Clients often call us up and ask for help with their software. They are having difficulty with Quickbooks, or they can’t get GoDaddy Bookkeeping to compute their expenses properly, or they may want to know how to configure a certain formula in FreshBooks.
If the question they ask is an accounting issue, we should be able to answer it no matter what software the client uses. However, if you want to know something that is particular to your accounting software, unless they are using Xero.com, we rarely will be able to help them. In these cases, we generally have to refer the client to their software’s help desk.
We, as a company, have decided that the Xero accounting system is the one that fits the needs of most of our clients the best. Does that mean Xero is the best accounting system for you? Not necessarily. There are lots of different options when it comes to accounting software. When we chose a system that we could offer to our clients, we looked at all of them, or at least, all the significant ones.
We believe Xero.com to be the best suited for most of our clients. We understand that it may not be right for you, but we evaluated the software with some very specific criteria. We chose Xero for three very particular reasons.
Our Business Reason for Choosing Xero
Our clients are mainly online entrepreneurs. That didn’t happen by accident. When we started The Bottom Line, we decided to seek out a market that wasn’t being adequately served by traditional accounting firms and decided that the growing sector of online entrepreneurs was the market that needed us the most. We can help brick-and-mortar businesses, too, but the online market has unique accounting needs on which we wanted to focus.
The beautiful thing about Xero.com is they started as an online company. They know and understand online business. We needed a software package that matched the style of our clients and Xero fit the bill. Xero didn’t just design an accounting package that works well with online businesses, they designed one made for the online entrepreneur.
We also knew our small business could not have a separate department for all the major accounting platforms out there. We couldn’t be experts on ALL the big players in the market, so we would learn one system very well. The system we chose was Xero. We could know a little about a lot of different programs, but we decided it would be better to become very literate in one system, Xero.
Our Operational Reason for Choosing Xero
We also needed a software that would work for our business. When we were evaluating the different software packages for accounting, the handwriting was already on the wall. We knew we needed something that worked well on the cloud. People needed a system they could access on the road using their smart phone or tablet. They couldn’t be updating the applications on their hard drive every time someone wrote a new Trojan horse program or they were off their company’s intranet. They needed the security and automatic updates provided by a cloud-based application. Xero.com wasn’t a program with a cloud-based version, it was made for the cloud and functioned comfortably in that environment without a lot of patches and glitches.
We also knew we needed something on which we could quickly train our growing staff. We needed our new members to be able to get up-to-speed quickly. That wouldn’t be possible if they had to learn how to operate even a small handful of accounting software systems. To get them trained and ready to assist clients, we had to focus on one, easy system, Xero.
Xero also offers the flexibility we need with all of the add-on partners and integration it provides. And they are not stopping there, the program is operating and integrating better all the time.
Our Financial Reason for Choosing Xero
Our final reason for being exclusively Xero is financial. We believe Xero gives you the most bang for your buck. The folks at Xero do not expect you to pay for every additional feature they pack into the program. With Xero.com, you get unlimited accounts, unlimited contacts, and unlimited invoicing. Xero does a great job of balancing features and usability so you aren’t left with a bloated accounting system that the small, online business owner will never use, and yet, it is still very robust to meet all of your needs.
We looked for software that had the features of a full accounting system and did so at a reasonable cost. Xero fit the ticket. It is full featured and inexpensive. It is also relatively hands free. Once you set up the system for your business, it requires very little input or manipulation from you. The system knows which purchases should be in which categories and assigns them automatically.
The Bottom Line
You have lots of choices for accounting system software to choose from. While there is no perfect system that fits everyone’s goals, we have done our homework and recommend Xero.com to our clients. It is an ideal fit for the business needs, operational needs, and financial needs of our practice and the needs of our typical clients.