Xero

How to setup Xero integration?

Overview

• Add your bank accounts and opening balances to get set up with a new Xero organization.
• Create invoices and send them to your customers to get paid quickly.
• Add more users to your organization if you want to.

Before you start

1. Log in to Xero (Xero login screen) to start a trial or purchase a Xero subscription.
2. (Optional) If you’ve added your organisation to Xero and purchased a subscription, next confirm the key settings including the financial settings and chart of accounts.

You can start using Xero as soon as you’ve added your organization, but it’s a good idea to check your financial and organization settings are correct and complete first.

Set up your opening balances

The date you convert to Xero is referred to as your conversion date and it’s important that it’s entered correctly. Your conversion date acts as the starting point of your financials in Xero.

Once you've set your conversion date, enter your opening balances as at this date. These balances are known as conversion balances. You only need to enter balances for accounts that have them. If your business has just started trading, your conversion balances are likely to all be zero and you won't need to enter any. Or, you might have just a bank balance and owners' equity balance to enter.

You can start using Xero without entering your conversion balance but your reporting and bank balances won't be accurate until you've entered them.

Please see our support articles for more information on conversion dates and balances.

Invoice your customers

Create and send your first customer invoice

Send your customer an invoice to let them know how much they owe you and the products or services you’re charging them for. You can add your customer as a contact when you create the invoice, or do so separately.

Xero has two types of customer invoices, classic invoicing and new invoicing. Learn all about the differences in this support article, or to get started now, create an invoice.

If you’d like to learn more about invoicing in Xero, choose a course in Learning in Xero Central.

Set up payment terms and payment services

If you have standard payment terms, add them to your invoice settings so they show on each invoice you send. You can also upload your company logo, and make other changes to make your invoices look the way you want them to with our invoice templates.

To get paid more quickly, set up a payment service so your customers can pay you directly from the invoice.

Add other users to your organization

User roles in Xero determine the level of access a user has in the organization. If you have an accountant, bookkeeper, or employees, you can give them access to your organization so they can help you with your accounts. When adding them as a user, assign them the appropriate user role for their job.

Reconcile your bank account

Connect your bank to Xero

Connect your bank to Xero by setting up a bank feed. Bank feeds automatically import your bank statements into Xero, so you can match the statement lines against your Xero transactions. This also helps you keep track of the money going in and out of your business.

Matching bank statement lines against your Xero transactions is called reconciling your account.

About reconciling

Reconciling is the process of matching up transactions against the changes in your bank account. For example, if you’ve recently had $700 deposited in your bank account, you’d find the correct invoice or invoices for that amount in Xero and match them.

This enables you to keep track of which transactions have been paid, and helps to identify errors such as incorrect amounts.

To make things easier, Xero might suggest matches between your statement lines and account transactions based on similar transactions that have previously been reconciled.

If you haven’t already created an invoice or bill to match a statement line, you can create the transaction as you reconcile.

If you’d like to learn more about reconciling your bank account in Xero, including tips to save you time, choose a course in Learning in Xero Central or read more in our support article on bank reconciliation in Xero.

Try out some other features

Reimburse employee expenses

If your employees incur expenses that need to be reimbursed, give them access to Xero Expenses. When they make a purchase, they can take a photo of the receipt with their phone, then submit it as an expense claim. If you approve their request, you can easily reimburse them for the claim.

Track time and costs

If your business needs to track time and costs on jobs and projects, add Xero Projects to your organization.

If you’d like to learn more about this product, choose a course in Learning in Xero Central or read our support article About Xero Projects.

What's next?

If you need help with anything in Xero, there are several ways to find the answer:

• Search for support articles on our help site, Xero Central
• Ask other Xero users questions in our community site, Xero Discussions
• Get in touch with Xero Support