Should Xero users create their own alternative software?

[smason]

Hi all - I’ve just joined coming from the ‘we hate Xero because of the price increases’ thread on the soon-to-close official Xero members forum.

Watching the shit show which is Xero and their disdain for their customers, it struck me that there is a real place for a community developed alternative.  Open source.  Not-for-profit. Anti-entrapment.  That stuff.

The route would be to get a team together, agree primary requirements for an initial launch, agree a development protocol, build, beta test, and then release.

Obviously many decisions needed (like how much funding is needed and where to get it from) but these would be guided by initial agreed principles.  Nothing at all insurmountable there.

Keen to gauge interest.  Please reply here if you think you’d a) like to be involved in setting it up and/or b) a user.
 

[tedrow]

Great title!

I am computer tech. I was early adpoter of Xero and fairly big contributor on the forums for first 5 years. The bank feeds, tied to automatic late payment reminders and reconciling on the phone whilst on the toilet   was the biggest business game changer.

The price increases oh yer you are right there (shackles up). The one that scorches the earth for me though was when they updated their expenses and then put their hand in our pocket calling Expenses in a book keeping system AN ADDON  . Coz of the backlash from the community they gave us back expenses calling it classic but removed important things from it
 .

I didn't realise that they shut down the communities, any company that silences community or creates a pretend censored community has gone to the darkside.

Today's notice (20 Aug 26) that they shutting down classic expenses giving us 3 options which straight out of the dictatorship which decided to silence its customers voices:

1. Pay them the ransom money for 'expenses premium'.
2. Dump all your expense receipts into the files area for your accountant to waste time picking through.
3. Find another program.

I don't think it is a case of "Should?" we create our own alternative software. I think it is more of a case of "If you're a Xero user, not already started creating your own software..you're already behind"

SaaS had its hay day. The market saturated a few years ago and they all having to pay for backnend costs which is forcing their bottom line up as well as the extremely bottomless bucket of having to market in a competitive industry.

I have been building my own book keeping system for last 6 months. I've mostly replicated Xero's system they only downside is I have to manually download CSV's from my bank and upload them to my system. Bank feeds and the newer OpenBanking are not available for us mere mortals on shoe string budgets.

I would not just recommend for Xero though. Its time to bring everything in house and local. I'm also building local AI coz if we learnt anything from Google they give us the universe to suck us in and then once we're in and they starved out our old methods they start censoring and restricting our access.