In-Depth Xero Accounting Software Review: Is It Worth It in 2025?

Xero is a major player in the software market, second only to the behemoth Intuit QuickBooks. Its popularity likely stems from its combination of intuitiveness, comprehensiveness, and cost effectiveness. With Xero, you get access to all significant bookkeeping features, including invoicing, expense management, bank reconciliation, and reporting, all with a straightforward and easy-to-navigate interface. 

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Xero Interface Overview

One of Xero’s biggest strengths is its user-friendliness. Its interface, both customizable and easy to navigate, consists of nine different tabs, each dedicated to a different area of bookkeeping. 

1. Home: This is Xero’s main screen. It displays a selection of “cards” or widgets showing key metrics (e.g. bank balances, outstanding invoices, bills to pay, cash flow) at a glance. You can customize the layout by choosing which widgets to show or hide, or can rearrange their order to suit which metrics matter most. 
2. Sales: The sales tab displays an overview of your income-generating activities, with dedicated pages for invoices, online payments, quotes, products and services, and customers. 
3. Purchases: Similar to the sales tab, the purchases tab displays an overview of spending activities, with dedicated pages for bills, purchase orders, checks, and suppliers. If you subscribed to the Xero Expenses add-on, there will be a dedicated page for expenses. 
4. Reporting: The reporting tab gives you access to a wide range of reports and analytics. Xero includes core financial statements like the P&L statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement, along with many other customizable reports. You can mark reports as favorites to add quick-access shortcuts to the dropdown menu.
5. Payroll: The payroll tab gives you access to your employee directory, complete with critical personal information, such as tax status, bank account for payment, employment type, and wages payable. You can use this tab to configure their pay templates (salary, wage, overtime, allowances).
6. Accounting: The accounting tab provides access to core banking and accounting tools. For banking, you can view account balances, perform bank reconciliations, manage connected accounts, and create rules to automate how Xero organizes and categorizes bank transactions. For accounting, you can view and configure charts of accounts, fixed assets, and manual journal entries. There are also dedicated pages for finding and recoding transactions, monitoring compliance, and viewing software history. 
7. Contacts: The contacts tab lets you view and manage the individuals and organizations you do business with. You can organize contacts into custom groups, view contact-specific transaction history, save essential details (billing addresses, tax details contact persons, default account settings, and payment terms) and create quick links to related invoices, quotes, bills, credit notes, and payments.

On the right side of the menu bar, there are additional shortcuts. These include:

• Create New: From a dropdown menu, you can create new invoices, bills, contacts, quotes, purchase orders, and manual journal entries. You can also send, receive, and transfer money.
• Search: The Xero search bar lets you look up contacts, transactions, bank-related items, inventory items, fixed assets, reports, users, and files. 
• Help: The help pop-up provides a wide selection of support articles that guide you through using the platform. 
• Notifications: The notifications pop-up shows you all relevant notifications, like financial activity and Xero updates. 
• Apps: The apps pop-up lets you access your third-party integrations, including payroll, inventory management, invoicing, CRM, and marketing solutions. 
• Profile: The profile tab lets you manage your profile and platform settings. 

Since the Xero interface is so well-organized, it’s easy to find everything you need. Built-in search and contextual menus further streamline the experience, helping you access your tools and reports with minimal clicks. Plus, Xero provides in-app guidance, tooltips, and links to help articles, making it easier for you to learn new features as you go.

Does Xero Have a Mobile App?

Yes. Xero is also available in mobile app form, albeit with limited functionality. It includes a few basic features, including invoice management, bank reconciliation, payment acceptance, and customer and supplier information management. It also provides access to most reports, including P&L statements, outstanding bill summaries, and invoice summaries. 

The mobile app is free to use on both the App Store and Google Play. However, ratings vary by store. 

Key Features

Xero offers a comprehensive selection of bookkeeping features. They cover all bookkeeping needs, from invoicing to reporting. 

Multi-User Support

One of Xero’s biggest selling points is that it offers unlimited slots for additional users. You can give multiple users access to your system and collaborate on bookkeeping tasks. You can also assign permissions per task, such as invoicing, bill management, and bank access, to limit access to your financial information. 

There are five types of users: subscribers, advisors, standard users, invoice-only users, and read-only users. Each gains access to different features based on their role, allowing you to control what they can see and do within your Xero organization.

This is a great feature because you can add accountants, bookkeepers, employees, and other stakeholders to your accounting system at no extra cost. This allows you to distribute financial management responsibilities across your team, enabling faster workflows and increased transparency. 

Invoices and Quotes

With the Invoices and Quotes feature, users can create, send, and manage professional invoices and quotes. You can convert quotes into invoices, and send them to clients to receive online payments through channels like Stripe and PayPal. However, online processing fees may apply. 

Xero comes with a few basic invoice templates. This makes it easy for you to create and customize invoices. You can also set up automatic invoice reminders so you can notify clients of deadlines and receive timely payments.

On your homepage, you can create dedicated widgets to summarize invoicing activity at-a-glance. These include:

• At-a-glance snapshots of all invoices owed to you
• Summaries of recent invoice payments, including sender names, dates, and amounts

Meanwhile, the dedicated invoices page under the sales tab provides an organized list of all invoices and their details. You can filter invoices by progress level, such as drafted, awaiting approval, awaiting payment, paid, and repeating. 

Overall, the invoices and purchases feature is pretty solid. While the template selection is relatively limited, there are still enough options for basic invoicing needs. 

Bills and Purchases Management

Xero’s bills and purchases management features are pretty powerful, allowing you to stay on top of payables with ease.  You can enter, track, and manage bills and supplier purchase, helping you manage cash flow and features. You can also set up recurring bills and pay billers in batches. 

The homepage and the respective pages for bills and purchases make bill tracking easy. You can create a homepage widget to display a snapshot of all upcoming and overdue bills. This makes it a lot easier to stay on top of what you need to pay.

The bills page offers a clear, organized list of all your bills. The table shows the biller’s name, status, reference number, date, due date, amount paid, and amount due. You can use the search bar to find bills quickly, filter by status, document type, or other categories, or narrow results to specific timeframes. There is also a dedicated purchase orders page with the same layout, features, and filters. 

Bank Reconciliation

The bank reconciliation feature lets you connect to bank feeds and import transactions automatically. You can then match items to invoices, bills, or manual journal entries for reconciliation. This feature helps you ensure that your records are accurate and up-to-date, preventing costly errors down the line. 

What’s great about Xero is that it updates your bank feeds in real time, eliminating delays and the need for manual data entry. It also analyzes your reconciliation history to produce smart reconciliation suggestions, which automatically match imported bank transactions to existing invoices, bills, or journal entries. This minimizes manual data entry and speeds up the reconciliation process.

However, there are limits to Xero’s reconciliation capacity. Occasionally, bank feeds may disconnect and need reconnecting, which can slow your bookkeeping. Also, some transactions are too complex for smart suggestions and require manual review.

Receipt Capture (Hubdoc Integration)

Xero integrates with Hubdoc to capture and extract data from receipts. You can snap photos of receipts on your mobile device, and Hubdoc scans and attaches them to your transactions automatically. Xero then uses this information to update your expenses and bills, helping you collect and store expense data quickly while storing proof of each transaction. 

With receipt capture, you can reduce manual data entry and save a significant amount of time. However, the technology isn’t perfect. Sometimes, Hubdoc’s OCR (optical character recognition) may miss details, requiring manual input. Also, Hubdoc’s interface is less polished than Xero’s, which can slow your workflow.

Reporting

As mentioned above, Xero provides a comprehensive library of report templates, covering everything from financial performance to payroll. When you generate a report, Xero will automatically populate the template with your system data. 

We’ve summarized the available Xero report templates below. 

The only shortcoming of Xero’s report library is the lack of industry-specific reports, such as non-profit classification, job costing for construction, and warehouse inventory tracking. Otherwise, it offers more than enough coverage for the average small to mid-sized business, and makes reporting straightforward with its customizable templates and real-time data integration. 

Business Snapshot

Xero’s Business Snapshot is a dashboard visualization of financial performance. It displays charts summarizing key metrics, including:

• Profit and loss
• Income
• Expenses
• Net profit margin
• Gross profit margin
• Assets to liabilities and equity
• Overall cash balance
• Average time to get paid
• Average time to pay billers
• 30-day cash flow forecast

By presenting data as easy-to-read data visualizations, Business Snapshot lets you assess business health at a glance. It helps you spot trends, track ongoing performance, and make more informed decisions in real time without needing to generate separate reports. You can also customize the date range and compare periods to get a clearer picture of how your business is progressing.

However, the customization options are pretty limited. You can select which accounts to display data for, but you’re stuck with Xero’s pre-selected metrics and visualizations. If you want more flexibility, you need to upgrade to Xero Premium, which provides Analytics Plus. 

Analytics Plus (Premium Only)

If Business Snapshot is too basic for you, you can upgrade to Xero Premium for access to Analytics Plus. This feature grants you broader customization options for your business dashboard, allowing you to add and remove metrics based on what matters to your business. It also provides additional analytics features, such as:

• Extended cash flow projections: This provides 60 or 90 day cash flow projections. 
• AI-powered predictions of recurring cash flows: This provides realistic predictions of upcoming payments and income based on past bills, invoices, bank transactions, etc.
• Scenario planning: This tests planned events (such as major purchases and one-off windfalls of income) against historical patterns and current financial data to predict your future cash position. 
• Long-term trend analysis: This uses historical data to identify trends, such as recurring patterns and seasonality. 

Analytics Plus helps you see your business health more clearly. With deeper insights and smarter forecasts, you can make confident, well-informed decisions that support growth and stability.

Multi-Currency Support (Premium Only)

With Xero Premium’s multi-currency support, you can send invoices, quotes and purchase orders, or receive bills and payments in more than 160 currencies. Xero gets its foreign exchange rates from XE.com and updates them on your system hourly. It also updates your reports according to currency in real time, revealing how exchange rate changes affect your cash flow.  

Xero also provides a Foreign Currency Gains and Losses report template to help you break down accounts receivable, accounts payable, and bank accounts per active currency your organization uses. This helps you monitor currency exposure, assess the impact of currency fluctuations on profit and loss, and make informed decisions on managing currency risk. 

Third-Party Integrations

Xero integrates with a wide range of third-party platforms, ranging from eCommerce apps like A2X, payment channels like Stripe and PayPal, to time-tracking solutions like Tradify. This speeds up the process of transferring data from apps to accounting systems. You can access the full list of integrations through the Xero website. 

Promotional Pricing

Like many bookkeeping software providers, Xero provides promotional prices for its new users. This is great if you want to evaluate the product without making a significant financial commitment. 

Currently, Xero offers its products at 90% off for the first three months. The discount only applies to the monthly fee for Starter, Standard, and Premium, exclusive of any add-ons, usage, or payment fees. Once the promotional period ends, Xero will automatically apply its regular price, which will auto-renew monthly until you cancel. 

However, take note that this offer is not always available. Always check the website for availability dates and subscription deadlines.

Xero Plans

The great thing about Xero is that it provides scalable offerings for the different business sizes, tailoring pricing and features to your needs. It also offers two different types of add-ons for users who need specialized support. This pay-what-you-need structure helps you manage costs effectively while still providing access to the tools and support necessary for your specific stage of growth.

However, not all plans give their target users the same value-for-money. Starter is a particularly weak choice compared to its competitors in the same price range, while Premium is only worth the cost if you transact internationally. It’s important to carefully consider what your business needs and determine if other competitors can provide the same features for a more optimal price point. 

Starter

The Xero Starter plan aims to accommodate the needs of solopreneurs, freelancers, self-employed individuals, and micro-businesses. It offers basic bookkeeping features, including 20 free invoices and 5 free bill automations. While this can be limiting for larger businesses, it is sufficient for businesses or individuals working with few clients and vendors. 

Xero Starter is a serviceable option for users who want a user-friendly and streamlined alternative to spreadsheet bookkeeping. However, it might not be the best, especially at the $25 monthly price point. 

Other competitors in the market offer better plans for a similar price range. FreshBooks Lite and QuickBooks EasyStart, for example, offer unlimited invoicing at $22 and $28, respectively. There’s also Zoho Books, which provides 1,000 invoices and 1,000 expense payments per year for free. 

Xero Starter’s edge over packages in the same tier is that it allows unlimited users at no additional cost. Meanwhile, FreshBooks Lite charges $11 per additional user after one. On the other hand, QuickBooks EasyStart only includes one billable user seat and two non-billable user seats.  

Standard 

Standard is the most bang-for-your-buck plan in Xero’s selection. At $55 per month, it already includes unlimited invoices, bills, and user seats. It also offers bulk reconciliation, short-term cash flow insights, and business snapshots. This creates a strong and flexible bookkeeping foundation for small to mid-sized businesses. 

Its $55 monthly fee makes it more accessible than QuickBooks, whose mid-tier plan, QuickBooks Plus, costs $95 and only includes 5 users. While QuickBooks Plus offers advanced features like project tracking, budget management, and inventory management, the price jump might be too severe for the average small business. Xero Standard provides the basics with generous allowances for a reasonable monthly fee.

One of FreshBooks’ mid-tier packages, FreshBooks Premium, is marginally more expensive at $60 per month. While it offers a few advantages, such as built-in project profitability, advanced dashboards, and advanced reports, it has the same drawback as FreshBooks Lite: a fee for every additional user. Meanwhile, its other mid-tier package, FreshBooks Plus, costs only $27 per month, but offers less advanced bill management features compared to Xero.

Overall, Xero offers the best value for money compared to mid-tier bookkeeping packages from its competitors. It provides all necessary features with no bloat, generous allowances, and reasonable monthly fees. 

Premium

There isn’t much of a jump between Xero Standard and Premium, in terms of both pricing and features. The monthly fee is just $75, which earns you access to multi-currency support, and advanced analytics. In summary:

• Multi-currency support: You can add and manage multiple currencies from Xero’s selection of 160 currencies for invoices, bills, and payments. 
• Advanced analytics: You get in-depth insights into key financial metrics, including income and expense trends, operating costs and profitability. You can even filter data by custom date ranges and accounts. 

Most small to mid-sized businesses won’t need these additional features. However, if you are an international business, or you work with foreign clients, customers, contractors, or vendors, Xero Premium is your most cost-effective bookkeeping option. 

Among competitors, only QuickBooks and Zoho Books offer multi-currency support, and only for higher-tier packages. QuickBooks includes multi-currency support in its $95-per-month Plus package, while Zoho Books offers multi-currency support for its Professional package. However, the latter only includes 5 free users. 

Add-ons

Xero also allows you to purchase optional add-ons with any plan. This pricing structure gives you access to advanced features based on your specific needs, rather than the size of your business. Currently, the available add-ons are expense claims and project tracking.

Xero Projects tracks time, expenses, and profitability at a project level. You can create project budgets, assign costs, invoice based on time & materials, and monitor margins. This aims to accommodate businesses in project-based industries, such as consulting, design, agencies, and trades. Prices start at $10 per month.

Meanwhile, Xero Expenses is a tool that helps businesses reimburse staff expenses. It lets employees submit expenses (such as travel, meals, and professional development), attach receipts via mobile, and request reimbursements. This way, you can easily track employee spending and get notified when you need to pay them back.

How Helpful is Xero Customer Support?

One of Xero’s weak spots is customer support. While the platform is reliable and intuitive enough that users rarely need help, it falls short in providing support options for the occasional issue, concern, or question. There is no available phone support line for users in Canada, and you can only contact staff through email, which may be insufficient for urgent needs.

Still, Xero tries its best to provide answers to popular user inquiries, including platform navigation, common bugs and issues, and routine tasks like invoicing, reconciliation, and payroll setup. It provides multiple written resources, including searchable articles, how‑to guides, tutorials, and FAQs. The Xero website also hosts a community forum, allowing users to ask and answer questions from their peers. 

When to Choose an Alternative

While Xero is a powerful bookkeeping solution for small to mid-sized organizations, there are certain types of businesses it cannot accommodate. Below, we explore scenarios where an alternative bookkeeping solution may be a better fit.

You have a tight budget

Xero plans start at $25 per month after the promotional period, and that’s with limited invoices and bills. The only feature that might make the price point worth the investment is multi-user support. However, if you’re not working with a team, it’s best to consider more affordable alternatives. 

The most cost-effective basic bookkeeping solution is Zoho Books, which provides 1,000 invoices and 1,000 expense payments per year with no service charges or monthly fees. This amounts to about 83 invoices and 83 expense payments per month, which is more than enough for smaller businesses. The plan comes with two user slots: one for you and one for your accountant. 

You want flexibility in choosing accountants and bookkeepers

While Xero is a popular bookkeeping software, QuickBooks still dominates the market. User review websites alone prove that more customers purchase QuickBooks than Xero. If you outsource bookkeeping, it’s going to be much easier to find a QuickBooks expert than a Xero expert, especially if you have specialized bookkeeping needs. 

You need advanced inventory tracking, job costing, or project management features

Xero’s bookkeeping solutions are pretty generalized. While it provides add-ons for project-based fields like consulting, design, agencies, and trades, it does not provide any advanced industry features, like inventory tracking, job costing, or project management. If you want features specific to your industry, you may need to use integrations, or look for a different solution entirely. 

To find the right solution, you can check out our buyer’s guides for industry-bookkeeping software. 

• Best Bookkeeping Software for Churches
• Best Bookkeeping Software for Construction Companies
• Best Farm Bookkeeping Software
• Best Bookkeeping Software for Nonprofits
• Best Property Management Bookkeeping Software
• Best Bookkeeping Software for Restaurants

Xero vs Competitors

*Prices are in CAD

What Users Are Saying

Xero receives positive feedback across most user-driven review platforms, including Trustpilot, G2, and Capterra. Many users say that the platform is extremely intuitive. Its layout is easy to navigate, making financial health and activity easier to understand at a glance. Tasks like invoicing, bank reconciliation, and reporting are straightforward, helping users stay on top of their bookkeeping with less effort.

Most complaints center on the provider’s lack of support options. Many users report delays in support responses, especially for complex issues. Some also say that email and ticket systems are slow, and there are few opportunities to talk to human support staff. This can be frustrating for users who need fast solutions to software issues. 

Others also complained about the pricing structure. Xero has occasionally moved useful features to more expensive tiers, reducing accessibility. It also introduces price increases that are difficult for many users to keep up with. Some users feel that Xero’s costs are no longer competitive. 

Bottomline

• Unlimited Users: One of Xero’s major selling points is its multi-user support. You can let multiple users join your account, and manage access levels by assigning permissions. This enables you to spread bookkeeping responsibilities across multiple team members, including accountants, bookkeepers, and employees. 
• Free Receipt Capture: Xero provides a natural integration with Hubdoc, allowing you to scan and attach receipts, automatically transferring expense data to your system. This significantly reduces the need for manual data entry. 
• Intuitive Interface: The Xero user interface is extremely straightforward. It organizes tasks into dropdown menus under clearly labelled tab buttons, and provides a search bar to make it easy to find what you need in a snap.
• Promotional Price: Xero provides a whopping 90% discount for new users for their first three months. This allows you to evaluate the software’s fit without significant financial commitment. 

Although less popular than its competitor QuickBooks, Xero remains a pretty solid bookkeeping solution. It makes bookkeeping easy with its straightforward interface and comprehensive selection of bookkeeping features. Its best package is the Xero Standard package, which gives small to mid-sized businesses unlimited invoicing and bill payments at a reasonable cost. 

The only downside is that Xero is less popular than QuickBooks. This means that you might have a harder time finding accountants with Xero expertise. However, the program’s intuitiveness makes it easy to learn and onboard. You can also access support articles, community forums, courses, webinars, and events through the Xero website for additional guidance on navigating the product.

Start Your Bookkeeping Journey with Epicbooks

Navigating a new bookkeeping software doesn’t need to be challenging. The EpicBooks team is here to help you modernize your bookkeeping processes with ease. With years of experience and a deep understanding of Canadian markets, we provide bookkeeping services fit for the digital age. Our bundles include account reconciliation, asset tracking, journal entries, and financial reporting.

FAQ

Can I learn Xero by myself?

Xero is easy to learn, even without a guide. While its intuitive interface already makes navigation simple, users can find additional help through detailed articles on the platform’s settings and features. 

Xero also offers many options for hands-on guidance. First, there’s the Xero forum, which allows users to ask questions to community members. If you want expert help, the Xero website also links out to courses, webinars, and events.

Can I use Xero without an accountant?

You don’t need an accountant to use Xero. Its interface is designed to accommodate users with limited technical knowledge. Performing basic bookkeeping tasks (like tracking transactions, reconciling accounts, and generating reports) on Xero is extremely straightforward.

However, an accountant can help you maximize your Xero data insights. They can analyze your reports in-depth to help you assess your financial health, set attainable goals, and make smart business decisions. All Xero plans include unlimited user slots, enabling professional collaboration at no additional cost. 

What size business is Xero best for?

Xero is most suitable for small to mid-sized businesses. Its mid-tier plan, Xero Standard, provides the best value for money with unlimited users, invoices, and bills, for a fee of $55 per month. 

Xero’s basic-tier plan, Xero Starter, might be too expensive for its target user base of solopreneurs, freelancers, contractors, and self-employed individuals. Meanwhile, corporations might find Xero’s premium plan, Xero Premium, lacking in power. 

How safe is my data safe with Xero?

Xero provides multiple safeguards for sensitive business data. First, it requires multi-factor authentication at login, protecting your account from outside access even in the event of a password breach. It also uses industry-standard encryption protocols to disguise data in transit and at rest.