Xero

Xero is a modern online accounting system for small to medium sized businesses. It's powerful yet simple to use and because its web based you don't have to worry about installing software on your PC, upgrading it or backing it up - its all done for you. All you need to use it is a PC, MAC, iPad (or smart phone) and an internet connection.

The way Xero works is that each day it automatically downloads a list of transactions from your bank and then the next time you log onto Xero it asks you to classify them (e.g. Sales, Office Expense, Entertainment). Thats all. Once you have classified your transactions (Xero call it reconciling) then your accounts are up to date and you can run a GST return in Xero with everything you need to fill in your return at IRD. You can also get up to date financial reports and at the end of the year most of what your accountant needs is sitting in Xero ready to go.

Xero is smart - when you are reconciling it will match bank transactions to any unpaid invoices you have in Xero. If it doesn't find a matching invoice it will look at what you did last time you reconciled a transaction of this type and suggest you do the same again - if that's correct then you just press the OK button. If you want to get a bit tricky Xero lets you create your own rules that tell it how to reconcile specific transactions.

Xero also has all the other things you need from an accounting system, invoicing, a simple payroll, fixed assets, contacts and full financial and management reporting. In particular the invoicing in Xero is great. Because it loads your bank transaction history each day once you have reconciled your transactions Xero shows you at a glance which invoices are overdue.

Xero is built for human beings - you don't have to be an accountant or computer whizz to use it and it's hard to go wrong as the transactions are all there, all you need to do is tell Xero what they were for.

The best thing about Xero is that clients of ours that use it love it!

We use Xero for our business and we recommend it to clients who need and accounting system. You can find out more about Xero here.

How to Get Xero

You can go to the Xero website and sign up for a free trial then if you like it start paying monthly.

Even better we can provide the retail versions of Xero to our clients for half price - that is $14.50 per month plus GST for the small version (limited to 20 transactions and 5 accounts receivable + five accounts payable invoices per month), $24.50 per month plus GST for the medium version (unlimited transactions and invoices) and $32 plus GST per month for the large version (adds multicurrency). If you operate in Australia, no problem, we do the Australian version of Xero at half price too!

If you have an existing accounting system and are interested in using Xero have at look at our FAQ on switching to Xero.