QuickBooks-Blog

Xero Silver Partner Logo

 

Xero Won Highest CeBIT Award. QuickBooks Won Nothing

On May 24 Xero won the highest CeBit Award. It won the Top Business Solution award and the ICT Excellence Award. The ICT Excellence Award means Xero won the highest accolade in the tech industry. There were impressive finalists, so we were glad to see Xero win these coveted awards.

The ICT Excellence Award recognizes excellence in provisioning a product or solution to customers, with a proven record of success.

This shows a Xero rep accepting the IT Excellence award from Senator Kate Lundy. The awards are testament to the very real and growing demand for an alternative to spreadsheets and traditional cumbersome desktop accounting packages. In case you do not recognize Senator Lundy, the awards were in Australia.

QuickBooks won nothing again. Of course, QuickBooks also recently lost Reckon, its top Australian software company and distributor.

15 Reasons Why QuickBooks is the Worst Place for Your Data, Xero is the Best

Here are 15 reasons why the desktop QuickBooks is the worst place for your data: 

1. Like most of us, you are probably a computer amateur
2. Your did not select a computer system for security and reliability
3. Your system may be slightly incompatible and unreliable
4. If one part of your system fails, everything stops
5. If one electrical or internet source fails, everything stops
6. If air conditioning fails, computers can burn out
7. You use many somewhat error prone and incompatible programs
8. You update intermittently and rarely, without checking for known bugs
9. You do not backup regularly, much less continuously
10. You do not have 24/7 professional computer monitoring ($9.95/month)
11. You do not use the best virus, malware and firewall checkers
12. Your facilities are not secure (no bank-level locks, construction, guards)
13. You risk operator error and possible employee misconduct
14. You risk fire, theft and man-made or natural disasters, with no data insurance
15. Internal Revenue often demands QuickBooks files for audit

You now have 15 reasons why the desktop QuickBooks is the worst place for your data.  In addition, QuickBooks is not easy to master. All QuickBooks professionals spend much of our time correcting the many improper entries most users make. 

QuickBooks Online only helps with a few of these 15 reasons. Despite Intuit promises, QuickBooks Online often fails for extended periods. It also is far too weak for 80%+ of QuickBooks users. I would rather spend an hour at the dentist than use QuickBooks Online. Therefore, all versions of QuickBooks are the worst place for your data. Most companies that lose data soon go out of business. 

Here is how you can save lots of money, while avoiding all these problems.

1. Get computer professionals to manage your accounting program
2. Use computer systems selected for security and reliability
3. Nothing will be incompatible or unreliable
4. If one part of your system fails, it stops
5. User multiple REDUNDANT COMPUTER SYSTEMS, at different locations
6. Have multiple electrical and internet sources
7. Have multiple redundant air conditioning and temperature monitoring
8. Use only compatible programs, without losing anything you like
9. Automatically backup regularly and near continuously, offsite
10. Have continuous on-site and remote 24/7 professional computer monitoring
11. Use the best virus, malware and firewall checkers
12. Use secure facilities (bank-level locks, construction, guards)
13. No risk of operator error, including employee misconduct (read-only data)
14. No fire, theft and man-made or natural disasters
15. Internal Revenue never demands your accounting program files for audits

You get all this FREE, with total safety, because it comes from Yodlee. They provide the software that more than half of the largest banks use to give 35 million people their bank balances online. Bank of America invested $20 million in Yodlee, in addition to paying it for software. Yodlee provides read-only encrypted entries from 12,000+ banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions. They use hidden encrypted tokens to get these entries, so they never retain your login information. The data comes with only your bank name and the last four digits of your account number. There is no way anyone can steal from a read-only feed with this limited information. Remember your 15 reasons why QuickBooks is the worst place for your data.

You can get a free Yodlee account, for all your financial institutions, because you are testing the latest version of Yodlee for their bank customers. The only problem with Yodlee is that it is not a complete accounting system. For complete accounting, you need Xero, Zoho Books and a few other revolutionary programs from well-established companies. They use Yodlee read-only feeds, to save you a fortune in time and money. All of your bank, credit card and other financial institution data will automatically download into your accounting records nightly. You can see all the balances and entries in one place, without ever learning anything about accounting.

Xero is an amazing program. The first time we saw it we said, OMG! Xero is the future of accounting! We even bought the http://futureofacounting.com/ domain to link to this. It starts at $12 a month, which is all most users need. This is half the price of Zoho Books, but Xero is only available for this price through Xero Partners like us. The List View of the lined Xero Partner page has us second because we are now #2 in terms of Xero clients in the U.S.

We have the fastest, easiest and least expensive way to set up Xero and the rules that can accurately classify more than 90% of downloaded entries. We also provide daily, weekly and monthly Xero reports, with completely current data. For those needing more than Xero, we help select among the many advanced programs linking to it, or provide custom links.

Xero runs in a highly secure cloud. It is properly configured and professionally run, using multiple REDUNDANT COMPUTERS, at different highly secure locations, with near continuous backup. U.S. host Rackspace is especially noted for security, reliability and expandability,. This makes Xero the safest place for your accounting data by far.

After 28 years as prominent QuickBooks and Quicken experts, most of our clients still use QuickBooks. We are glad to help, but know that Xero and our very inexpensive CPAs can do much more than help then and you avoid using QuickBooks, the worst place for your data.