In a post on the Xero Blog on 15th January, Mark Matt Vickers discusses Vendor Lock-In.  In a previous post, I commented on the automatic upgrades nature of Saas products.  Here I want to examine Mark Matt’s claim that:

“.. if you want to stop using Xero, it’s relatively simple to get your data out in formats that can be used by other systems”

Now, I am a very happy user of Xero but, pretending for a moment that I have decided to pitch my tent elsewhere, I am looking at how I would get my data out.

The obvious starting point seems to be the “Export General Ledger Transactions” routine.  This is accessed via the Adviser menu, so will only be available to users with “Financial Adviser” permissions.

The export routine produces a Text file that can easily be read into Excel.  So a tick in the box here.  However, there is a problem.  The text file does not include the contact name for each transaction, i.e. the customer or supplier name.  Clearly, this is a major limitation if I want to use my historical accounting data in another system.  Looking at the data fields exported, there is a column called “Name” which contains the “Account Type” (Direct Costs, Current Liability etc) and it seems to me that this is an error – I think this column was intended to have the contact name in it.  I have already flagged this issue with Xero support.

An alternative is to run the General Ledger report from the reports menu then click on the “Export detailed General Ledger to Excel” button.

Opening the Excel file produced, I see that I now have the customer or supplier names which is great.  The downside though is that what I am looking at now is an Excel report, with transactions summarised by account name and subtotalled.  This means the data is much harder to use for importing into another accounting system than a text file or CSV file.  The data itself is also less complete than what I had using the other export routine – in particular I don’t have VAT itemised by transaction.

So, if I want to take historical Xero transactions and import them into another system, the current export facilities are almost, but not quite, sufficient.

More typically, I believe, I would want to move to a rival system with effect from a particular date – the start of a new month, or VAT quarter for instance.  In this scenario, I would leave my historical data in Xero, using Xero up to the last day of the previous month or VAT quarter, then enter opening balances only into the new system.

For the purposes of entering opening balances, Xero provides several export routines.  I can get my outstanding customer and supplier invoices using the export option (to Excel) from the Aged Receivables and Aged Payables reports.  Customer and supplier details can be exported easily (to CSV).  I can also export the closing Trial Balance (to Excel) and my Chart of Accounts (CSV), which makes setting up my General Ledger in the new accounting system easier.  It seems that I am now good to go – or am I?

Having moved my Xero closing balance information over to my new accounting system, I can now use the new system for all ongoing transactions but, because I could not bring over my historical transactions, I also need to keep my old Xero account open for reference purposes.  I have to pay for two systems now.  Not really “fair play” in my view.

The guys at Xero are aware of this issue and state in their help documentation:

“In the future, at a reduced cost, we plan to include functionality to allow an organisation to be set as read-only for archival purposes.”

To conclude, I think that Xero are playing fairer than most with my data but maybe not trying hard enough to follow through fully on their statement:

“We believe your data is your data, and what you’re paying for when you use Xero are tools to manage that data.”

What could Xero do better?  I think that all of my data should be available as a text or CSV export, not in Excel format.  Going further, if Xero really “believe in people having choices” they should provide export routines with names like “Export all data to Sage”, “Export all data to Kashflow” etc.  And of course, those competitor products should do the same.  Then we would genuinely be able to own our own data and pay for whatever service we like best for managing that data at a particular point in time.

I know, life’s not like that ..

In a post on the Xero Blog today, Mark Vickers discusses how users of software (desktop or web-based) are always vulnerable to “vendor lock-in” – in essence having their data stuck in a system they now want out of.

He cites the example of FaceBook’s recent change to its privacy policy, then moves on to accounting software providers and states:

“Vendor lock-in has a long and nefarious history in the software industry. Traditional accounting software has been guilty of locking people in with proprietary formats and compulsory upgrades.”

Of course, the point of Mark’s post is to try to convince us that Xero is not guilty in this regard, that it plays fair with your data.  He tells us that data can be exported from Xero in commonly used formats.  He also reminds us that upgrades to the software are very regular and come free as part of the service.

So, I thought I would examine Xero’s credentials.  Are they playing fair with our data?  Are they justified in taking the moral high ground here?

Firstly, let’s deal with the “compulsory upgrades” point.  In his post Mark outlines this scenario:

“You might buy some accounting software and run it for a couple of years. An upgrade becomes available, but it’s expensive. You decide you don’t need it, because the upgrade doesn’t offer anything new. A few more years pass, as do a few more upgrades, and you choose to ignore them all.”

He then talks about the user finding out that, because they missed some steps in the upgrade process, they are no longer in a position to make the jump to the latest version.  Disaster!

Now, I agree with what he is saying.  Many readers will have experience of the annual QuickBooks upgrade cycle and the serious consequences that can result from falling behind in the version number race.  I well remember the huge problems clients had moving to QuickBooks 2008 – it’s one of the reasons we were able to move many of them over to Xero.

But is Xero innocent here?  No it isn’t, because Xero DOES force its users into compulsory upgrades.  The fundamental principle of the “software as a service” model is that all users always have the latest version.  What about the user who sees the changes coming in the next upgrade and doesn’t want them?  The changes may be regarded as an advancement by Xero and most of their users, but seen as a backward step by an individual user.  That user does not have the option to say, “no thanks, I’ll stick with what I’ve got please”.

The continuous, automatic upgrades model is the right one in my opinion but there will always be someone who prefers the status quo and, to that user, Xero will be enforcing a compulsory upgrade.

I will explore the data export features in my next post.  Is Xero really playing fair with our data?