I have been asked by a friend if Xero would be a good choice of software to use for his business. He has a friend who says its much easier to use compared to Sage which he currently uses.
I have no experience of Xero (but the website looks good) or any other cloud software but have seen Kashflow mentioned on the forum before, and not seen any negitive comments.
I also looked on the Bookkeeepers Network site but I cannot see any cloud software that has been reviewed as yet.
I know its a personal choice, but would Xero be suitable?
Generally I've been no great fan of cloud software but I'm slowly coming around to the idea.
have a look at this thread which discussed (even though quite breifly) Xero software :
http://www.book-keepers.org.uk/t41725236/xero/
Hope that it helps a little,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I would definitely recommend Xero, I use it for quite a few of my clients and it's really good. The only thing is that it is slower to input lots of invoices than Sage so if your colleague has a large number of inputting to do each month then it may not be right for him/her. It's very user friendly though, has some great reports and is easy to see at a glance via the Dashboard what is happening in your business.
If you are looking at other great cloud software, check out The Online Bookkeeper which is excllent software and only £15 per month. If you would like a free trial for 90 days let me know and I'll send you an invite to the offer!
Shamus, Thanks for link much appreciated - saved me looking.
Teresa, Thanks for giving me the main good and bad points about the software froma users view. It will be for 2-4 sales invoices per month and minimal expenses so Xero may be a good option. The dash board sounds interesting.
I just looked at the online bookkeeper software and it looks the same as Xero, is it Xero renamed for the local bookkeeper network or a different product entirely?
Glad my advice helped, if it's minimal transactions then software such as Xero would be perfect.
The Online Bookkeeper is very similar to Xero and Kashflow but it is specific to our company so you get more of a personal service in the form of help, advice and tips on using it if you needed to get up and running.
Just a thought for you, there's lots of great software out there so it's just a matter of which takes your fancy :)
Yes, Xero is pretty good. The dashboard is good and for small companies who don't have large invoice volumes then I would say it's a great option. Not the right choice for everyone but for 95% of small businesses I think it's a good bet.
It's great you're considering Xero. In terms of invoice entry you can also set up repeating invoices if they are roughly the same each month, or import them from a CSV file if you have a few to get started with. The Dashboard gives a great overview - shows a bank balance and recent movement plus invoices you're waiting to be paid or are waiting for you to pay. If you hook up an automated bank feed your statement data will arrive into Xero regularly and you'll be able to see on the Dashboard if any transactions have been through your bank account, and reconcile them in Xero.
If you need any further information from us, please feel free to ask.
Don't see why was this one flagged as Spam? It wasn't me that flagged it as it actually looks fine.
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
The online bookkeeper as a franchise offer either Kashflow or Xero
Any local bookkeeper franchise owner who wishes to look at alternatives to keep some of their clients books (keep local bookkeeper branded Xero/ Kashflow for your larger clients), also have a look at Arithmo. it's more focused at practices running their sole trader, partnerships and micro business clients books.
sorry, your going to need to explain the line "No sign of Catherine here" to me.
Sure that I'm being a bit thick this morning and I've missed something.
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Hi everyone - yes there really is a Catherine lurking here somewhere - I posted a response a couple of days ago but it got labelled spam then I couldn't see it again despite it saying I'd posted twice ... hmmm ... anyway - will see if I can remember what I wrote! It was just a couple of extra points on the Xero questions posed in case it helped with a decision to use our product :)
With regard to entering invoices, if they're basically the same each month, you might consider entering them as a repeating invoice. If the invoices are exactly the same you can have them automatically approved and emailed to the customer. If they need tweaking each time, you can have them save in draft and just update as required. Another option for entering a lot of invoices is to get them all onto a spreadsheet and import this as a CSV file into Xero.
The Dashboard is a great overview of your bank account movements and what invoices you're waiting on a payment for, or invoices that are due for you to pay. Also if you set up an automatic bank feed, each day when you log into Xero you'll see your bank Dashboard information automatically updated with the number of transactions that have been processed through your bank and you'll just need to reconcile them.
Here's some information from our Help Centre if you need more detailed information:
That feels like more than I wrote the other day - hope it's helpful!
By the way, I'm the Community Manager at Xero - I look after our Twitter account, Facebook page and contribute on various forums where people ask for help with Xero. Any questions - please feel free to ask me. Thanks!
Hi everyone - there really is a Catherine here - me! I work at Xero ... I've just tried to post again to answer some of the questions about Xero above but my post has been flagged as spam again and has gone for moderation! Not sure why ... I used the 'advanced' editor, and included a couple of links but otherwise it was quite a normal response I would've thought, not too sales-pitch or pushy, no graphics or uploaded files, no naughty words ... Hopefully it gets through moderation otherwise I'll try a much shorter answer with no links next time and see how we get on :)
The size of your responses are great, don't shorten them.
You may notice that I defended your original post above as I couldn't see anything at all wrong with it and it's always nice to have representatives of a variety of software vendors on the site espechially where their posts are as you have made yours.
It must be something being picked up automatically by the site about those embedded links.
I've checked all three of them and there's nothing that I can see that's amiss with them.
For anyone else reading this the links point to :
http://help.xero.com/#Accounts_AR_Repeating
http://help.xero.com/#Accounts_InvoiceImport
http://help.xero.com/#Payments_Banks
I really hope that these first few posts don't put you off the site.
I can only appologise that your greeting to our community has been such a rough initial ride for you.
My defence of the site is that just recently we have had a lot of first time poster spam attacks so the site is now a little more sensitive to embedded links than it has been in the past.
It may just be that the links are being flagged because you are new and once you've moved past Newbiestatus things will sort themselves out.
For now though probably best that rather than embedding the links you paste the path as I've done above with your links.
kindest regards,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
agree with Shamus, it's good to have many representatives from reputable software vendors: helps bookkeepers in making informed decisions on systems, most suitable for their clients books.
@Shaun Thanks for the explanation and I'm not put off at all :) I wondered if the links might be causing problems too.
Here goes again :) By way of explanation for the links I was suggesting in response to the thoughts about invoice entry that for regular customer invoices one idea might be to use Xero's repeating invoices. There's an option for invoices that are exactly the same each month to be automatically approved and emailed to the customer. Or if the invoices need tweaking each month, they can be automatically generated and saved as a draft ready for changes. Another idea for getting a lot of invoices into Xero might be to load them all into a spreadsheet and import it as a CSV.
And a comment on the Dashboard - it does give a cool graph-based picture of your bank account movements and invoices awaiting payment by your customer, or ones needing to be paid by you. If you can get an automatic feed from your bank account the Dashboard really comes alive because each day when you log in, any transactions processed by your bank will be updated on the Dashboard simply awaiting your reconciliation!
No links this time ... hope this has been helpful.
By the way, I'm the Community Manager at Xero - helping our customers and anyone wanting to know about Xero out there on forums, Twitter, Facebook and other social media chanels.
@Shaun Yaaay - last post worked & newbie status gone :)
@Dalbir Thanks for the welcome. Yes indeed I personally am based in New Zealand where our HQ and development team are. We've got sales and account managers and local specialists based in the UK and Australia as well. And in just a month I'll be relocating to San Francisco as Xero starts another office in the States.
Please accept my apology for the issues discussed above.
Over the past few months we have increased our spam protection on the forum due to an increasing number of attacks from spam-bots and spammers. Unfortunately this sometimes means that genuine posts are automatically flagged as spam, as happened in this instance.
I will keep a close eye on this issue to try and ensure this doesn't happen again.
Over the past few months we have increased our spam protection on the forum due to an increasing number of attacks from spam-bots and spammers. Unfortunately this sometimes means that genuine posts are automatically flagged as spam, as happened in this instance.
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Hi Steve
Just a thought, and I am no expert, so not sure if this is feasible, or will even work to stop spam bots.
Is it possible to incorporate on of those boxes where you copy in distorted characters into a box to prove you are a human being (not sure what they are called), when you join the forum?
Just a thought, and I am no expert, so not sure if this is feasible, or will even work to stop spam bots.
Is it possible to incorporate on of those boxes where you copy in distorted characters into a box to prove you are a human being (not sure what they are called), when you join the forum?
Bill
Hi Bill
Many thanks for the suggestion.
The verification method you mention is called 'Captcha'. I've just spoken to our IT provider and I'm pleased to report that based on your idea, our sign-up process for new members has been amended to include both Captcha and Email verification. This should hopefully reduce the amount of spammers and spam bots.
Again many thanks Bill for the great suggestion, don't know why my team and I didn't think about this one!
