Seems like I'm a little late to this conversation, but I wanted to add my insight. Firstly, Mark, I could not agree with you more. I'm a CPA who founded a Xero-based online accounting firm in 2013 and sold it last year. We worked with startups and small businesses and focused on the accounting setup, bookkeeping, payroll, and managerial accounting (no tax). What I learned was that entrepreneurs want these tasks taken care of so they can focus on their business. They also really value and benefit from the knowledge and expertise of a financial advisor, and so our clients developed very strong trusted relationships with their individual accountants.
So I took that insight from my first startup and more recently founded AccountingLeap, a platform that helps entrepreneurs like you Sean connect with the financial experts that Mark advises you find. The accountants, CPAs and CFOs on AccountingLeap are vetted for knowledge, experience, and commitment to excellent service. The focus is on finding the right accounting advisor (person, not firm) based on the client's needs (industry, location, services, software...).
Xero and QuickBooks are both great options for accounting software, but what you really need is a trusted financial expert who can take care of the painful parts of accounting and help advise you as you grow your business. In fact, Indinero (and Bench) started out as accounting software and then pivoted to build a service around the software when they realized that's what client need.
Hope this helps - it sounds like Mark already led you in the right direction :)