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Core ledger and bookkeeping

Xero

Cloud accounting built for accountants, bookkeepers, and their small-business clients.

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Overview

With the highest market share of any accounting platform in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, and over 1,000 connected apps, Xero covers bank feeds, automated reconciliation suggestions, invoicing, bill tracking, payroll connections, and financial reporting for accountants and small-business owners.

Xero Practice Manager and Xero HQ give accounting firms a single dashboard for reviewing client file status, tracking jobs, and messaging clients.

Xero works with over 1,000 apps through its App Marketplace, including Stripe, PayPal, Shopify, Dext, HubSpot, and Zapier. Multi-currency support covers more than 160 currencies on the Established plan. Bank feeds connect to thousands of financial institutions globally.

The daily workflow for most firms centres on the bank reconciliation screen. Xero pulls transactions from connected bank feeds, suggests matches against outstanding invoices or previous coding patterns, and the accountant confirms or recodes each line. For a client with steady recurring transactions, the bulk of the weekly bookkeeping can be done in minutes rather than hours.

Xero is the default choice for firms whose clients are based in the UK, Australia, or New Zealand, where the app ecosystem and payroll connections are deepest. US firms with clients already on QuickBooks Online rarely gain enough from switching to justify the migration effort and the retraining.

Pricing is per client entity. Early runs $25 per month with invoice and bill limits; Growing is $55 per month with unlimited invoices and bills; Established at $90 per month adds multi-currency, project tracking, and expense claims. A free trial is available; there is no permanent free tier.

See it in action

Xero dashboard showing bank accounts, reconciliation status, bills to pay, and cashflow chart
Xero expenses screen with claims to review grouped by team member

Product images courtesy of Xero.

Key facts

Starting price
$25 per month
Pricing model
Per entity
Free trial
Yes
Free tier
No
Deployment
Cloud, Mobile
Geography
US, UK, AU, CA, Global
Founded
2006
Support
Email, Chat, Knowledge Base, Community Forum, 24/7
Languages
English
Works with
Stripe, Paypal, Shopify, Hubspot, Salesforce, Zapier, Gmail, Outlook, Excel, Google Drive
Last verified
2026-06-29

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Practices in the UK, Australia, or New Zealand whose clients run on Xero by default.
  • Firms that want a clean accountant dashboard (Xero HQ and Practice Manager) for managing multiple client files.
  • Clients with multi-currency operations across more than 160 currencies on the Established plan.

Cons

  • US firms whose clients are already on QuickBooks Online. Switching costs rarely pay back.
  • Solo traders with very simple books. Wave or Zoho Books cover that need at a free tier.
  • Mid-market clients that have outgrown SMB ledger depth. Sage Intacct or NetSuite suit them better.

Pricing

TierPriceBillingFeatures
Early$25Per month20 invoices, 5 bills, bank reconciliation, and basic reporting.
Growing$55Per monthUnlimited invoices and bills, bulk reconciliation, and reporting.
Established$90Per monthEverything in Growing plus multi-currency support across 160-plus currencies, project tracking, and expense claims.

Frequently asked questions

Where is Xero strongest geographically?
Xero leads in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and is gaining share in Canada and parts of Asia. The UK and Australian app ecosystems are particularly deep, with strong third-party integrations for payroll, CIS contractor handling, MTD VAT, and Australian BAS. Xero's US presence is smaller than QuickBooks Online's and most US accountants default to QBO for US-headquartered clients. For firms operating across multiple anglophone markets, Xero's consistency across UK/AU/NZ is a meaningful advantage.
How much does Xero cost?
In the US, Xero has three plans billed per month: Early at 25 USD/month (limited invoices and bills, bank reconciliation), Growing at 55 USD/month (unlimited invoices and bills), and Established at 90 USD/month (multi-currency, project tracking, expense claims). Hubdoc document capture is included with Growing and Established subscriptions. Plan names and prices vary by country (UK and Australia use different tier names and local-currency pricing), and Xero usually offers a free trial or an introductory discount for new subscribers rather than a permanent free tier.
What AI features does Xero have?
AI-assisted bank-feed matching, transaction categorisation that learns from your firm's past coding patterns, anomaly detection on bank entries, Hubdoc document capture (included), and Xero's 'Just Ask' natural-language assistant for in-platform questions about your books. Xero has been more conservative than QBO in shipping AI features publicly, preferring to test inside its accountant programme first. The features that have shipped work well at scale and are included in standard subscription pricing.
How does Xero compare to QuickBooks Online?
Both handle the core ledger work well. QBO has the deepest US accountant programme and US-focused app ecosystem. Xero leads in the UK, Australia, and increasingly Canada, with cleaner multi-entity reporting and a more accountant-friendly user interface. Pricing is similar at the standard tiers. The realistic decision is geography: QBO for US-only practices, Xero for UK/AU/NZ-only practices, and the larger client's existing ledger for cross-border work.
Can Xero handle multi-entity consolidations?
Yes via Xero's multi-entity reporting features and third-party consolidation apps (Spotlight Reporting, Fathom, Syft Analytics). Xero itself handles up to a few entities per organisation cleanly; the third-party reporting layer handles the consolidation modelling for larger groups. For accounting firms running 50 or 100 client entities, the Xero Practice Manager (now Xero HQ) provides bulk-management across all client files. For a single client running 10+ subsidiaries, Sage Intacct or NetSuite typically handle deep consolidation work better than Xero plus a reporting layer.

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Last verified 2026-06-29. Pricing and features come from vendor-published specs. See our methodology.