(and Moving Clients Off QBO)

QuickBooks Online may be the loudest name in small-business accounting—at least in the U.S.—but loud doesn’t mean best.

After many years inside both ecosystems, we’ve standardized on Xero because it gives our clients cleaner books, fewer headaches, and stronger long-term value.

Below is the short list of why we’ve made the switch—and why so many business owners and accountants are doing the same.

Price Stability vs. “Surprise” Hikes

QuickBooks Online has earned a reputation for frequent, often steep price increases across both its Online and Desktop products. Plans that once seemed affordable can climb every few months, and core features like payroll, time-tracking, or additional users often require separate add-ons.

Xero takes a steadier, more transparent approach. Its pricing has remained consistent, and every plan includes unlimited users—no extra charge just to let your accountant, bookkeeper, or team access the file.

Smarter Feeds, Smarter Tools

Tools should make bookkeeping smoother—not messier.

In QBO, the bank feeds themselves can be unreliable—duplicating transactions, dropping others entirely, or desyncing without warning. Even when the data does come through, its new “AI-driven” coding suggestions often guess incorrectly, assigning expenses to the wrong categories or matching items that don’t belong together.

For DIY users without an accounting background, this can quietly distort financial reports—and those errors usually surface at the worst possible time: tax season.

Xero takes a cleaner, more dependable approach. It keeps automation in your hands.
The system learns only from your confirmed activity—suggesting familiar categories based on what you’ve actually done, not what an algorithm predicts.

Cleaner Controls = Cleaner Books

In QBO, it’s possible to force a balance to match or inflate it cosmetically with a journal entry, without fixing the underlying issue (like a missing or duplicated transaction). It gives the illusion that everything ties out when it doesn’t—making it easier for errors, or even fraud, to slip through unnoticed.

In Xero, that shortcut simply doesn’t exist.
Every dollar must flow through a proper transaction—Spend Money, Receive Money, or Transfer—and tie to a real bank statement line.

These guardrails protect data integrity and ensure your reconciliations reflect real cash, not cosmetic fixes.

Work Without the Upsell Maze

One of the most exhausting parts of working in QuickBooks Online isn’t the bookkeeping itself—it’s the constant interruptions. Everywhere you click, there’s another pop-up: “Upgrade to unlock this feature.” “Try payroll premium.” “Add smart reporting.”

Those upsells break your focus and slow your work. Even basic tasks like running reports or adding users can trigger sales prompts for higher-tier plans or paid add-ons. It feels less like accounting software and more like a subscription funnel.

Xero takes the opposite approach.
Once you’re in, you have access to the full functionality of your plan—no endless pop-ups, no sales noise.
You can just focus on your books, your data, and your business.

Security That’s Built In — Not Bolted On

When it comes to accounting software, security isn’t a feature—it’s the foundation.
And that’s where Xero and QuickBooks Online (QBO) take very different paths.

QuickBooks Online grew out of old desktop software built in the 1990s, then hurriedly moved to the cloud—largely in response to Xero’s rise—without ever rebuilding its core.
Instead of starting fresh, Intuit layered modern features—payroll, payments, invoicing, and tax tools—on top of outdated architecture.

That patchwork foundation leaves QBO with inherent fragility: every add-on, integration, and update increases the risk of conflicts and system failures. It’s why users so often encounter broken bank feeds, delayed transactions, frozen funds, or even security incidents when the platform’s many moving parts stop syncing as intended.

In short, QBO runs on old bones with modern layers attached—creating the kind of complexity that invites bugs, downtime, and vulnerabilities.

Xero, by contrast, was built for the cloud from day one. There’s no old code or bolt-on products—just a clean, modern system that works the way it’s supposed to.

Because Xero is based in New Zealand, it operates under stricter global data-protection laws than U.S. software, with ISO 27001 certification and regular third-party security audits. Every user is required to use app-based multi-factor authentication—not easily intercepted text codes.

Fewer moving parts mean fewer vulnerabilities, and stronger privacy standards mean your data stays safer—by design.

Bottom Line

Security isn’t something you turn on later. It has to be built into the foundation—and Xero was built that way from the start.

That’s why you don’t see the same flood of security breach stories from Xero users.
It’s not luck; it’s design.

If protecting your financial data and cash flow matters (and it should), it’s time to upgrade to a platform that was made for modern business.

👉 Move to Xero — where calm, clean, and secure accounting just works.