SaaS Stack Review: The 7 Tools Geelong Businesses Are Overpaying For

Here's something that comes up almost every time we do a first-look review of a new client's books: a software expenses line that's grown quietly in the background while the business owner was focused on everything else. We're talking project management tools no one logs into, accounting add-ons that duplicate what Xero already does natively, and three different apps that all send email, none of which talk to each other.

For small businesses in Geelong, where margins are often tighter than in major metro markets and every dollar needs to work hard, this kind of software sprawl is genuinely expensive. It's also 100% fixable. Below we've listed the seven categories of SaaS tools we most commonly see Geelong businesses overpaying for, and what to do about each one.

1. Invoicing and Accounts Tools Running Alongside Xero

This is the most common issue we see. A business subscribes to Xero, which includes invoicing, bank reconciliation, quotes, purchase orders and basic reporting, but also keeps paying for a separate invoicing app like Invoice Ninja, Wave, or a legacy MYOB subscription "just in case."

In most cases, these parallel tools are a hangover from before the business moved to Xero. The owner migrated but never cancelled the old subscription. At $20–$70 per month, that's up to $840 a year for a tool doing nothing. The fix: run your subscriptions report in Xero, identify the overlap, and cancel.

• What to check: Search your bank statements and credit card feeds in Xero for "MYOB," "QuickBooks," "Wave," "FreshBooks," and "Invoice Ninja."
• What to do: Confirm you have all historical data exported or migrated, then cancel immediately.

2. Payroll Software That Doesn't Connect to Your Accounting Platform

Standalone payroll platforms, particularly older ones, create a double-handling nightmare. Payroll is processed in one system, then someone manually journals the figures into Xero at month end. That's time, errors, and an unnecessary subscription.

Xero Payroll is included in Xero's standard and premium plans and is fully Single Touch Payroll (STP) Phase 2 compliant, as required by the ATO. It also handles leave accruals, superannuation calculations under the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992, and termination payments. If your current payroll tool costs more than $0 and doesn't feed directly into your Xero GL, it's probably redundant.

• Common offenders: Micropay, older versions of KeyPay (now Employment Hero Payroll), and desktop MYOB payroll modules.
• Exception: Employment Hero Payroll's current version has a solid Xero integration and may be worth retaining for businesses with complex rostering or Award interpretation needs.

3. Separate Expense Management Apps

Receipt capture and expense apps like Expensify or Concur are genuinely useful, at enterprise scale. For a Geelong business with 2–15 employees, you're most likely paying for features you don't need when Xero's native expense claims module (or Hubdoc, which is included free with Xero) already handles photo receipts, approval workflows, and automatic coding.

Hubdoc alone eliminates the need for most standalone receipt apps. You photograph the receipt, Hubdoc reads it, codes it, and publishes it to Xero. Done. No extra subscription required.

4. Duplicate Project Management Tools

Asana, Monday.com, Trello, Notion, ClickUp, Basecamp, it's remarkably easy to end up subscribed to two or three of these simultaneously. One was introduced by a contractor. Another came from a YouTube recommendation. A third is the one the team actually uses.

For most small businesses in Geelong, one well-configured tool is enough. The average per-seat cost across these platforms ranges from $12 to $24 per user per month. If you have 5 users across 2 platforms, you could be paying $120–$240 per month for functionality you're using 50% of.

• Action step: Survey your team. Which tool do they actually open every day? Cancel the others within 30 days.
• Integration tip: Many project management tools can connect to Xero via Zapier or native integrations to log billable hours directly against client jobs.

5. Multiple Communication and Video Conferencing Platforms

Microsoft Teams. Zoom. Google Meet. Slack. Loom. Many small Geelong businesses are subscribed to at least three of these, and paying for premium tiers on two of them. The free tiers of Zoom and Google Meet cover 99% of small business video call needs. Slack's free plan handles most team messaging for teams under 10.

If you're running Microsoft 365 (which most businesses using Outlook already are), Teams is included at no extra cost. Paying separately for a Zoom Business subscription on top of that is almost always redundant.

• Savings potential: $30–$80/month by consolidating to one platform and using included tools within existing subscriptions.
• Quick audit: Ask your team which platform external clients and suppliers use most, standardise on that one.

6. CRM Tools With Features You've Never Turned On

HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, these are powerful platforms, but their pricing tiers are structured to upsell aggressively. We regularly see Geelong service businesses on a $150+/month CRM plan using maybe 20% of the features, when the free or Starter tiers would have been more than sufficient.

Before you renew, pull a usage report. Most CRM platforms show you which features have been accessed in the last 90 days. If you're not using marketing automation, custom dashboards, or multi-channel sequences, you almost certainly don't need the plan tier that includes them.

• Xero integration note: Many CRMs connect to Xero to sync contact data and invoice status. Make sure any CRM you're evaluating has a live Xero integration before committing, it eliminates double-entry and keeps client records accurate.
• Alternative: For trades and service businesses in Geelong, ServiceM8 or Fergus offer CRM-adjacent features alongside job management at a fraction of enterprise CRM cost.

7. E-Signing and Document Management Tools Running in Parallel

DocuSign, HelloSign (now Dropbox Sign), Adobe Acrobat Sign, and SignNow are all doing essentially the same job. If your business subscribed to one because a particular client required it, and then signed up for another for a different workflow, you may now be paying for both.

Similarly, cloud storage duplication is common: Google Drive and Dropbox and OneDrive, all storing versions of the same files. For a 5-person business, that's potentially $30–$60 per month in redundant storage costs.

• Tax note: All of these subscription costs are deductible under section 8-1 of the ITAA 1997 as business operating expenses, so they do reduce your taxable income, but spending $1 to save 25 cents in tax is still a net loss of 75 cents. Deductible does not mean free.
• Action step: Pick the e-signing tool integrated with your document workflow and cancel the rest. Most offer month-to-month billing so there's no lock-in penalty.

How to Run a SaaS Audit for Your Business Right Now

You don't need a consultant to start this process. Here's the practical approach:

• Step 1: In Xero, pull an Account Transactions report for the last 12 months, filtered to your software/subscriptions expense accounts. Export to CSV.
• Step 2: Group by vendor and total each one annually. Sort descending by cost.
• Step 3: For each tool over $200/year, ask: Is this used daily? Does it duplicate something else we pay for? Does it integrate with Xero? Could we get the same outcome from a tool we already own?
• Step 4: Cancel, downgrade, or consolidate. Set a calendar reminder to repeat this every six months.
• Step 5: Update your Xero chart of accounts to track SaaS costs by category (marketing tools, operations tools, finance tools) so future reviews take 10 minutes, not two hours.

For a typical Geelong small business spending $800–$1,500 per month on software, a disciplined audit usually uncovers $200–$500 in monthly savings. That's $2,400–$6,000 returned to the business annually, without cutting a single tool that's actually pulling its weight.