Small business bank / accounting combo

Small business bank / accounting combo

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Discussion

miniman

Original Poster:

26,302 posts

269 months

Tuesday 22nd October
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I’m looking at Starling + Xero.

Any opinions / experiences?

FlyingPanda

454 posts

97 months

Tuesday 22nd October
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I have exactly that combo. My thoughts:

Starling - superb, flawless integration and easy to set up, really like it.
Xero - slightly tricky to set up, getting expensive if you do more than a few invoices a month and have any staff, but does everything you need pretty well.

My only regret is that after using Quickbooks on another business I recently purchased, I think Quickbooks is more user-friendly and in hindsight would have been a better choice. Thing is I can't be ar$ed to unpick it all and switch now, so I am using both!

AB

17,403 posts

202 months

Tuesday 22nd October
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Use Starling + Xero, no problems whatsoever.

StevieBee

13,563 posts

262 months

Wednesday 23rd October
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I'm Starling + Quick Books

Starling - No issues whatsoever. On the two occasions I've had to call them, the phone was answered almost immediately and the problems (of my own making) were solved there and then.

Quick Books - My only gripe is that it's all things to all men and not that easy to customise to my particular need. This means I have to navigate through much superfluous stuff. I'd imagine Xero and others to be the same though.

MustangGT

12,282 posts

287 months

Wednesday 23rd October
quotequote all
FlyingPanda said:
I have exactly that combo. My thoughts:

Starling - superb, flawless integration and easy to set up, really like it.
Xero - slightly tricky to set up, getting expensive if you do more than a few invoices a month and have any staff, but does everything you need pretty well.

My only regret is that after using Quickbooks on another business I recently purchased, I think Quickbooks is more user-friendly and in hindsight would have been a better choice. Thing is I can't be ar$ed to unpick it all and switch now, so I am using both!
Most accountancy firms avoid Quickbooks like the plague.

I have found many issues with QBO, including it having the ability to make illegal changes to an invoice after issue.

At this time I am in the process of moving the company accounts from QBO to Xero.

Puzzles

2,448 posts

118 months

Wednesday 23rd October
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Starling are excellent at the basics.

IME clients find Xero more user friendly, although they are ramping up the monthly price.

PoorCarCollector

126 posts

27 months

Wednesday 23rd October
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MustangGT said:
Most accountancy firms avoid Quickbooks like the plague.
What a load of bollards!! Most accountacy firms are happy to work with both

I've found Quickbooks excellent and prefer it over Xero, but it's down to personal choice

MaxFromage

2,148 posts

138 months

Wednesday 23rd October
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MustangGT said:
Most accountancy firms avoid Quickbooks like the plague.
Yes it's gone downhill fast. We would advise a client that we'd have to charge more if we were going to have to interact with it on a significant basis.

Tymb

143 posts

102 months

Wednesday 23rd October
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Use Starling + Xero on one business appears to work seamlessly, really quick at updating Xero.
Use Metro + Xero on another business appears to work fine, transactions can take a while to update in Xero.
Prefer Starling to Metro for ease of use.
Two different accountants, both suggested they preferred Xero so went with that so cannot compare to Quickbooks.
I'd suggest have a word with your accountant and see which they prefer.

MustangGT

12,282 posts

287 months

Wednesday 30th October
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MaxFromage said:
MustangGT said:
Most accountancy firms avoid Quickbooks like the plague.
Yes it's gone downhill fast. We would advise a client that we'd have to charge more if we were going to have to interact with it on a significant basis.
I have another gripe about QBO now. I cannot set up a single entity to be a supplier and a customer. This means I cannot produce a statement showing all transactions in a single date-order list.

Absolutely useless. I have been working with small and mid-tier ERPs for 35 years or so, never not had this functionality before!

IlPapaMobile

33 posts

23 months

Saturday 2nd November
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Mettle & Freeagent have been great for me. I do tend to use Starling as my main account but now it's a proper account the Mettle setup is decent enough it could be used as a main account. Freeagent is spot on, very few issues for me with it.

barryrs

4,549 posts

230 months

Saturday 2nd November
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I have Barclays/FreshBooks with an employment hero plugin and have no complaints so far.


tpalmer

82 posts

106 months

Monday 11th November
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I don't use them for our primary current account, but do have an account with Tide, due to their biz savings rates. So far have been very impressed, and they play well with Xero.

miniman

Original Poster:

26,302 posts

269 months

Monday 11th November
quotequote all
I ended up going with Freeagent on recommendation of my accountant (and that they provide it FOC as part of the package) and Tide because the Starling setup process was rather tiresome. All seems good so far.