Xero vs MYOB vs QuickBooks for website sales in Australia

Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks all track GST and lodge BAS on their main plans, so the choice for syncing website sales rarely turns on tax features. It turns on what your bookkeeper already uses, what each plan costs, and whether the product has a developer interface your site can call. This page puts the three side by side using each vendor's own pages, as at 5 November 2026. Prices and plan names change often, so treat the table as a snapshot and check the vendor page before you buy.

For how the connection is built, see connecting payments and accounting to your website and the wider list in website integrations.

How do Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks compare for website sales?

They compare closely on GST and BAS and differ on price structure and how much each vendor publishes about developer access. The table records what each vendor's pages say.

Each vendor runs introductory discounts that end after a few months, so compare the regular price. We did not find a published figure for the MYOB or QuickBooks developer terms, so confirm API access and any approval step with the vendor before you plan a build around it.

Does a website sale need GST handled in the sync?

Yes, if the business is registered for GST. The ATO says you must register once your GST turnover reaches $75,000, and you can register voluntarily below that, as set out on its registering for GST page. Only a GST-registered business issues a tax invoice. A sync should therefore carry the price, the GST amount and the tax code for each line, and a business that is not registered should sync plain invoices with no GST.

A worked example is the one our payments page uses. A customer pays $440 on the site. In a GST-registered business that becomes a paid tax invoice for $440 with $40 of GST included, not a $440 sale plus GST. Getting this wrong on the first order is easy to do and tedious to fix in a batch of fifty.

How should a website sync a sale into accounting software?

When a payment succeeds, the site calls the accounting product's API and raises a paid invoice or a receipt. In practice we follow five rules.

1. One source of truth for the sale. The payment provider's record, such as Stripe, is the original. The accounting entry is derived from it, so a retry never creates a second invoice.
2. GST coded per line. Each line carries the tax code your accountant uses, not a rate typed into the site.
3. Match the customer. Create or match the contact by email so repeat customers do not become duplicates.
4. Never let the sync fail the sale. We cap calls to job and accounting systems at eight seconds so the checkout or form still completes if the other system is slow or down.
5. Keep a plain email copy of every order, sent to an address more than one person reads, so a failed call cannot lose a sale.

What goes wrong when sales are synced to accounting software?

The failures we see are quiet. On one set of client sites, after a host move, the settings that tell a site where to send enquiries were left behind, and one form told visitors it had sent while every confirmation failed. A sync fails the same way: the sale succeeds, the accounting call errors, and nobody is told. Send yourself a test order once a month, then check every place it should appear: the payment provider, the accounting product and the shared inbox. Most automation tools keep a log of what ran. This is also why the account that holds the connection should belong to the business. An accounting login held by a former contractor puts your books behind someone else's password, the same ownership problem described in who actually owns your website.

Which one should you choose?

Choose the product your bookkeeper or accountant already works in, unless you have a reason not to. All three do GST and BAS, so the saving from switching is small against the cost of a bookkeeper working in an unfamiliar system. If you are choosing fresh, shortlist on three questions:

1. Does the plan you can afford include API access, and does the vendor support Australian businesses on it?
2. Does it connect to the payment provider you use, such as Stripe, Square or PayPal? Fee levels for those are in our payments page.
3. Can your bookkeeper reconcile what the sync produces? Ask for one sample entry before you build the whole connection.

If you would like us to build the connection, it is part of web design on our plans, and the first step is a free website audit of what your site sends today.