Access Financials vs. Xero
There are likely a few good reasons why you may be thinking about switching to a new accounting and financial management solution.
It could be that your current system lacks the reporting functionality needed to gain an accurate view of your business’s finances. You and your team may also be wasting significant time on tedious manual tasks, as well as on dealing with frustrating, unintegrated systems and data. You may also be worried about your current solution’s ability to ensure compliance.
In this article, read our reviews of Xero software and Access Financials: two leading accounting and financial management solutions. Discover their strengths, weaknesses, and how these financial competitors compare on price and more.
6 mins
Written by The Access Group
Introduction
Fortunately, there are accounting and financial management solutions that can help you solve all these challenges, so that you and your finance team can spend more time demonstrating value to your business. In this article, we profile two market-leading solutions that can help you do just that – Xero and our own financial management and accounting solution, Access Financials.
We at The Access Group are here to help you work out which solution is the best fit for your organisation – even if that does not turn out to be our own. Our aim is to simply provide you with an objective, fact-based comparison of Xero, alongside one of the leading Xero competitors: Access Financials.
With over 72,000 organisations worldwide trusting our business management solutions to enhance productivity, we like to think that we know a thing or two about assessing the pros and cons of software. By the end of this article, we hope you will be well-placed to understand which solution – Xero or Access Financials – is best suited to your needs.
What is Xero?
Xero is a cloud-based accounting solution that is designed to help small businesses, accountants, and bookkeepers manage their financials more efficiently. Available via a flexible online subscription, the solution is used by over 3.7 million businesses worldwide in a range of industries.
With Xero, you can track and pay your bills on time, easily invoice clients, manage payroll and gain a real-time overview of your accounts payable and cash flow. Accessible from any web-connected device, the solution allows you to manage your accounting on the go and makes it quick and easy to keep your account balances and financials up to date.
What is Access Financials?
Trusted by over 4,000 organisations worldwide, Access Financials is a cloud-based accounting and financial management platform that evolves with your business, ensuring efficiency, accuracy and visibility as you grow. The solution empowers your organisation to achieve greater financial control, automate processes, eliminate siloed systems and simplify reporting.
As your organisation evolves, Access Financials adapts to your increasingly complex needs, offering everything you need in one integrated platform. Your people will benefit from user-friendly software, self-serve apps and real-time financial reporting, empowering them to be proactive and achieve more.
Access Financials is a Xero alternative designed for medium-sized organisations in a range of industries, including services, manufacturing and wholesale, not-for-profit and charity, health and social care, recruitment and project accounting.
Xero and Access Financials: What to compare
Xero and Access Financials are both intuitive, advanced cloud solutions that can help businesses simplify processes and save time. However, there are several critical differences between the two. Next, we examine how they compare on key features, implementation and support, and pricing.
Xero
Xero offers a comprehensive suite of features to streamline your daily administrative tasks and give you the freedom to focus on what truly matters. Core features include an accounting dashboard, accounts payable (AP), bank reconciliation, invoicing, inventory management, expense management and projects.
Xero goes even further to simplify your financial processes with features like Hubdoc, which automatically captures essential data and documents. It also makes managing your team’s payroll easy by automating tax, pay and super calculations.
Beyond these essentials, Xero offers features like inventory management, purchase orders and fixed asset tracking, making it a comprehensive accounting solution for small businesses. And it seamlessly integrates with over 1000 apps from the Xero App Store, enhancing your business’s capabilities.
Learn more about Xero’s key features in the table below.
Access Financials
Access Financials simplifies accounting and financial management so that your team can spend more time demonstrating value to your business. It provides complete visibility across your finance, project, sales, HR, credit and third-party data in a single view, allowing you to make better-informed, faster decisions.
With Access Financials’ highly scalable modular design, you can assemble a bespoke system tailored exactly to your requirements. This intuitive platform offers powerful features for project accounting, purchase order management, purchasing, asset management, invoicing and inventory management.
Interactive dashboards make it quick and easy to track real-time KPIs and multi-dimensional reporting capabilities enhance the visibility of your business’s finances. With Access Financials, automated financial processes, smart controls and precise data management work together to drive your business forward.
A leading Xero competitor, Access Financials is available through Access Workspace, a unified solution that brings together all your systems, data and processes in one place. It simplifies data input, approval processes and report viewing, accessible on any device at any time.
Key features
Discover the key features of Access Financials in the table below and on the Access Financials product page.
Xero vs. Access Financials: Implementation and Support
Xero
Available via a simple online subscription, Xero does not require a lengthy implementation. You can simply sign up for Xero online to access an initial 30-day free trial. Xero also provides data conversion services from QuickBooks for free, which can be performed in under three hours.
The Xero U platform offers training to help you and your team get the most out of the solution. It provides access to a collection of short webinars on various topics, such as payroll, reporting and working with add-ons. Xero U also provides an introductory overview of Xero and access to several how-to video tutorials in Xero 101.
When it comes to ongoing technical support, Xero unfortunately does not provide assistance over the phone. However, you can access online support via Xero Central, where you can lodge support tickets, view FAQs, engage in discussions with other Xero users and access online courses.
Access Financials
At The Access Group, we firmly believe that software functionality is only half of the equation; the other half is how it is rolled out. That is why we created FlightPaths – an implementation service that ensures a seamless, expedited journey towards using Access Financials.
What sets us apart is our remote-first approach. We understand that modern work environments are diverse, and your organisation’s structure might be non-traditional. That is why FlightPaths is designed to adapt to your unique needs, no matter where your employees are located. We keep the lines of communication open and accessible, ensuring that you are informed every step of the way.
Collaboration is key, and we use video technology to bring you face-to-face with our Access experts. These experts not only bring in-depth product knowledge but also years of software deployment expertise. It is like having a trusted partner right by your side.
Our well-defined milestones and best practice approach aim to deliver value quickly and comprehensively. We are committed to making your Access Financials investment a resounding success, and we are here to support you every step of the way.
To find out more about the implementation process for Access Financials, you can explore these articles:
Following your implementation, you can count on ongoing customer support from our experts to help you get the most out of Access Financials. Our Success Plans are more than just traditional technical support – they are comprehensive packages designed to equip you and your business with the essential tools and guidance required to excel.
You can choose from three tiers of support – Essential, Standard and Premier – all of which offer phone and online assistance via our certified product experts. You can also access our Customer Success Portal, which boasts a wealth of helpful knowledge articles, webinars and an online user community.
Xero v Access Financials: Pricing
Xero
When you sign up for Xero, you can access all of the solution’s features free for 30 days. This is designed to help you determine which of the four monthly subscription plans is best for your business. The four Xero pricing plans include:
- Starter – Starting at AUD$29 per month, this plan allows you to send 20 invoices and quotes, enter five bills, perform payroll for one person and reconcile unlimited bank transactions.
- Standard – Starting AUD$59 per month, this plan includes unlimited invoicing, quoting and billing, and allows you to perform payroll for two people.
- Premium 5 – Starting at AUD$76 per month, this plan allows you to perform payroll for up to five people and supports multi-currency.
- Premium 10 – Starting at AUD$110, this plan allows you to perform payroll for up to 10 people, claim expenses and track projects for up to five people, and provides access to the Analytics Plus module.
Access Financials
Our Xero alternative, Access Financials offers three pricing plans to choose from so that you can customise the solution to your business’s needs.
The below prices are based on a minimum of 5 users and include Access Workspace Standard Edition and the Essential Customer Success plan. The prices do not include any implementation and/or training costs.
- Tier one pricing starts at AUD$209 per user per month. This tier caters to smaller and growing organisations with needs that are beyond the capabilities of their current financial management and accounting system (for example, Access Attache users).
- Tier two pricing starts at AUD$330 per user per month. This tier caters to more sophisticated accounting businesses that require additional features to meet complex needs.
- Tier three caters to organisations with project-based accounting needs. Pricing varies depending on the unique requirements of the organisation.
Access Financials Pricing
We strive to be fully transparent about our pricing. If you would like to learn more about our pricing plans and the features that they entail, please head over to our accounting software pricing and packages page.
Summary
As we have discovered in our Access Financials and Xero review, both offer phenomenal time-saving capabilities. However, given the significant differences between the two, it is likely that you now understand which solution is the best fit for your organisation.
Exploring the success stories of our proud customers Milner’s Brands and Brown & Co can provide you with valuable insights and perspectives. These firsthand accounts delve into their experience with Access Financials features, functionalities, and overall performance. By reading about their journey and the benefits they've reaped, you'll gain a deeper understanding of how Access Financials can effectively cater to your specific needs.
Even if the solution you choose is not Access Financials, our team would still love to lend a helping hand. If you would like to discuss your business’s needs or ask any questions about migrating to a new accounting and finance solution, feel free to contact us today.
You can also access a wealth of helpful information on our website, including a step-by-step guide that explains everything you need to know when switching finance systems. You can also take a look at our Access Financials product page, resources hub and blog for more insights.
