Despite the numerous DIY and business accounting solutions on the market for startups and Limited Companies, two solutions stand out above the rest for UK businesses: Xero and QuickBooks Online.
These two solutions have both stood the test of time and proven themselves worthy opponents when competing for the mid-sized business markets.
However, which is better for your business—Xero or QuickBooks?
In this review of QuickBooks and Xero, we asked our in-house accountants with a combined accounting experience of hundreds of years to give us a blow-by-blow comparison of these two accounting titans.
Here’s our definitive answer on whether to choose Xero or QuickBooks for your business.
QuickBooks and Xero in 2024—the lines have blurred
Xero launched in 2006. In just over 10 years, it grew to more than one million global customers. It doubled that number by 2019 and hit three million global users by 2021.
QuickBooks, owned and developed by Intuit, began much earlier than Xero. It introduced its cloud version—QuickBooks Online—in 2001, five years before Xero. By 2017, it had two million users. However, our accountants feel that QuickBooks’ growth was largely due to it being based in the larger US market and that QuickBooks Online lagged behind Xero in features and functionality. Whereas the QuickBooks desktop product has always been excellent, its cloud offering struggled to catch up.
All of that has changed in 2024, and our accountants agree that QuickBooks Online has become a formidable contender to Xero in the online accounting arena.
Both QuickBooks Online and Xero offer the essential accounting features required by all mid-sized businesses, such as:
- Bank feeds
- Templates for invoices
- Automatic bank reconciliation
- The ability to create online payments
- Managing bills
- Out-of-pocket expenses
- Tracking mileage
- Tracking cash flow
- Payroll
- Sophisticated reporting
Deciding whether your business needs QuickBooks or Xero comes down to the details. Let’s get into those details now.
Use cases are the deciding factor
We must make clear at the start that the choice between Xero and QuickBooks for you will likely come down to personal preferences. Even our accountants were divided regarding which tool they prefer, and the choice typically comes down to the customer they’re serving. Both QuickBooks and Xero offer the ability to provide accountant access to your accounts, so our accountants must be proficient in both tools.
Overall, we did find that QuickBooks had better overall support, but that Xero had better integration capabilities. That might or might not be a factor in your decision, depending on how much external integration you require.
To get a full appreciation of the differences between these tools, check out the full review below.
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|---|---|
| 4 Stars (Most cost-effective) |
3.8 Stars (Best for integrations) |
Round 1—Usability
Both Xero and QuickBooks online have excellent usability scores. However, we feel that Xero has the upper hand due to a slightly more intuitive interface. The differences in interface affect brand-new users more than experienced accountants.
Part of the appeal of online accounting tools is to encourage non-accountants to do their own books and only call in an accountant when it’s time to file annual reports. In this case, Xero might have the upper hand.
However, the question is only applicable to smaller businesses because doing your own books without an experienced bookkeeper in a mid-sized business or larger is extremely risky.
In either case, the companies behind both tools have worked hard to make their interfaces useful in 2024 because extensive evidence and studies exist to corroborate that poor user experiences lead to users abandoning your service completely. One study by ZenDesk indicates that as many as 80% of users will switch to a different brand because of a poor user experience.
To ensure they continue to gain new users—even from smaller businesses—Xero and QuickBooks both work actively to ensure their interfaces are intuitive and easy to use.
Quickbooks: 
Xero:
Round 2—Additional Features
Both tools offer the core accounting features required to carry out your mid-sized business’s accounting. In addition to the features mentioned earlier, both tools also offer:
- Tax management
- File storage
However, at this stage, features start to differ and it becomes challenging to compare the two because it’s a bit like comparing apples and oranges. For example, QuickBooks offers inventory management out of the box but Xero doesn’t. Also, whereas QuickBooks does now offer multi-currency support if you toggle it on, it doesn’t allow you to create payments in a currency that’s not your primary currency. For businesses involved in international trade, this might be a dealbreaker.
Here are a few other differences between Xero and QuickBooks’ additional features:
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|---|---|---|
| VAT Error-Checking | ✓ | ✗ |
| Unlimited Users | ✗(You must pay for additional users) | ✓(Available in all plans but you must still pay for additional people on your payroll) |
| No Invoice Limits | ✓ (applies to all plans) | ✗(Smaller plans have limits) |
| Claiming Expenses | ✓(Available out of the box) | ✗(Must pay for an add-on) |
| Transaction Tracking Tags for Better Reporting | 40 Tags in all plans up to Advanced, which allows for unlimited tags. | Only two active tracking tags are allowed. |
Both products gain and lose stars based on their features, and your business will likely have a personal preference or use case favouring the other in this category.
QuickBooks:
Xero:
Round 3—Support
Xero doesn’t have a great history of customer support, although it is possible to ask for a customer rep to call you back for help.
QuickBooks, however, provides 24/7 live chat support. You can also call in for support during business hours PST time.
One of Pearl Accountants’ specialties is ecommerce accounting, and we’ve seen repeatedly how poor customer service can frustrate users and lead them to take their business to a competitor. That’s why we find Xero’s lack of 24/7 support and lack of a phone number surprising in 2024.
Quickbooks:
Xero:
Round 4—Connectivity and Integration
Both QuickBooks and Xero offer extensive integration with third-party apps and connectivity with banks across the world. QuickBooks has over 750 integration possibilities while Xero has more than 1,000. Xero also supports feeds for more than 21,000 banks.
We couldn’t find any information on which banks QuickBooks supports for open banking. However, for UK customers, rest assured that it supports all major UK-based banks, in addition to online banks such as Revolut and Wise.
Unfortunately, despite its many third-party integrations, we’ve heard from several accountants that QuickBooks’ integrations tend to have more glitches than their Xero counterparts, especially the A2X and Shopify integrations.
Quickbooks:
Xero:
Round 5—Reporting
Both tools provide advanced and comprehensive financial reports that give you an overview of how your business is doing. However, QuickBooks has a slight edge because of its tagging functionality, which lets you create more detailed reports per tag, giving you more fine-grained insight into your business. For e-commerce businesses with large quantities of transactions, this might be the dealbreaker between QuickBooks and Xero.
QuickBooks:
Xero:
Round 6—Pricing
Both tools offer somewhat complex pricing because of the many add-ons required. Still, QuickBooks’ pricing is somewhat less opaque, and we feel it provides more value for money.
Neither company offers annual pricing, which knocks them both down a star.
We’ve included only the pricing for packages that contain the minimum features we feel are necessary for mid-sized businesses. For example, QuickBooks’ “Simple Start” package doesn’t include bills management, which we feel is essential for any mid-sized business, so we didn’t include it here.
| Monthly Price | |
|---|---|
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Essentials Package: £32/mo (Payroll costs extra) Plus Package: £44/mo (Payroll costs extra)Adds project profitability and budgets. Advanced Package: £98/mo (Payroll costs extra)Adds employee expenses, batch invoices, and other features |
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Grow Package: £33/moOnly 5 bill payments, then £0.20 per additional bill. Payroll capped at one person. Expenses tracking for only one user, then £2.50 per additional user. No project tracking. Comprehensive Package: £47/moOnly 10 bill payments, then £0.20 per additional bill. Payroll capped at 5 people. Expenses tracking for only 5 users, then £2.50 per additional user. No project tracking. Ultimate Package: £59/moOnly 15 bill payments, then £0.20 per additional bill. Payroll capped at 10 people, then £1 for each additional person. Expenses tracking for only 10 users, then £2.50 per additional user. Project tracking for 10 users, then £5 for each additional user |
Xero’s pricing is comparatively complex and expensive for larger businesses, whereas QuickBooks’ pricing is less opaque and a bit cheaper.
Quickbooks:
Xero:
Should you choose QuickBooks or Xero in the UK?
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| Usability |  |
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| Additional Features |  |
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| Support | |
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| Connectivity and Integrations | |
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| Reporting | |
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| Pricing | |
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| Overall | 4 | 3.8 |
Although QuickBooks has a slightly higher score than Xero, both tools excel at different things. Perhaps Xero’s greatest flaw is its pricing.
To decide between QuickBooks and Xero, we recommend focusing on the additional features and the price, which is where the tools differ the most. As for the rest, it might be mostly a matter of preference.
Regardless of which tool you choose, our accountants will be able to serve you, as they’re experts at both tools, in addition to many other cloud accounting tools.
To learn more about how Pearl Accountants can help your business, view our website here.
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