Xero already has a draft state — on invoices and bills. The difference is whether that idea reaches every posting an agent makes.
Xero is a well-built double-entry ledger with a serious accounting community around it. It is not bad software, and the usual complaint about it — that it is not “AI-native” — is not the interesting difference either.
The interesting difference is narrower. Xero already understands that some things should not hit the ledger until a person says so.
A draft invoice in Xero does not touch the general ledger. Neither does a bill awaiting approval. They stay out of the profit and loss until somebody approves them, which is why Xero’s own reporting excludes them by default. That is a real pre-commit state, and it is the same instinct Equated is built on.
The limit is where the idea stops. It covers sales and purchase documents — the places a human was always going to review anyway. It does not extend to an arbitrary posting. When something writes a journal entry or categorizes a bank line, that lands in the ledger as finished work, indistinguishable from an entry a person considered and typed.
That gap did not matter much when the only things writing to a ledger were people and a handful of rules. It matters when software starts proposing entries in volume, because the review step that exists for invoices is exactly the step those entries need and do not get.
Equated applies draft-then-commit to every posting, not just to two document types, and the evidence attaches to the posting itself rather than to the transaction beside it.
Ecosystem and familiarity. Xero has an app marketplace, years of integrations, and — more valuable than either — a large population of accountants who already work in it every day. If yours is one of them, handing over a Xero file is frictionless in a way that no amount of ledger design compensates for.
Xero is also the safer choice if you bill in a single currency. Multi-currency sitting on the Established plan is a real cost, but a single-currency business never pays it, and the lower plans are inexpensive.
| Capability | Equated | Xero |
|---|---|---|
| Double-entry general ledger | Yes | Yes |
| Bank feed connections | Yes | Yes |
| Source document attaches to a transaction | Yes | Yes |
| Draft state before it reaches the ledger | Every posting | Invoices and bills |
| Multi-currency and FX | Yes | Established plan only |
| CPA-reviewed year-end filing | Optional add-on | No |
| Third-party app marketplace | No | Yes |
Yes, and it is where this comparison has to start. Draft invoices and bills awaiting approval do not affect the general ledger until they are approved, which is why they are excluded from the profit and loss report by default. Xero built the idea; it applies to sales and purchase documents rather than to every posting.
On the Established plan. Xero's own pricing pages put multi-currency there, so an Early or Growing subscriber transacting in a second currency has to move up a plan to get it.
Equated imports a chart of accounts and you set opening balances from there. It does not replay transaction history, so a migration means running forward from a cutover date rather than reconstructing prior years.
Claims about Xero last verified August 20, 2026