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Xero Expenses vs Dext / Receipt Bank

Here's why we still prefer to use our Dext (formerly known as Receipt Bank) enabled process for handling employee expenses rather than Xero Expenses.

Xero announced the launch of it's revamped Expense claim management system in September 2018.

As part of its bookkeeping services, Standard Ledger has been using Dext for years to assist it's clients with expense claim management, and we believe this is still the way to go for our bookkeeping clients for a number of reasons:

  • Xero Expenses gives you a (separate) mobile App to take pictures. In Standard Ledger's setup we already have and use the Dext App that will also still be used for capturing company invoices and payment made, rather than needing yet another App on your phone
  • With our setup, you can also email in expenses (eg flight itineraries you pay for personally and receive in your inbox)
  • As we're already reviewing entered receipts, Standard Ledger (already) does the expense account allocation for clients
  • Xero expenses does come with an (apparently nice) inbuilt approval mechanism, slight overkill for most of our startups who are directly managing / paying their own expenses. In our current process, approvals are handled along with our payables bill payments
  • Xero expenses creates a Bill to be Paid for managing re-payment of expenses. Our current process does the same, with an attached formatted expense report and full drill down to the individual underlying receipts
  • Xero expenses costs $5/user/mth extra. Dext usage and Standard Ledger processing costs no extra.

Xero expenses looks like a straight forward way of managing expense claims if you're still at a stage of doing your own books.

For our bookkeeping clients, we already have a proven well defined process and service based around Dext that handles both company receipts and invoices as well as personal expense reimbursements ... and for no extra cost.

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