Online accounting program Saasu has topped a comparative review of desktop and online accounting programs available in Australia, with cloud rival Xero a close second.
The independent review by the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (ICB) was carried out by four bookkeepers from the ICB and assisted by a panel of seven senior bookkeepers certified with each of the vendors.
“We had a variety of senior accredited bookkeeping partners with each of the software brands,” said ICB director Matthew Addison. Panelists included Xero Gold, Reckon Accredited, MYOB Certified Consultant, Intuit and Saasu partners.
The review assessed the programs for 10 features considered mandatory for conducting business in Australia. These included bank feeds, emailing invoices, payroll, support and reporting.
Another five questions looked at the programs’ inclusion of optional or cutting-edge features such as cheque deposit slips, automatic lodgement of tax forms and verification of bank feeds.
After tallying the scores for the 10-question review and the extended review (total 15 questions), Saasu came in first place (83/100, 112/150) and Xero in second place (81.5/100, 102.2/150).
Two desktop accounting programs, Reckon Accounts and MYOB AccountRight v.19, vied for third and fourth spots (see chart for rankings). MYOB and Intuit’s cloud-based programs, MYOB LiveAccounts and the newish QuickBooks Online, swapped for last place (see chart for rankings).
Despite concerns about security in the past, the ICB ranked Xero a 9.5 out of 10 for bank feeds, the highest score in the field.
“Xero is further down the track in terms of intelligent processing of bank feed information. They are certainly the benchmark,” Addison said.
While MYOB has claimed superior accuracy in its bank feeds compared to Xero, Saasu and other rivals who used a third-party service to supply bank data, the ICB reviewers and panel found there was little difference.
“Our information is that the accuracy of bank feeds is not a significant problem,” Addison said.
Saasu scored consistently higher throughout the review with the only comparative weakness in payments. Saasu and Xero were developing electronic payment gateways but had not developed a solution to meet the growing trend for direct debit payments, the reviewers found.
MYOB’s older desktop software (AccountRight v.19) and Reckon’s desktop program Reckon Accounts performed better due to the M-Powered payment facility which sent payments directly to banks. ICB bookkeepers found the function removed three or four steps from the banking process, Addison said.
(MYOB has said it was bringing M-Powered payments to its latest version, AccountRight 2012.)
“With M-Powered invoices you can hit a button and it tells you the invoice has been paid. The board felt that the business case was better,” Addison said.
Two strong areas of innovation included payroll and record keeping. Although the ICB considered MYOB AccountRight (Live, v.19 and 2012) to have a fully functioning payroll, Xero scored higher (9 vs 8 out of 10) due to its development of a self-service portal for employees. “You can have leave applications and management, provision of payment summaries, and employees can login and see their payroll history,” Addison said.
“If Xero didn’t have that employee portal I’m not sure it would have been an 8, probably a 7. It is a good payroll but not as good as MYOB AccountRight. The portal is a big win,” he said.
The ability to save expense receipts and accounts payable invoices to transactions was another major improvement, Addison said. Saasu, Xero and QuickBooks Online scored well for including the function.
“You can scan your invoice, attach it to the transaction and throw the paper away. It’s kept inside the accounting file; it’s great functionality,” Addison said.
“All the players need to step up and provide instant document retrieval at the click of a button from within the relevant transaction.”
Xero’s score suffered slightly due to a more complicated process for adjusting transactions.
“The consultants I talked to did criticise Xero’s ability to quickly alter transactions,” Addison said.
“You sometimes have to delete the original transaction and recreate it to alter it. In the other products it’s a two-screen process instead of multiple screens.”
The ICB has published the review with comments behind the scoring.