This post is about Fathom the financial reporting software at fathomhq.com, not the AI meeting note-taker with the same name. If your books are kept up to date in Xero, QuickBooks or MYOB and you need management reports, forecasts or consolidations from them, Fathom is probably the right tool and you do not need an alternative. If you are a founder who wants to know your runway and what the next decision does to it, you may want a different kind of tool, and this post explains the difference.
Every Fathom fact below was checked on fathomhq.com and Fathom's help centre on 27 September 2026.
What Fathom does
| What Fathom's site says | |
|---|---|
| Core features | Financial analysis, management reporting, cash flow forecasting, consolidated reporting, group benchmarking, KPIs, and AI report commentary (fathomhq.com) |
| Forecasting | Three-way forecasts that project the P&L, balance sheet and cash flow statement, with scenarios (fathomhq.com) |
| Integrations | QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, MYOB (MYOB Business and AccountRight Desktop), Sage, FreeAgent and Access Financials UK, plus imports from Excel and Google Sheets (Fathom integrations) |
| Data refresh | Cloud accounting data syncs automatically once a day, and you can trigger a manual update (Fathom Xero integration) |
| Built for | Small and medium businesses, accountants and bookkeepers, and franchises and groups (Fathom pricing) |
| Trial and contract | 14-day free trial, monthly billing, no minimum term (Fathom pricing) |
In short, Fathom reads your accounting data and turns it into analysis, reports and forecasts. Everything it shows starts from the ledger.
Can Fathom use MYOB categories?
Yes, in both of the ways the question usually means.
If you mean splitting results by part of the business, Fathom imports MYOB Business jobs and cost centres as "divisions" for analysis, KPIs and reports. You can import up to 40 jobs and cost centres per company, it is a Fathom Pro feature rather than a Portfolio one, and anything not assigned to an imported job or cost centre shows as "Unclassified" because Fathom always imports the company totals (Fathom help centre, jobs and cost centres from MYOB Business).
If you mean account categories, Fathom maps each imported account to its own classifications (revenue, variable and fixed cost of sales, variable and fixed expenses, and so on), and you can review and reclassify accounts under Chart of Accounts in the company's settings (Fathom help centre, account classifications). Fathom says it "does its best" with the automatic mapping, so check it after the first import.
What it costs
Fathom Pro is priced by the number of companies you connect. The pricing page we loaded showed these prices in Australian dollars, excluding GST; your region may see another currency (Fathom pricing):
| Plan | Companies included | Price per month | Each extra company |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 1 | $59 | $59 |
| Silver | 10 | $315 | $31 |
| Gold | 25 | $450 | $17 |
| Platinum | 50 | $805 | $13 |
There is also Fathom Portfolio, a lighter plan for accounting firms that want an overview of their whole client base, from $62 a month for 100 companies.
Two examples of what that means. A founder with one company on Xero pays the Starter price, A$59 a month. An accountant reporting for 12 clients is on Silver: A$315 plus two extra companies at A$31, so A$377 a month, about A$31 per client. The pricing is built around serving many companies, which tells you who Fathom's core customer is.
Who should use Fathom
Fathom is the better choice if:
- Your books are current in a supported accounting system and someone is responsible for keeping them that way.
- You produce management or board reports from those books every month or quarter, and want them branded and scheduled.
- You run several entities or currencies and need consolidated numbers, or you are an advisor comparing many clients.
- Your reporting has to tie back to the ledger because an accountant, lender or board will check it.
If most of that describes you, compare Fathom with other reporting tools that sync with your ledger. Plainhub is not one of them.
When a founder needs something else
Many founders who look at Fathom want an answer to a different question: how many months of cash do we have, and what happens to that date if we hire, lose a customer or raise prices? That answer depends on decisions that are not in the ledger yet. It also changes the day something happens, not when the books are closed at month end.
That is the job Plainhub does, and it does it differently from Fathom on purpose:
| Fathom | Plainhub | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts from | Your accounting system, synced daily | What you record yourself in plain words; no bank or accounting connection |
| Main output | Management reports, KPIs, three-way forecasts | Live cash, burn, MRR and runway |
| Decisions | Forecast scenarios | Draft plans show runway before and after; committing one folds it into burn |
| Several companies | Consolidation and benchmarking | No consolidation |
| Price | From A$59 a month for one company (as shown on 27 September 2026) | Pro €29.99 a month, Max €59.99 |
The trade-off runs both ways. Plainhub does not read your books, so it will not reconcile to them, and if your Xero file is clean that is a real loss. It is also not accounting software and does not produce a balance sheet. In exchange it works before your books are in order, and a question like "what if we hire in March?" becomes a draft plan whose runway effect you see as soon as you enter it. Plainhub also has an AI finance agent that answers questions from the numbers you have recorded.
A quick way to tell which you need
Take the cash runway calculator and put in your cash and monthly burn. If you trust the numbers you typed and what you want is to see how decisions move that date, you need a runway model, and when will I run out of cash explains how to keep one current. If you had to open your accounting system to find the numbers, and what you want is a monthly report built from it, start a Fathom trial.