US Xero Competitor Missed $40M in Pay Cheques

This is a tough time for accounting software firms because they’re competing head-to head for new clients at the end of the financial year. Some are offering $1/month for 6 months (like BillCue), 50% discounts, 12 month low monthly rates etc.

The competition is so fierce between accounting software companies that most of them promote what they see as the biggest difference and reason to change.

I was surprised to discover the Xero even compared themselves to Hnry (the full service accounting software, accountant and payment service) at their own website. The more research I do the more comparisons I find at most software company websites.

Some of these software companies are startups with nowhere near the cash of market leaders like Xero & QuickBooks and one of the US based accounting software companies wasn’t able to process $40M in payroll payments in March 2023.

Patriot Accounting vs Xero

I came across a US based accounting program called Patriot Software who don’t like to reveal their prices easily on their website. Patriot works closely with their partners and focus on payroll services but the biggest thing which stood out was the number of state taxes that US based accounting software needs to deal with.

One of the biggest challenges with accounting software are the different taxes you have to work with and account for. A quick look at a TrustRadius which compares Xero to Patriot revealed:

Patriot Software has two payroll options to choose from: Basic Payroll, and Full Service payroll software. Both start with a simple three-step payroll process. With the Full Service Payroll, Patriot will collect, deposit, and file federal, state, and local payroll taxes on the customer’s behalf; end-of-the-year payroll tax filing is included at no extra charge. Print W2s on 8 x 1/2 x 11 plain white office paper to hand to employees, or post to the free employee portal. Also, Patriot Software offers free direct deposit.

TrustRadius website

UK and US taxes and payroll are different overseas

We explored promoting Xero courses in the UK but their taxes and payroll are different. To offer Xero Courses in the UK we’d need to go through a re-write of our training materials for that country and every country because our training materials take students through real world practical projects.

The UK has VAT and the US has sales taxes that vary from state to state and that’s why there is NO value in any type of International accreditation for Xero courses. I was surprised when I first noticed this “Internationally Accredited Xero Course” that I read about in some other training company’s marketing material! It seems to stretch the truth a bit.

Anyway, as we researched Patriot Accounting software a bit more we realised that they were caught up in the Silicon Valley Bank crash earlier in 2023.

Localisation for HR & Workforce Management is Hard

Xero is smashing it in Australia and growing at a good rate in the UK but according to their most recent financial report has struggled to gain market share in the US. It’s companies like Patriot that are making it hard for them but the biggest reason would have to be the market leading QuickBooks Online software from Intuit.

I’ve written several times about Xero’s big acquisition of Planday and how it will fill a known gap in their Workforce Management and HR features.

There have been big changes in this area of the market over the last couple years and even QuickBooks Online don’t have their own payroll and HR software for Australia. The company they worked with was KeyPay and they were recently bought out by Employment Hero!

Get Workforce Management Course AND Integrations Introduction Course for FREE

We announced our Workforce Management course earlier this year and this course is included for free when you enrol into a MYOB & Xero Bookkeeping Academy course packages.

If you only want to learn about payroll our payroll courses are available separately and include 2 case studies:

1. A Beginners Payroll Course case study (about a hairdressing salon), and
2. An Advanced Payroll course case study (about a Charcoal Chicken shop)

If you want to learn as much about MYOB or Xero as possible then the COMPLETE versions of each course include the payroll course.