The market for online accounts packages became a little more crowded this week as vendor Xero became the latest company to move into this space this week.

Xero has been operating in the UK and serving clients, but is now making an aggressive marketing push into the country.

The New Zealand-listed group offers SMEs an online, real-time accounts package for £29 per month. The package will run on PC and Mac and work with all main web browsers. Accountants in practice will not have to pay to use the software.

'Because Xero is on the internet, there is no restriction on location or time for access to the accounts,' said Xero co-founder Hamish Edwards.

The arrival of Xero follows just weeks after rival online accounts provider E-conomic made a similar UK launch.

With the traditional desktop providers MYOB, Mamut and Iris also making concerted efforts to provide web-based programmes, and online accounts provider KashFlow well-established, the UK market for internet business applications has become very competitive very quickly.

Further reading:

Visit Xero here

E-conomic enters SME business software market