Are you ready to rumble?

People keep asking me how this sits next to the alternatives, and the honest list of alternatives starts well before the software: the spreadsheet, the bank-balance glance, the free analytics already inside Xero. So here is the full fight card, one bout per page: what each corner genuinely does well, who it suits, and where Own Your Numbers is the wrong choice for you. I'd rather tell you something you don't want to hear than something that isn't true, and yes, we lose some of these rounds on purpose. Every bout is written for both readers: the owner, and the accountant, bookkeeper or fractional FD who looks after them.

The full card The honest shortlist: weekly cash tools for Xero that owners can actually run. Only about five qualify, and they split by job, not by feature count. Built from 19,618 real Xero App Store reviews, including who each tool is wrong for, ourselves included. Ciaran O'Donnell · 7 min read · from 19,618 reviews Round 1: the incumbent Own Your Numbers vs the spreadsheet. Twenty-five years in Excel and I still love it. The best modelling tool ever made, and a terrible early-warning system, because it only knows what you last typed into it. Keep the model. Fix the fuel light. Ciaran O'Donnell · 5 min read Round 2: the default Own Your Numbers vs doing nothing. The bank-balance glance is our real competitor: free, four seconds, right most weeks. What the bet costs when it is wrong, with the numbers from 7,000 real Companies House filings, and the honest case for changing nothing. Ciaran O'Donnell · 5 min read · from 7,000 filings Round 3: the free one Own Your Numbers vs Xero Analytics. It comes with the subscription you already pay for, and you should turn it on. Then the honest difference: a dashboard you go to versus a verdict that comes to you. The library and the alarm are different tools. Ciaran O'Donnell · 4 min read Round 4: the champion Own Your Numbers vs Syft. The reporting-depth champion, good enough that Xero bought the company. What its 476 reviews actually praise, the recent negatives worth reading, and the one question that decides it: who in your business goes looking? Ciaran O'Donnell · 4 min read · counts kept live Round 5: the favourite Own Your Numbers vs Fathom. The best-reviewed app of its kind, with support people rave about. One structural boundary from its own feature page decides this bout: its forecasts run monthly, quarterly or annual. Never weekly. Ciaran O'Donnell · 4 min read · counts kept live Round 6: the forecaster Own Your Numbers vs Float. The best owner-friendly forecasting tool we analysed, and its buyers sound exactly like you. The catch is the same as the spreadsheet: the forecast is only as true as its last update. See forward, or never go stale. Ciaran O'Donnell · 4 min read · counts kept live Round 7: the mirror match Own Your Numbers vs Nume. One five-star review each, both pointed at the founder who does not want to play CFO. Opposite philosophies: monitor everything, or own one number. The fairest fight on the card. Ciaran O'Donnell · 3 min read · counts kept live The tale of the tape Syft vs Fathom vs Float vs Own Your Numbers, honestly. All four in one page: which tool for which job, where they overlap, what the review corpus actually says, and the full section on where Own Your Numbers is the wrong choice. Ciaran O'Donnell · 8 min read · from 19,618 reviews

Want a bout we haven't run? Tell me the tool and I'll compare honestly: [email protected].