Euroasia: Language, Culture and Travel

In recent months, visits to our blog has increased measurably, with lots of people looking for reviews of Xero and comparisons between Xero and MYOB.  My initial post on MYOB vs Xero – A comparison, explaining the reasons why Euroasia swapped from MYOB to Xero is now our most popular blog entry for 2009. My follow-up post in July 2009 on our experience with implementing Xero is number 10 on the list.

Regular readers will be somewhat surprised that a blog on culture and language would have a post on accounting as the most popular entry. I’m interested in this topic not just because I think Xero has a great product, but I’m also happy to see a New Zealand company doing so well. I’ve enjoyed playing around with Xero, looking at reports and checking out their website. Xero has given me some design ideas for the soon-to-be-launched new Euroasia website.

When I first wrote about Xero in March 2009, Xero had 6000 users, having doubled in the preceding 6 months. At last count, they had over 12000 users, doubling again in the last 6 months. How could this be? For starters Xero is very attentive to client needs.  For example, just look at their Twitter posts from today.

Xero is not insecure about their product. Check out the re-tweet here from a fan who is offering to help with both MYOB and Xero. I was quite surprised to see that Xero twittered this on to their fanbase.

In my last post, I complained about some of the drawbacks of Xero and some suggestions for improvement. I was surprised to see in their September update the specific feature requests I suggested.  This includes customisation of user roles and a name field for contacts.  The customisation of user roles is a step in the right direction, but administrators are still not allowed to customise access rights for individual users (MYOB does this). I hope this is addressed soon. The budgeting function can also be improved to make it a more useful tool for businesses that do more planning/forecasting.

I’m still waiting for my bank to link up my credit card accounts to the live feed. The daily live feed of bank entries is one of the top reasons why Xero is such a great proposition. But Xero is sometimes held back by banks who do not have the same sense of urgency in implementing changes that save customers’ time/money. So users still have to import credit card statements into Xero ala MYOB. So don’t think by implementing Xero you get away from 100% of the dirty work.

I have previously blogged on the drawbacks of MYOB. There are also drawbacks to Xero. For example, anyone that handles a lot of stock will find MYOB a better proposition. So in summary do your research before jumping in.

Xero went live today with their new pricing plans. Euroasia is on the “medium” plan at NZ$49/month, which works well for us. And because we’re an existing customer, we can always activate multi-currency when we need it without having to pay for the “large” plan at NZ$64/month.

For freelancers / property investors who process less than 5 AR and 5 AP invoices per month, the “small” plan would be ideal for you at NZ$29/month.