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Alternatives

Xero alternatives

Xero is a cloud accounting system with bank feeds, reconciliation and reporting. It bundles expense claims and Hubdoc document capture, which it owns. Most small businesses meet receipt capture through Xero itself.

Why people look

Why teams look for a Xero alternative

The reasons that come up in evaluations. Whether they apply to you depends mostly on where your receipts come from.

The receipt attached to a claim in Xero is a photograph and a total, and the detail behind it is gone.

Receipts sent through Smartbills bring the POS line items into Xero. The entry shows what was actually bought.

Claims are still typed in by whoever spent the money, then checked and reconciled by hand.

Policy is checked when the claim is submitted, and the coded entry reaches Xero without anyone typing it in again.

Payables, cards and receivables each need a separate tool bolted onto the ledger.

Smartbills handles bills, cards, expenses and collections in front of Xero, which replaces four separate subscriptions with one.

The shortlist

6 alternatives to Xero

The products teams shortlist against Xero, each with what it's for. The order isn't a ranking, and the criteria are explained below.

  1. QuickBooks

    Keeps QuickBooks as your ledger and replaces only its receipt capture, sending in itemized, policy-checked entries.

    Best forBusinesses whose receipt volume is small enough that the capture already included with QuickBooks still copes.

    Compare it with Smartbills

  2. Hubdoc

    Hubdoc moves documents into Xero and stops there. Smartbills adds digital receipts, expense policy, cards and payables around those documents.

    Best forXero users whose only need is getting bills and receipts into Xero at no extra cost.

    Compare it with Smartbills

  3. Dext

    Dext collects the receipts and invoices your accounting practice is sent. Smartbills gets the receipt from the merchant at the moment you pay.

    Best forAccounting practices collecting documents from many clients at once, who need client reminders and publishing built in.

    Compare it with Smartbills

  4. BILL

    Worth a look if your payables team loses more time finding and coding invoices than paying them, and card receipts sit in another tool.

    Best forBusinesses paying supplier invoices at high volume, especially when most of their suppliers are already enrolled on the BILL network.

    Compare it with Smartbills

  5. Melio

    Melio pays suppliers cheaply. Smartbills covers the invoice work that comes first: capture, matching, coding and multi-step approvals.

    Best forSmall businesses whose one real need is paying a handful of suppliers as cheaply as possible.

    Compare it with Smartbills

  6. Sage

    An alternative to Sage Expense Management (formerly Fyle) that delivers receipts as data, while your Sage ledger stays put.

    Best forOrganizations on Sage that place real value on buying the ledger and the expense product from one vendor.

    Compare it with Smartbills

Disclosure

And Smartbills, which is ours

Slipping our own product into a roundup without saying so is exactly what makes these pages worthless, so to be clear, this one is ours.

Smartbills

Best for: Businesses where several people spend and line-level tax detail has to survive all the way into the return.

Smartbills vs Xero

How this list was put together

These are the products that come up in the same evaluations as Xero, drawn from what prospects actually shortlist against it and from the rest of its category. The order is editorial rather than a ranking, because we don't run benchmarks on products we don't operate, and a scored table written by a vendor about its competitors isn't evidence. Each entry links to a full comparison with claims specific enough to check.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What people ask us before they sign up.

No. Xero stays your ledger and your accountant keeps working in it. Smartbills posts coded entries into Xero with the receipt attached.

No. Hubdoc collects and reads documents. It does not issue a receipt, apply a spending policy or match a card transaction, which is where the two differ.

For a handful of claims a month, usually yes. It starts to strain once several people spend and somebody has to check every claim.

Get started

Comparing Xero with something else?

Bring one month of your own receipts and card transactions. The number that settles it is the share of transactions that ended up with an itemized document attached, and you can measure that in one cycle.

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