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Xero is the same and it really pisses me off. In Xero you've got something called a "Xero Network ID", which is an ID that you can give to other Xero users and

Xero is the same and it really pisses me off. In Xero you've got something called a "Xero Network ID", which is an ID that you can give to other Xero users and they can link it to your contact record on their account, which means that invoices they raise are automatically posted in your Xero account without you having to lift a finger. Now, you would have thought that Xero would do the same for their subscription invoices (i.e. automatically post them to your Xero account). But no..... Instead they send you one by email which you then have to post manually onto your Xero account. And they do that every ... single ... month. If you ask them "why ?", you get an arrogant reply that along the lines of "we're too big to use Xero, so go away you silly little person". But that doesn't answer the question. Xero is their dogfood. So even if they use Sage or whatever internally, surely it is not that difficult for them to build an integration so they can post their damn invoices to the customer's accounts. Rant over. ;-)

yeutterg 4y ago
Slightly off-topic, IMO Xero has really gone downhill. The Yodlee integrations with banks fail so often these days, it makes it hard to use the product at all. When you refresh a bank/credit card feed or log in for the xth time, you have no expected timeline as to when the feed will update or whether it will even work. There are multiple buttons to reset a feed, and they do different things. It's nearly impossible to just log in and reconcile all your accounts because you are always fighting with unconnected bank feeds. This degrades the core value prop of making it easy to stay atop of bookkeeping—now I always have some form of "accounting debt" these days. I got so frustrated that I am in the process of migrating my personal account to Tiller + Google Sheets, and I'm still looking for a solution for our small business account. I agree about the billing issues; I waste time figuring out where the invoices live in the product and manually posting them. Otherwise, the product would be fine if outdated, if it wasn't for the unreliability of Yodlee.
- traceroute66 4y ago
  > I'm still looking for a solution for our small business account. For a long time I resisted moving to Xero. Unfortunately my hand was forced because my existing solution (MYOB which was then bought by Mamut) stopped being Apple compatible through their own lazyness (they refused to update the software for 64-bit compatability). Apple had pre-announced the post-Catalina 64-bit requirement years in advance. Every other developer out there had made the change. But Mamut/MYOB ... nope, they sent out a long email one day basically making that absolutely clear they were not moving from 32-bit. Their answer was to offer a "cloud" version. I say "cloud" because what they offered was a remote desktop connection to a Mac running an old version of software on their side. So hence I was forced over to Xero. My accountant was pressuring me too, but Mamut/MYOB killing off their own product was the straw that broke the camels back. (I believe they may have finally relented and brought out a 64-bit version subsequently, but by that time it was too late, I'd moved already. And I had lost trust in their software support abilities anyway by then).
  - andylynch 4y ago
    Consistent with my own experience with MYOB. Product managers coasting on market share and stalling on mandatory changes, even when their competitors sitting next to them in the room have done it and moved on.
- ghiculescu 4y ago
  It’s really unclear what everyone at Xero does these days. Their main product development seems to be keeping up STP compliance, and trying to move add-ons onto their new App Store. I haven’t seen an exciting new feature in a long time. (Their business development team, by contrast, seems pretty busy.)
- wharfjumper 4y ago
  What country are you in?
  - yeutterg 4y ago
    US. Maybe it's better in other markets.
anthonys 4y ago
Fairly sure Xero use NetSuite (or did- maybe they've since moved) and apparently went to great lengths at the time to make the invoice look like it was generated from Xero. At least they aren't hiding that anymore.

yeutterg 4y ago

Slightly off-topic, IMO Xero has really gone downhill. The Yodlee integrations with banks fail so often these days, it makes it hard to use the product at all. When you refresh a bank/credit card feed or log in for the xth time, you have no expected timeline as to when the feed will update or whether it will even work. There are multiple buttons to reset a feed, and they do different things. It's nearly impossible to just log in and reconcile all your accounts because you are always fighting with unconnected bank feeds. This degrades the core value prop of making it easy to stay atop of bookkeeping—now I always have some form of "accounting debt" these days. I got so frustrated that I am in the process of migrating my personal account to Tiller + Google Sheets, and I'm still looking for a solution for our small business account. I agree about the billing issues; I waste time figuring out where the invoices live in the product and manually posting them. Otherwise, the product would be fine if outdated, if it wasn't for the unreliability of Yodlee.

traceroute66 4y ago
> I'm still looking for a solution for our small business account. For a long time I resisted moving to Xero. Unfortunately my hand was forced because my existing solution (MYOB which was then bought by Mamut) stopped being Apple compatible through their own lazyness (they refused to update the software for 64-bit compatability). Apple had pre-announced the post-Catalina 64-bit requirement years in advance. Every other developer out there had made the change. But Mamut/MYOB ... nope, they sent out a long email one day basically making that absolutely clear they were not moving from 32-bit. Their answer was to offer a "cloud" version. I say "cloud" because what they offered was a remote desktop connection to a Mac running an old version of software on their side. So hence I was forced over to Xero. My accountant was pressuring me too, but Mamut/MYOB killing off their own product was the straw that broke the camels back. (I believe they may have finally relented and brought out a 64-bit version subsequently, but by that time it was too late, I'd moved already. And I had lost trust in their software support abilities anyway by then).
- andylynch 4y ago
  Consistent with my own experience with MYOB. Product managers coasting on market share and stalling on mandatory changes, even when their competitors sitting next to them in the room have done it and moved on.
ghiculescu 4y ago
It’s really unclear what everyone at Xero does these days. Their main product development seems to be keeping up STP compliance, and trying to move add-ons onto their new App Store. I haven’t seen an exciting new feature in a long time. (Their business development team, by contrast, seems pretty busy.)
wharfjumper 4y ago
What country are you in?
- yeutterg 4y ago
  US. Maybe it's better in other markets.

anthonys 4y ago

Fairly sure Xero use NetSuite (or did- maybe they've since moved) and apparently went to great lengths at the time to make the invoice look like it was generated from Xero. At least they aren't hiding that anymore.