most comfortable with.
3 Online Accounting Software Options for Small Business
