Xero is an Australian software company that supplies a SaaS (Software as a Service) accounting program. Originally designed for Australia, it was adapted to cover the entire Anglosphere, then much of the world. While not as popular as Intuit’s Quickbooks in the United States, it has a large and dedicated following. It is extremely popular with software and technology companies that make extensive use of Cloud Infrastructure and Cloud Integration APIs.
As a cloud-centric company that embraces technology, we were an early supporter of the use of Xero in our accounting practice. When Xero first arrived in the United States, it offered a full API for integration, resulting in cloud based systems embraced the newcomer because of deficiencies within the Quickbooks API ecosystem.
Bette Hochberger, Inc. was an early Xero Silver Partner, supporting it with full parity with the Intuit suite. As Intuit’s Quickbooks Online platform has matured, it caught up and surpassed Xero’s initial technology lead. While we are still a Xero partner, we find that most of our newer Clients are either on Quickbooks Online, and Xero is just one of the many new alternative systems that services business niches.
Unusual systems like Zoho Books, Freshbooks, Wave, Sage, and Zipbooks remain popular within their niche markets. The variety of cloud based systems has given tech-oriented startups and small businesses several options to embrace a high tech general ledger system.
While the main small business system is Quickbooks online, different businesses with unique needs should explore a General Ledger system that works within their ERP and CRM infrastructure.
