XERO Is Big About Small Business

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amanzi

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#259621 30-Sep-2009 09:28

I'm not a huge fan of creating artificial limitations based on features... I'm sure there's lots of freelancers and micro businesses that need multi-currency, and probably lots of larger businesses that don't need multi-currency. I'm worried now that future Xero features will be deemed necessary only for larger businesses and to get access to future features you'll have to upgrade to the large plan (Xero Ultimate Edition?)

abutel

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#259627 30-Sep-2009 09:44

And what happens when I have too many bank transactions in a month? presumably the additional transactions don't import and I have to then go back and import this manually?

No, that would be too prone to errors and just annoying. You'll be able to import (or manually enter) any number of bank transactions, but you'll be prevented from reconciling them if you've exceeded your limits. Once you switch to medium or large - then you can process the over-the-limit transactions.

tripp

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#259682 30-Sep-2009 12:02

Business software should never say what people can and can't have, make a base plan with add on's. I.e. I might be the only freelancer doing some software work from company in the US so I only need 1 user but I also need multi currency for that US customer, let me pay $19 for the plan and then another $25 for multi currency.

Another example
Company A imports things but pays in NZ dollars for everything however they do need a "landed cost i.e. total cost of goods plus import tax, customs checks, shipping etc" for their accounting, so they need a plan that does this for them, they can get away with using the medium plan and then just buy a add on for "landed cost"

Something along the lines of

Small = limits to invoice/purchase and bank import. ($19 +gst) a month
Small Add on's

Another 20 invoice/purchases/bank import $10 + GST (can buy this more than once a month)

Multi currency ($25 a month)

Medium
Medium = Unlimited ($49 a month)
Medium Add on's

Multi Currency ($20 a month)

Large

Large = Unlimited with all add on's for whatever price xero wants to charge (I guess you guys will be adding more add on's later so the large plan gets these with their standard monthly plan cost).

Doing it this way a single user/company can then pick what they need and adjust the package to fit with their business. If its a big company that does a lot then the large plan would suit them better as that will have all the add-on's and will work out cheaper for the company

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#259686 30-Sep-2009 12:11

Sorry about the spacing in the last message it seems that GZ hates Chrome and i cant seem to remove them :(

dmw

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#259697 30-Sep-2009 12:26

In view of this discussion, can I suggest that the Small product be renamed "Micro"?

The difficulty appears to be that Xero is after a particular market segment -- which I'm interpreting as the "one man band", although in practice, such operations nowadays will often have 2 participants from 1 household -- and trying to define the segment via transaction limits.

I have not seen a Xero definition of their Medium market segment? My understanding is that it would be businesses with multiple customers, usually operated from business premises.

The current price structure (Medium) is too high for me. The Small (or Micro) offer is attractive as long as the boundaries are not a source of continual contention.

I would not want an investment property to incur an additional $29/mth. Maybe $5/mth per additional Small entity?

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#259708 30-Sep-2009 12:47

dmw:I would not want an investment property to incur an additional $29/mth. Maybe $5/mth per additional Small entity?

Charge an extra $7.25 a week in rent to cover it.

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Shop now for HP laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

abutel

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#259727 30-Sep-2009 13:29

I would not want an investment property to incur an additional $29/mth. Maybe $5/mth per additional Small entity?

Keep in mind also that if you have two organisaitons using Xero, then you'll get a 25% discount. So - if you're running a business and paying $49, then adding your rental property on small will only cost an additional $9.50 per month.

Xero

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#260064 1-Oct-2009 12:07

We have just posted an operational update in the forums...

Xero (The world's easiest accounting system) | Xero Blog | 2009 Success & Survival Guide

Xero

Accounting made easy
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#263410 12-Oct-2009 09:19

Hello folks. I think you will like this update:

Xero (The world's easiest accounting system) | Xero Blog | 2009 Success & Survival Guide

amanzi

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#263441 12-Oct-2009 10:53

I still don't like the labelling of the different plans. They imply that the plans should fit the size of the business, i.e. "Small Xero" is for small businesses that only do a few transactions, or "Large Xero" that suits large businesses who need unlimited transactions and trade worldwide.

But the only difference between Medium and Large is multi-currency, so the labels "Large" and "Medium" mean absolutely nothing. And going forward, how are you planning to further differentiate between Medium and Large? Are you going to release more features which are only available in the Large plan? The issue I have with this strategy is that I could be a small freelancer who only produces a couple of invoices per month, but then I land a client in Australia - now I have to upgrade to the Large plan if I want the multi-currency features. Perhaps you could have just enable the multi-currency feature to be added to either the small or medium plans?

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