Item: Xero
Rating: 7
Author: Colton Kulback

Overall Satisfaction with Xero

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We contract for manufacturing companies and Xero is our time keeping tool for tracking and sending billable hours to clients. This tool allows our users to track their hours in real time, and additionally, inform clients on not just hours worked, but also the content and achievements for that time.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Real-time tracking of hours
Easy and simple UI
Mobile app is big benefit to tracking
being able to add details to hours worked is helpful

Cons

Retroactive management of time entries (not an easy way to reassign entries to a different project)
Profitability tracking isn't always helpful because it is based on invoicing. No customization to how profitability is recognized.
Need the ability to assign expenses to a project as passthrough so cost is not counted against project estimate

Return on Investment

It has helped create transparency with Clients on hours and content
It has streamlined tracking billable hours for users
It has made tracking hours easier for Finance

Usability

It is robust to a certain point and has a good UI. The mobile app is a huge benefit to the software. All software has room for improvement

Cloud Costs

We have not recognized benefits from this, that I am aware of

Ease of Integration

N/A

Alternatives Considered

N/A

Key Insights

Do you think Xero delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Xero's feature set?

Yes

Did Xero live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Xero go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Xero again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Rippling, Microsoft Teams, HubSpot CRM

Likelihood to Recommend

Xero is great for 1099 and W2. Being able to track hours in real-time is a huge benefit. It gives users the ability to track only hours that are work-related with no hassle.

Xero Feature Ratings

Using Xero

Users and Roles

15 - Finance, Business Development, and Operations

Support Headcount Required

3 - Finance - responsible for creating and maintaining customers and suppliers info and staff cost rates
Operations - responsible for creating projects, populating relevant details, and creating tasks within projects
Business Development - responsible for creating quotes in Xero that inform project details and invoicing

Business Processes Supported

Project invoicing
Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable
Project Tracking
Billable Hours Entry
P&L and Reconciliation

Innovative Uses

Having to create multiple projects for the same engagement to partition project expenses and billable hours (project expenses are pass through and are not part of project estimate but expenses are counted against profitability if tracked in the same project as hours)

Future Planned Uses

I think our future use of Xero is limited outside of what we already leverage unless new features and functions are added

Likelihood to Renew

Xero is helpful for most things we need but also has limitations where we have to create workarounds.

Evaluating Xero and Competitors

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Other

I was not part of the decision and purchasing process for Xero

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I was not part of this process

Xero Support

Support Rating

I have never had to use Xero support

Using Xero

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar	None