bulk paying bills: which is better - xero or crezco?
Welcome to our Introducing Series - where we showcase the latest tools & apps in the Xero-sphere, including tips on how they really work, what to watch out for, and we'll let you really know what we think of them! 🙂
Following on from our previous blogs on Xero Bill Payments & Paying Employee Wages, here we compare methods to pay bills.
Which is best: Xero Bulk pay Bills feature or Crezco?
We tried it & tested it - and this is what we really think..
The premise:
A simple and secure way to pay bills without leaving Xero, powered by Crezco (using the power of open banking).
in a nutshell:
Crezco sits in the background providing the interface between Xero and your Bank, so you can use Xero to select who you want to pay, and this instruction is sent to your bank.
THE STORY SO FAR:
In our previous blogs, we explained how you need to enter all of your supplier bank details into the financial info section in each supplier contact - this can be time consuming at first, but once it’s done it’s done. Getting into the habit of adding bank details for new suppliers as you go along is highly recommended here!
Depending on the bank, there may be numerous approval steps involved to approve each batch payment, which can be frustrating, and there’s also a 20p fee for each batch.
Our verdict was that the process is currently not much quicker than manually using your online banking. But using the Crezco feature meant that your bills would be marked as paid automatically, thus minimising the risk of paying the same bill twice, or incorrectly marking as paid/unpaid, and it makes bank reconciliation easier.
Xero bulk pay bills feature vs crezco:
The pricing: Crezco is a flat £20 per month fee irrespective of the number of payments made. So, if you’re making more than 100 payments a month, then Crezco becomes better value than the Xero Bulk Pay Bills feature.
The setup time: Either way takes roughly the same amount of time to set up, and both methods rely on supplier bank details being entered in Xero.
Speed: During my testing, it was about two minutes faster paying bills directly from Crezco than paying the same bills directly from Xero.
Crezco specific: You can import your bills awaiting payment at the touch of a button, and then deselect the ones you don't want to pay today. There's only one single approval required too. However, you can only see 10 bills per page, less information is shown, and it feels a little clunky to use compared to Xero.
Xero specific: Selecting & sorting bills for payment is a little easier and nicer in Xero, with screens that you’re already used to seeing.
our thoughts:
It really depends on how many suppliers & bills you need to pay, and how often. The set up time & speed are very similar (in our tests & experience that is!)
can i find out more on these features?
Yes you can! Check out our previous blogs on Xero Bill Payments & Paying Employee Wages for more tips & opinions!
need help with xero?
If you'd like to go over anything contained in this blog, or would like to cover any aspect of Xero that you're not currently using, please get in touch
Happy Xero-ing folks! 🙂