Xero is a full accounting platform — invoicing, payroll, inventory and a huge app ecosystem — built to be shared with your accountant. 2Fin is focused expense intelligence for people who run lean: it reads your bank feed, categorises everything automatically, surfaces deductions through the year, and connects your finances to ChatGPT and Claude. If double-entry accounting is more than your solo business needs, that focus is the point.
Built differently where it counts — here is how.
Xero’s bank rules are precise, and they assume you can read a chart of accounts. Here each categorised row names its own source — a rule you wrote, a bill pattern, Fin, your bank, or the file it arrived on — in plain words, and you can change it inline without touching account codes.
Every transaction is scanned for claimable expenses as it arrives — home office, tools, subscriptions, vehicle — so tax time starts mostly done.
Ask questions about your real finances in plain language through the 2Fin MCP integration — a capability traditional accounting suites do not offer.
No chart of accounts to configure and no bookkeeping vocabulary to learn — connect a feed or import a CSV and Fin starts sorting.
The free plan covers dashboards, categories and smart filtering — upgrade only when the deduction surfacing is earning its keep.
The same situation, in both
Your accountant asks for the year in Xero, but you want a simpler view day to day.
You subscribe to a Xero plan, reconcile your bank feed inside the ledger and share the file with your accountant, who works in it alongside you.
You stay in 2Fin, where transactions are categorised and deductions flagged as they arrive, and push the ones you choose into your accountant’s Xero file as coded Spend or Receive Money with the receipt attached (in beta). Your accountant keeps the ledger; you keep the simple view.
Pricing snapshot: Xero’s Australian plans are subscription-only with a free trial (entry plans have monthly invoice/bill limits — see xero.com for current pricing); 2Fin starts free with live bank feeds from your own provider account, with automatic categorisation on Premium (US$23/month).
Based on publicly available information. Competitor features and pricing may change — verify directly.
Three things you notice in the first week with 2Fin, whichever tool you are coming from.
A 3D calendar of every transaction in six layouts on every plan, and on ELITE+ an expense terrain, a pattern map and a cash-flow Sankey you can turn and zoom.
Interactive views →Each category projects where you will land from what you have spent so far, flags what is running ahead and suggests limits from your real spending — free.
Budget allocations →An Integrations API, API keys, signed webhooks and an MCP server, documented end to end — and invoices from any tool, tracked to paid.
For developers →Both are good tools — the right pick depends on what your business needs most.
2Fin is free to start. Premium is US$23 a month (US$222 a year), ELITE+ is US$42 a month (US$432 a year) and AUTO+ is US$54 a month (US$555 a year), billed in US dollars.
Hover, tap or tab to any underlined feature to learn more.
For getting every record in one place, at no cost.
Included
For employees and sole traders who want every deduction found and the busywork done.
Everything in Free, plus
For businesses and accountants who lodge, report and keep the books.
Everything in Premium, plus
For owners who want receipts and reports to arrive on their own.
Everything in ELITE+, plus
Swipe to see every plan
| Feature | FREEUS$0 | PREMIUMUS$23 / month | ELITE+US$42 / month | AUTO+US$54 / month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capture | ||||
| Statement uploads into bucketsCSV, Excel or PDF. On the free desktop app, statements come in through the CSV import instead | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Live feeds from your own sheet or bank-feed accountA Google Sheet, or a provider account you hold such as SimpleFIN or BankSync | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Photo and PDF receipts, read and matchedRead in the language they are printed in | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Forward receipts by email | Not included | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Organise | ||||
| Transactions, categories and bills in one placeIncluding recurring payments | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Upcoming bills, pay days and money you are owedPayments matched to what you are owed as they land | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Budgets against what you actually spent | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Travel and vehicle trips | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Properties: what each one really costsRented, business and private parts | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Automatic categories | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Your own categorising rules | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Spending and bills analytics | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Views by project, client or tax purposeCalled Lenses in the app; the Properties lens is built in on every plan | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Tax | ||||
| Tax analysis that knows your situation | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Tax exports, including ATO myDeductions | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Tax reports and summaries | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| BAS, VAT and GST statements | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Asset register, depreciation, profit & loss and TPAR | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Property write-offs and scheduleDepreciation, capital works, a schedule for your accountant | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Automate | ||||
| Ask Fin about your money | 25 messages a month | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Fin reads the files you upload | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Fin, your assistant, with its own workspace | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Your week in review, on the dashboard | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Signed webhooks for Zapier, Make and n8n | Not included | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Reports emailed on the schedule you set | Not included | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Share | ||||
| Push to Google Sheets, Excel, Notion or AirtableBank-feed data stays out of every push | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Send transactions to Xero or QuickBooks OnlineCoded, with the receipt attached | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Practice workspace for accountantsYour clients can be on any plan | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Connect Claude or ChatGPT, with the access you approveWhat they can read follows your plan | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Desktop app, with your data on your machine | Included | Included | Included | Included |
Enterprise-grade data control is the default here — on every plan.
Your records can stay on your own machine or in your own cloud, telemetry stays off unless you turn it on, and Fin keeps an auditable record of everything it sends. Enterprise adds the people and the paperwork: dedicated support, custom deployment and reviews for large-scale operations.
Verify it yourselfFor sole traders and freelancers who mainly need expense tracking, GST capture and deduction surfacing — with invoices sent from the tool you already use and tracked to paid in 2Fin — 2Fin covers that core with far less setup, and has a free plan. If you need full double-entry accounting or share books with an accountant in real time, Xero is built for that, and 2Fin can push your sorted transactions into it (in beta). 2Fin helps you find and organise potential deductions; always confirm eligibility with your accountant or tax authority.
2Fin tracks GST on every transaction and organises the figures you need for your BAS. Xero additionally supports lodgement workflows your accountant may prefer. Many sole traders use 2Fin to keep the year organised and hand clean exports to their accountant at BAS time. 2Fin helps you find and organise potential deductions; always confirm eligibility with your accountant or tax authority.
Yes. Some businesses keep Xero as the ledger their accountant sees and use 2Fin for day-to-day expense intelligence and deduction surfacing — the free plan makes trying that combination easy.
Import your bank statements via CSV or connect a read-only bank feed and 2Fin categorises your history automatically — no chart-of-accounts migration required.
Xero is cloud accounting by design, so your file lives on Xero’s servers. 2Fin runs as a hosted service too, and also ships as a desktop app for Windows (macOS and Linux to follow) where your database and receipts are files in a folder you own — you can open it, copy it and back it up, and the free plan needs no account. The desktop app lists every outbound request it makes, with a switch for each connection, and if you bring your own provider key or run a local model, nothing of yours has to reach 2Fin’s servers at all.
The parts of 2Fin behind the comparison above — what each one does for you, and how it reaches the answer.
Ten real transactions walked through the categorisation chain, so you can see why each one landed where it did rather than take it on trust.
Invoicing with any toolKeep the invoicing tool your clients already pay; Fin tracks what each one owes and matches the payment when it lands — and your assistant can draft the next invoice.
Cost tracking & job costingRead the same transactions by project, client or department to see what each job actually cost you.
Tax treatment & activity statementGST and tax treatment worked out line by line as transactions arrive, and the activity-statement view that follows from them.
Bulk processingReview and categorise a month of transactions in one pass instead of one row at a time.
Free plan, no card needed. Start in seconds.
Get 2Fin free →See all comparisons, or explore free tax tools.
