If you’re outside North America, you can access country-specific payroll as an add-on in some regions, including the UK. Xero offers three pricing tiers, ranging from $9 per month to $60 per month. That said, before you choose between Xero and QuickBooks, triple check that what is absorption costing your bank is supported! You can connect your bank account during the trial period to make sure it’s working 100%. We like that QuickBooks offers extensive features in each pricing package.

Plans start at $15 per month for up to 20 invoices, five bills, bank account reconciliation, receipt capture and short-term cash flow snapshots. Its $78-per-month plan also includes multiple currencies, project tracking, in-depth analytics and employee expense claims. All plans currently have a 95% off promotion for the first three months. Its standard features include creating invoices from the mobile app and customizing invoices with your company logo and branding. Like most platforms, you can also use QuickBooks to view invoice payment status and remind clients to pay their bills. Other standard features include one-click payments, recurring payment invoices, adding billable hours to invoices and converting estimates into invoices.

Another notable difference is that QuickBooks Online lets you upload your file of transactions, so you aren’t required to connect your bank account. With Xero, you have to connect your account to reconcile your transactions. QuickBooks Online came out on top for several features, ease of use, and customer support among others, but Xero wins in pricing. We’ll explain our Xero vs QuickBooks comparison findings in greater detail in the following sections.

Overall features

Yes, you can use Xero to track inventory, and the feature is available in all plans. In evaluating pricing, we considered the billing cycle (monthly is an invoice the same as a bill with definitions and examples or annual) and number of users. Note that fixed asset accounting isn’t part of our case study, so there are no scores. A Live Bookkeeper cannot begin cleaning up your past books until they receive the required supporting documentation, which your bookkeeper will request from you after your first meeting. Once your bookkeeper receives all the necessary documentation, they’ll typically complete your cleanup within 30 days.

Has robust reporting tools and report customization options, invoicing for an unlimited amount of clients, inventory tracking in higher tier plans, plus a capable mobile app. Has robust reporting tools and report customization options, basic inventory tracking in all plans and a capable mobile app; Early plan limits the number of invoices and bills. Robust feature set includes thorough record-keeping, comprehensive reporting, excellent invoicing and inventory management, plus a capable mobile app. Xero and QuickBooks Online are both powerful accounting software solutions for small businesses. However, when you compare features, QuickBooks Online inches ahead for its stronger feature set, ease of sharing with accountants and customer support.

Expense and mileage tracking

Xero scales beautifully, both in depth of functionality and user experience. When you start using Xero as a small business or early-stage startup, you know it’s going to support and evolve with you as your company grows. You can get started with QuickBooks Online from $25 per month as the lowest of three price plans. As we talked about earlier, QuickBooks is a great low-cost choice for freelancers and small businesses, while Xero is popular with growing startups. QuickBooks and Xero both have excellent dashboards that give you an easy glimpse of all of your main business metrics after logging in.

1. We were especially impressed with Xero’s built-in Gusto payroll integration.
2. The bank reconciliation module must also let users reconcile accounts with or without bank feeds for optimal ease of use.
3. The software must have tools to track time, record billable hours or expenses, send invoices for progress billings, or monitor project progress and performance.
4. The layout and simple design ensure that you can find what you need quickly and efficiently.
5. Track mileage, send invoices and get a snapshot of your business cash flow with both Xero and QuickBooks.

Small Business Resources

For more robust scheduling and PTO management, you’ll need to purchase the separate QuickBooks Time product in addition to the accounting software. 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. Wave Accounting is nonprofit business loans a free accounting solution for very small service-based businesses, contractors, freelancers and consultants.

You can do a lot with QuickBooks Online, but all the options may feel like information overload starting out. Integrates with more than 750 apps and offers live, in-house bookkeeping add-on. This doesn’t mean QuickBooks Online is the right choice for all businesses, though. Xero’s unlimited-users feature makes it a winner among larger businesses and well-established small businesses that require more than five users.