Xero Expenses vs Zoho Books

Xero Expenses lets employees submit business expense and mileage claims for approval and reimbursement. Employees can photograph receipts in the Xero Me app; extracted details can prefill a claim. Approvers can approve or decline claims in Xero or Xero Me and track them by status, employee, or account. Approved claims can be paid from a bank account or reimbursed through payroll in the next pay run. Xero turns approved claims into accounts payable bills and records them against the relevant expense account. Employees can submit mileage claims for work travel in a personal vehicle, alongside other expenses. Xero says digital receipts are stored for audit and compliance, and claims include document audit trail details. Expenses is available through Xero on the web and the Xero Me app for iOS and Android. Xero describes its audience as small businesses, accountants, and bookkeepers. It offers support through Xero Central and advertises free personalized onboarding with a product specialist for the first 90 days. Pricing is listed from $25/mo, and there is no free plan. A free trial is available.

Zoho Books is an accounting service for invoices, bills, banking, inventory, expenses, projects, reporting, and online payments. It includes bank feeds, automated reconciliation, receipt capture, and accountant access, with dedicated iOS and Android apps. Inventory tools cover stock tracking, reorder alerts, warehouses, serial numbers, batch tracking, and bin locations. It supports foreign transactions with exchange rates applied in real time, and changes sync across devices with automatic cloud backup. Transactions use two-factor authentication and SSL encryption; Zoho Books does not store credit card information. The free plan includes one user and one accountant, allows five scheduled reports, and remains available indefinitely while annual revenue is at or below $50K. Standard costs $15 a month with annual billing. A 14-day free trial is available. Subscriptions are pay-as-you-go without a contract commitment and can be cancelled. Support hours are Monday to Friday, 9 am to 9 pm ET, with channels varying by plan.