Hubdoc vs Dext
Have you heard of Hubdoc yet?
No? Wow, you’re missing out! Both ourselves and our clients love it, and here’s why.
When you’re running a business, you want your admin to be as quick, easy and organised as possible, as everyone hates the mundane admin tasks that need to be done. After all, your time could be spent on more valuable things than filing invoices or rummaging through receipts so you can claim the right expenses.
Data capture software lets you streamline those tasks. You can upload your paperwork, either by taking a photo or forwarding an email attachment, and the app will do the work for you, extracting key financial information and sending it directly to your accounting software.
It then keeps a digital copy of that data, so you can recycle your receipts or bills, safe in the knowledge it’s all stored in one place.
We like using an app called Hubdoc best for this purpose, but a couple of clients have asked us why we choose this software, and not one of its main competitors, Dext (formerly known as Receipt Bank).
In short, we prefer Hubdoc because it provides better integration with Xero, and better value for our clients.
Seamless integration for Xero users
Hubdoc was founded in 2011 and acquired by Xero in 2018. At first, it functioned as a standalone add-on. But since 2020, Xero has been embedding Hubdoc’s technology into its own platform.
This means you can now access Hubdoc within Xero, through a single login, and customer service for it is available through Xero Central.
The data you capture goes directly to your Xero account, and integrates with its Expenses module and other features.
For current Xero users, it means choosing Hubdoc over the alternatives really is a no-brainer. It integrates so smoothly you barely have to think about it – like all good business software, it works well by not getting in your way.
Ease of use
When you open up Hubdoc, you’ll see a simple folder structure, with your files organised by supplier and easily searchable by name, amount and date.
In our opinion, Dext can be fairly data-heavy by comparison, which makes it a little harder to see what kind of actions you can take within the app.
We like the clarity of Hubdoc’s dashboard icons, which take you all the way through the process from uploading your paperwork to syncing data with Xero.
Both apps use optical character recognition (OCR) software to extract data from images with a high degree of accuracy, so you’ll have to make very few corrections as you go.
Fetch those annoying online bills
More and more businesses are choosing not to send their invoices out to customers, and rather have customers log in to find them. Annoying right?
Think about the time it takes logging in and then trying to find the billing section, and that’s before you’ve downloaded it to your computer to include in your accounts. Hubdoc will connect to 100’s of businesses to pull those invoices for you automatically when they’re issued!
‘On the go’ bookkeeping with the Hubdoc app
If you’re like many business owners, you’ll find yourself running around out of the office for a lot of your time, so keeping track of all your spending and holding onto those receipts can be tough.
The Hubdoc app allows you to store those receipts using your smartphone camera, which links to Xero meaning you can carry on with your day safe in the knowledge that you’ve saved your receipts electronically.
Value for money
Dext has a three-tier pricing structure, with fees of £10, £20 or £40 per month on its annual plans. Each plan comes with limits on the number of users you can have on the platform and scans you can complete.
Hubdoc, meanwhile, is priced at a flat rate of $12 US dollars per month for all its features – roughly £8.60 a month, according to exchange rates in August 2021.
Even better, if you have a Xero license, it’s included for free. So if you’ve already got a license, as all our clients do, you’ll benefit from the convenience of cloud storage and machine learning technology, without having to pay a penny more.
