Figured and Xero are what many farm accountants reach for, and they do the money side well. This guide sets out what each does as of October 2026, what they leave out, who they suit, and how FarmHQ differs, including where FarmHQ is not ready.
Xero is general-purpose cloud accounting that says every plan is Making Tax Digital ready. Figured is a farm budgeting, forecasting and reporting layer that syncs with a Xero file. Neither describes registering births, movements and deaths or keeping a medicine book, so a livestock farm still needs separate compliance records. As of October 2026 Xero lists plans from £18 a month and Figured's Farm Manager is £40 a month, both before VAT. FarmHQ combines livestock compliance and books in one mobile app, but it is a pre-launch beta and not yet HMRC-recognised.
Xero is general cloud accounting. It was not built for farms, but its pricing page promises no per-user licence fees, which suits a farm where the farmer, a spouse and an accountant all need a login.
Figured is the farm layer. Its UK site describes planning, budgeting, forecasting and reporting, with income shown per hectare, per tonne, per litre of milk and per kilogram of livestock, and scenarios modelled up to ten years ahead. It is aimed at farmers, accountants, agri-banks and consultants, with a Certified Adviser network.
The two work together. The Xero App Store listing says Figured syncs the chart of accounts, bank transactions, invoices, contacts and manual journals with Xero, and that livestock and crop sales and purchases can be pushed into Xero. Figured does not replace Xero. It sits on top of it, which means you buy both.
In practice that is a sensible split: Xero keeps the books, Figured turns them into budgets and cost-of-production numbers a lender will recognise. For the questions to put to any package, see our farm bookkeeping software checklist.
Xero says so directly. Its Making Tax Digital page states that all Xero plans are MTD ready, covering MTD for VAT and MTD for Income Tax, and describes the software as HMRC-recognised. That is the supplier's statement, so confirm the name on the HMRC software finder, which lists only software that has been through HMRC's recognition process. Compatible is not the same word as recognised.
Figured's own pages, as we read them, describe planning and reporting. We found no claim that Figured itself files anything with HMRC. The filing happens in Xero.
Who is caught? GOV.UK says Income Tax mandation started on 6 April 2026 for sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000, with lower thresholds following in later years. Partnerships, which many farms are, are due to join later, with the timetable still to be announced. Farmers who expect to use profit averaging were given a deferral to April 2027. Detail is in our guides to Making Tax Digital thresholds and profit averaging.
As of October 2026, Xero's UK plans are Ignite at £18 a month, Grow at £39, Comprehensive at £55 and Ultimate at £70, all before VAT. New customers are shown 90% off for the first six months, which is an offer, not the price. Ignite is limited to 20 invoices and 10 bills; Grow is the first plan with unlimited invoices, which most working farms will want.
Figured's UK pricing page lists Farm Manager at £40 a month for a single farm business. Multi Farm is £40 plus £40 for each additional farm and £5 for each non-production business, for several businesses held in one Xero file. Prices exclude tax and are billed monthly. Advisers pay for separate practice products.
Add it up honestly. Xero Grow plus Figured Farm Manager is £79 a month before VAT at list price, plus your accountant's fees, plus whatever you use for livestock records. That is not a like-for-like comparison with FarmHQ's £24.99 to £69.99, because FarmHQ is priced by herd size and invoice volume and does not yet file VAT. Always ask what the price becomes once an introductory offer ends.
Neither product's pages, as we read them, describe registering births, movements or deaths, passports, or a medicine book. That describes what they say, not a flaw. They were built for the money and the budgets.
Be careful with one phrase. The Xero listing says Figured offers livestock reconciliation and stock records. That is stock numbers for the accounts, which is useful for budgeting. It is not the statutory record. The statutory side is a separate job: a calf passport application inside 27 days, a movement report inside three days, and a medicine record kept for five years.
So a livestock farm using Xero and Figured still needs a way to report to BCMS or LIS, and a medicine book that stands up at a Red Tractor assessment. That means CTS Online, or a livestock recording app, running beside the books.
The usual trap is the vet invoice. It is an expense in Xero and a medicine-book entry somewhere else, typed twice, with nothing joining them. We wrote about the cost of running two logins for exactly this reason.
My judgement: Figured and Xero suit a farm that wants numbers to plan with. That means budgets, cash-flow forecasts, cost of production per litre, tonne or hectare, and reports that a bank manager or farm business adviser can read. They suit farms with several enterprises, farms whose accountant already works in Xero, and farms that borrow and need to show forecasts.
Xero on its own suits a straightforward livestock farm that wants cheap, tidy cloud books, a bank feed and a VAT return, and does not need budgeting tools.
Check one thing we have not verified for either product: how it handles the Agricultural Flat Rate Scheme if you are on it. Ask to see a flat rate sale and a livestock sale entered start to finish before you commit.
If you already have this combination and your accountant is happy with it, you have no reason to change for the sake of it. It is a sound, mainstream way to run the money side.
FarmHQ is a mobile-first farm office for UK livestock farms. It holds the livestock compliance and the money in one place: births, movements, deaths, the medicine book and Red Tractor records, plus receipts, invoicing and timesheets. A photographed vet invoice can become a medicine-book entry and a VAT-coded expense in one go. Ask Farmer Joe drafts entries and you confirm them. Plans are £24.99, £49.99 or £69.99 a month by herd size and invoice volume (see FarmHQ pricing).
Now the honest part. FarmHQ is a pre-launch beta. It is not HMRC-recognised, and our whitepaper roadmap puts VAT filing, HMRC recognition and the accountant handoff in the first half of 2027. It has no budgeting, forecasting or ten-year scenario tools like Figured, and no farm has yet run a full year through it.
If you must file Making Tax Digital returns this year, keep Xero or another recognised product. A founding farm could run FarmHQ for the livestock side while the accountant keeps Xero for tax. That means two systems until our handoff work lands, which is the double entry we want to remove, so treat it as a trade-off.
Speak to your accountant before anything else. Many farm accountants work in one package and set up your VAT, flat rate or averaging treatment inside it. Ask whether they work in Xero, whether they use Figured with clients, and what they would need from a different system at year end. Xero charges no per-user fee, but ask how any other product treats an accountant login.
Pick a clean start: the beginning of a VAT quarter or a tax year, never the middle. Run the old books to that date, keep read-only access or a full export, and keep records for as long as HMRC expects (our farm records guide covers it). Ask any supplier in writing what the export looks like.
For a wider view of the options, including livestock-only and farm-accounts-only products, see our guide to choosing farm management software, and our comparison of Farmplan and TELUS with FarmHQ.
Not on its own. Figured describes itself as farm financial management software for planning, budgeting, forecasting and reporting, and it syncs with a Xero file. Xero holds the bookkeeping and, according to Xero, the Making Tax Digital filing. Most farms using Figured therefore pay for both products.
Xero says every plan is Making Tax Digital ready for VAT and Income Tax, and calls itself HMRC-recognised. That is the supplier's claim, so check HMRC's software finder, and check how the software treats the Agricultural Flat Rate Scheme if you are on it.
As of October 2026, Xero's UK plans run from £18 to £70 a month before VAT, with an introductory discount for new customers. Figured's Farm Manager is £40 a month for one farm business, also excluding tax. Prices change, so confirm them on each supplier's site before deciding.
Their pages do not describe registering births, movements or deaths, or keeping a medicine book. Figured mentions livestock reconciliation and stock records, which are accounting stock figures rather than statutory records. A livestock farm still needs CTS Online or a recording app alongside.
Not yet. FarmHQ puts livestock compliance, receipts, invoicing and timesheets in one mobile app, but it is a pre-launch beta, VAT filing and HMRC recognition are planned for the first half of 2027, and it has no budgeting tools like Figured. Keep recognised software if you must file now.