We're coming up on 10 years using Xero as a firm and it has been fantastic for us and our clients. I love it! Quickbooks and Sage are terrible in my opinion and their support is dreadful too.
Though I agree they are trying too much in terms of add ons and would be better focusing on the core product as it is, there is no need for their analytics suite for example which I assume must have cost a lot in terms of R&D. This story is the same as a lot of big tech firms, Google, Facebook etc that have cut jobs as the growth they had predicted isn't happening due to the global economy downturn.
Xero is still great software for SME's and will continue to be for £28+vat p/m it's not super expensive really for what it does.
I concur with that, I remember reading Richard Rumelt's fantastic book "good strategy bad strategy " and "good strategy is more about what you don't do than what you do ". By investing in all these sub standard apps/modules they need to increase the subscription and dilute the greatness of the core product.
The analytics module they brought out, a client of ours reviewed it and said it was poor. Although you need to pay £5 p/m extra to use it they've used time & resources developing this.
How about just don't waste time at this and let other vendors develop better software focused on this - Syft, Fathom etc
Payroll is terrible IMO purely for basic function only and its been there for 5+ years. They'd be better not doing these side projects & reduce the subscription & I'd say then they could mop up with more users (though I've done no market research on this, just my intuition).
Don't get me wrong still love Xero and the values it has as a company, I'm very grateful for it as it makes the work a lot more interesting and allows us to help clients a lot more. We also won Xero NI partner of the year in 2015 and that is one of the proudest achievements in my career.
But this year I'm definitely feeling JOMO (joy of missing out) on Xerocon having been an avid attender in the years pre Covid.
Let's see what happens anyway. Will be really interesting to hear what announcements come of out Xerocon!
My experience of QBO is it's awful and their support is terrible also. To me it's way behind Xero in terms of ease of use, the UI is much better & Xero has lots more better features and a far better platform for Xero partners. Just a much bigger marketing budget it looks like to me with QBO.
I remember using Qbooks desktop just starting out in practice 17 years ago and it was great at that point so strange to see it not being discontinued!
Great article Lucy. My personal favourite moment of hilarity during the lockdown was when I said to my daughter would she like furlough on her toast LOL! no "peanut butter" she said. As it was the buzz word day in day out my brain was on auto pilot it seems.
Last week as a treat to myself I went to a spa on my own for 3 hours, no phone, a good book and pure bliss!
I'm with you all the way in appreciating what you have in life and constantly striving for a better balance, not just thinking growth, growth, growth all the time as is the mantra. A great book on this called Company of One by Paul Jarvis, really recommend it.
I read a great book "Essentialism" by Greg McKeown, really recommend it to anyone suffering from overwhelm & stress to help you get some ideas on figuring out what is essential in your life and business.
I'm with you Mark, MTD is great and online software is great for clients and them getting their lives back & being more productive! Since we have went onto Xero since 2013 it's amazing what we can do now, compared to what we did before.
Having listened to Sharon at the Xerocon 2015 talk, you can see that she is a straight talking, down to earth person and there's no wonder that has translated well into a really good accountancy practice.
Great lessons there for a lot of us in the small/medium size practice arena.
Thanks for the article, well researched and helpful comments. I'd put myself in the Xero camp, we're big fans of it with the number one reason being it's easy to use, it's easy to demo to clients and clients have responded really well to it with is the most important thing, it's difficult for them to make mistakes with the bank feed feature also which helps us and them a great deal. We used Kashflow for a few years but got very frustrated with it and not being able to implement any real new features, particularly the multi currency bank accounts, this was a major problem for us being based in Northern Ireland.
But there is so many options now I echo the thoughts of Paul, much better to put your flag in one or two camps, 3 max on what you will recommend & offer to clients than to try to become experts in them all. We've a few clients using Quickbooks online so will focus on this and Xero.
The support Xero has given us too has been great, with an account manager coming out to see us in person which I couldn't see any of the other software providers bothering to do, but meant a lot to us.
I attend two networking breakfast groups in two different cities as I have clients in each city and am keen to add more. I have taken on a few great clients through these groups whom I never would have met only for someone putting me in touch with them. So I can say yes that it is a lot of work but I find that these groups will prove more fruitful in terms of getting leads than if I were to devote that time to online marketing. Perhaps it is because face to face networking is more effective for accountants I believe.
But it is ultimately about trust as you say, do people believe what you are saying? do they find you credible? What are you offering that is different or better than the rest?
My answers
We're coming up on 10 years using Xero as a firm and it has been fantastic for us and our clients. I love it! Quickbooks and Sage are terrible in my opinion and their support is dreadful too.
Though I agree they are trying too much in terms of add ons and would be better focusing on the core product as it is, there is no need for their analytics suite for example which I assume must have cost a lot in terms of R&D. This story is the same as a lot of big tech firms, Google, Facebook etc that have cut jobs as the growth they had predicted isn't happening due to the global economy downturn.
Xero is still great software for SME's and will continue to be for £28+vat p/m it's not super expensive really for what it does.
I concur with that, I remember reading Richard Rumelt's fantastic book "good strategy bad strategy " and "good strategy is more about what you don't do than what you do ". By investing in all these sub standard apps/modules they need to increase the subscription and dilute the greatness of the core product.
The analytics module they brought out, a client of ours reviewed it and said it was poor. Although you need to pay £5 p/m extra to use it they've used time & resources developing this.
How about just don't waste time at this and let other vendors develop better software focused on this - Syft, Fathom etc
Payroll is terrible IMO purely for basic function only and its been there for 5+ years. They'd be better not doing these side projects & reduce the subscription & I'd say then they could mop up with more users (though I've done no market research on this, just my intuition).
Don't get me wrong still love Xero and the values it has as a company, I'm very grateful for it as it makes the work a lot more interesting and allows us to help clients a lot more. We also won Xero NI partner of the year in 2015 and that is one of the proudest achievements in my career.
But this year I'm definitely feeling JOMO (joy of missing out) on Xerocon having been an avid attender in the years pre Covid.
Let's see what happens anyway. Will be really interesting to hear what announcements come of out Xerocon!
My experience of QBO is it's awful and their support is terrible also. To me it's way behind Xero in terms of ease of use, the UI is much better & Xero has lots more better features and a far better platform for Xero partners. Just a much bigger marketing budget it looks like to me with QBO.
I remember using Qbooks desktop just starting out in practice 17 years ago and it was great at that point so strange to see it not being discontinued!
Great article Lucy. My personal favourite moment of hilarity during the lockdown was when I said to my daughter would she like furlough on her toast LOL! no "peanut butter" she said. As it was the buzz word day in day out my brain was on auto pilot it seems.
Last week as a treat to myself I went to a spa on my own for 3 hours, no phone, a good book and pure bliss!
I'm with you all the way in appreciating what you have in life and constantly striving for a better balance, not just thinking growth, growth, growth all the time as is the mantra. A great book on this called Company of One by Paul Jarvis, really recommend it.
Sad to hear Nick.
I read a great book "Essentialism" by Greg McKeown, really recommend it to anyone suffering from overwhelm & stress to help you get some ideas on figuring out what is essential in your life and business.
I'm with you Mark, MTD is great and online software is great for clients and them getting their lives back & being more productive! Since we have went onto Xero since 2013 it's amazing what we can do now, compared to what we did before.
Having listened to Sharon at the Xerocon 2015 talk, you can see that she is a straight talking, down to earth person and there's no wonder that has translated well into a really good accountancy practice.
Great lessons there for a lot of us in the small/medium size practice arena.
Hi John,
Thanks for the article, well researched and helpful comments. I'd put myself in the Xero camp, we're big fans of it with the number one reason being it's easy to use, it's easy to demo to clients and clients have responded really well to it with is the most important thing, it's difficult for them to make mistakes with the bank feed feature also which helps us and them a great deal. We used Kashflow for a few years but got very frustrated with it and not being able to implement any real new features, particularly the multi currency bank accounts, this was a major problem for us being based in Northern Ireland.
But there is so many options now I echo the thoughts of Paul, much better to put your flag in one or two camps, 3 max on what you will recommend & offer to clients than to try to become experts in them all. We've a few clients using Quickbooks online so will focus on this and Xero.
The support Xero has given us too has been great, with an account manager coming out to see us in person which I couldn't see any of the other software providers bothering to do, but meant a lot to us.
@Isla, I think Twinfield and quickbooks online can do this to have 2 vat registrations in one company.
Hi Mark,
I attend two networking breakfast groups in two different cities as I have clients in each city and am keen to add more. I have taken on a few great clients through these groups whom I never would have met only for someone putting me in touch with them. So I can say yes that it is a lot of work but I find that these groups will prove more fruitful in terms of getting leads than if I were to devote that time to online marketing. Perhaps it is because face to face networking is more effective for accountants I believe.
But it is ultimately about trust as you say, do people believe what you are saying? do they find you credible? What are you offering that is different or better than the rest?