The QuickBooks vs Xero Winner
QuickBooks vs Xero
The QuickBooks vs Xero winner is now QuickBooks. Intuit began by killing 34 competitors. Peachtree survives only for upgrades to bigger Sage programs. A Sage Peachtree purchase document said this. Intuit also crushed Microsoft twice. After early reverses, the QuickBooks vs Xero winner is now QuickBooks.
- As an early top QuickBooks forum poster, I got Amazing QuickBooks Endorsements from top Intuit leaders. I also was the only two-time winner of the #1 QuickBooks Top Tester award and on several Intuit Advisory Councils. Then I became the first non-Intuit employee editor of its QuickBooks Blog. However, QuickBooks seemed to slow development after beating Microsoft. QuickBooks vs Xero comparisons made me feel Xero was moving faster. I then quickly became #1 in the U.S. for the number of Xero clients. That made me a Xero company seminar leader and in constant touch with its CEO. Now I am an expert in the history of Xero vs QuickBooks.
- For many years (if not today) Xero made you OK each entry. You did this even if it already had the right account. Some users had 500,000 entries a month. The Xero fast way to enter OKs had bugs for a long time. It only worked until one entry had no account, though many later entries had accounts.
Xero
- Xero had a limited way Xero could connect other programs (API – Application Programming Interface). I created a keyboard macro program that instantly did OKs. A few clicks let you run it on any or all bank and credit card accounts, for any or all clients at once. There were even payable or receivable options. It also copied Bank and Credit Rules to Excel, for faster and more accurate reviews, edits and additions. You could then easily export Rule subsets to other clients. That was important to build combined client Rule libraries of more 1,000+ Rules when Xero had no AI (Artificial Intelligence). One reason I dropped Xero was because of many menu changes that broke my program. It did this without extending its API so I could use it in this program. Xero CTO knew this, after an initial demo, 6+years ago. This made QuickBooks a QuickBooks vs Xero winner.
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Many near unanimous user feature requests and complaints were ignored by Xero for 4+ years. User protests got so bad that Xero removed dates from feature requests and complaints, provoking near unanimous protests. One user said it was like the Nazi practice of rewriting history, with which I agreed. Xero then created a new forum, so ignored requests and protests disappeared. Many stories cover the totalitarian practices that made books and people disappear. This is the only one about a software vendor doin that. It was my second big reason I dropped Xero.
Xero 2
- There also were big Xero mistakes in repeated increased and delayed bundled U.S. payroll prices. Initial price increases made no sense, but there was no change for almost a year (in time for tax forms). Bundled Xero pricing made you pay higher amounts if you needed more users OR more employees. Xero later slowly rolled out limited payroll to about 15 states. However, it then dropped U.S. payroll entirely, without cutting prices. That made U.S. Xero payroll users pay about $50 a month more, compared to other Xero users. It also helped me decide that the QuickBooks vs Xero winner was QuickBooks.
- Many problems relate to Xero being a New Zealand company. It has special New Zealand. Australia and United Kingdom features. I do not mind them. However, like many, I was wildly upset about Xero stopping journal entries to bank or credit card accounts. The alternate procedure very time consuming and not intuitive. Xero also had no effective bug-free search or global search and replace for a long time.
Xero 3
- The time when Xero gained users vs QuickBooks cost Xero $500+ million in losses. It also had $200+ million in hidden losses, which it calls capitalized development costs. If Xero charges these costs to expenses, as Intuit does, it will have nearly no net equity. All this made me write that Xero had made terrible mistakes and was now short on money. I accurately predicted when Xero would have to stop growing fast, compared to QuickBooks, after losing all it possibly could. Xero will soon have far less users outside of New Zealand and Australia than QuickBooks has outside the U.S., though QuickBooks only began pushing international sales recently. This will decide the QuickBooks vs Xero winner.
QuickBooks vs Xero
- Xero recently bought Wave, with a million mainly free users. Compare that to Intuit’s Mint 10+ million users, not counted above.
- Xero touted a late arriving Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, it only covered about 10% of entries, with ridiculous speed and accuracy claims. Then Xero applied AI TO EACH COMPANY, not to all accountant, industry, country clients or its total clients. I call this Xero Brain Dead Machine Learning. One of my posts about it was, “Xero Just Confirmed The End of Xero As We Knew It! Insightful Accountant printed it, calling it “forward thinking”. Its editors must have gotten bad advertiser feedback, as they would not discuss other articles . However, a former senior Xero Sales Manager contacted me about the first post. He said I hit it right on the head about Xero mistakes, from which it would never recover. The Xero CEO resigned soon after the Insightful Accountant post. That should be a big factor in the QuickBooks vs Xero winner.
- AI is now fast increasing differences between Intuit and competitors. This partly relates to us now seeing what Intuit has done for 10 years, in many areas. In fact, Intuit pushed AI when I thought development was slowing – my bad mistake.
QuickBooks vs Xero
- As to Intuit – QuickBooks vs Xero, Intuit has more than four times the sales and users. It also has around 160 times Xero net income and equity.
- Intuit continues its strong search for customer input. Acting on it is important. Most, if not all, QuickBooks screens now have Feedback links. This is the result of what new hire Brad Smith, later Intuit CEO and Executive Chair, gave me after we first spoke. I often saw the dramatic result of Intuit responding to users in 20+ years. Many QuickBooks haters become QuickBooks lovers. One QuickBooks revision took less than a week, one week before Christmas (counting the weekend). It also is why QuickBooks is the QuickBooks vs Xero winner.
QuickBooks vs Xero\