Xero Vs QuickBooks: Which is Better for Tracking Your Inventory?

Xero

QuickBooks Online

Availability

Xero offers inventory management with all of its plans.

QuickBooks inventory features are only available with the Plus and Advanced plans.

Primary functionalities

Xero provides a comprehensive suite of features to streamline your inventory and purchase order management processes. Create, view, edit and add inventory items quickly with Xero's easy-to-use platform. Easily access up-to-date costs details for each item in stock and calculate accurate cost of goods sold (COGS).

QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced users can keep track of their stock items as well as automatically update quantity levels. Additionally, QBO allows users to easily differentiate between taxable and tax-exempt items when making a purchase order for vendors. You can even set up low-stock notifications when it's time to restock your supplies. You can create four unique item types with ease, including inventory items, non-inventory items, services and bundles.

Stock Tracking & Monitoring

Track what's in stock and simplify the tracking of all incoming items quickly and easily. You can track up to 4000 items and easily access information regarding item quantities, stock availability and even a grand total of all in-stock values at any given time.

You can monitor what is currently in stock and what you have on order at any given time. When items are bought or sold, the quantities will automatically be adjusted- letting you know precisely which products are selling quickly and need to be reordered accordingly.

Invoicing

Populate invoices and orders with items you buy and sell. Choose items you want to include on an invoice, quote or purchase order. You can add items using pre-filled details in your invoices and orders. Create reusable text for quotes, invoices and purchase orders - such as item descriptions and prices.

Instantly create and send out professional invoices, sales receipts, estimates, and more with custom business forms. Keep track of your orders from vendors, organizing their contact information in one central location for convenient restocking and monitoring purchase orders. 

Inventory Counting & Valuation

Xero will keep track of counting the items to calculate their value as you buy and sell.

You can get real-time inventory valuation as your balance sheet gets automatically adjusted as you go about your day.

Reporting

View reports on how well items are selling. Utilize inventory management reports to identify how various products are performing. Determine which items are the best and worst sellers, along with those that yield the most or least profit. 

Create custom reports and dashboards to suit your company's needs. Easily view low stock reports, generate inventory reports, track asset valuations, sales data purchases and more with the help of intuitive reporting tools. You can access reports such as best-selling items stats, total sales numbers and even taxes owed.

Low Stock Alerts

Xero does not have robust low stock alerts, though you can track the best selling products. 

With QBO, you can monitor your products, cost of goods, and receive notifications when supplies are running low. Plus check out the top sellers to create purchase orders from your vendors.

Product Media

Instantly link images and contracts to your items, so you can easily refer back to supplier agreements. Plus, see exactly what an item looks like by attaching a picture.

Organize your products with images, categories, and prices.

COGS

Xero uses the standard COGS formula to keep track of product costs.

QBO automatically calculates the cost of each product sold using first in, first out (FIFO)

Expense Tracking

This feature is missing in Xero.

Record & track expenses for tax time. You can even take pictures and save receipts with the QuickBooks Online mobile app.

Import & Export

Import or export inventory details To get your inventory software set up in Xero, take advantage of the free CSV template available for download and upload details of items. Or you could opt to export a PDF or CSV file containing all your listed items.

Easily import your product, customer, vendor and other lists from Excel or sync with sources like Amazon, Shopify, Etsy and more.

Ease of Use

If you need to modify the quantity, cost, or value of an inventory item after a stocktake or due to any damages inflicted upon it, then simply adjust these metrics on your tracked items for accurate records.

Enter vendor bills and pay them as soon as they are due. Furthermore, you can save time by setting up automatic recurring payments for each month.

Customer Support

Xero offers 24/7 support. 

QBO offers unlimited free support to answer any of your queries and guide you on how to successfully run your business.

Location Tracking

Xero does not have location tracking and it can be a problem.

By using location tracking, businesses can easily organize data according to their various offices, stores, outlets and departments. You can generate reports based on geography-specific information. To ensure your inventory is tracked correctly, make sure you toggle the 'inventory tracking' feature on.

Drawbacks

Xero falls short when it comes to inventory features like low-stock alerts, advanced sorting of item types and in-depth analysis of sales - all capabilities that QuickBooks provides.

While QuickBooks Desktop Premier offers the capability to monitor inventory assembly, its online counterpart, QuickBooks Online, does not.

Xero

QuickBooks Online

Setting Up Inventory Items

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Adding Inventory to Invoices

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Viewing Stock on Hand

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Tracking Inventory Units & Costs

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Recording Returned Inventory

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