Invoices, payments and contacts flow between your system and Xero, so nobody retypes a job into the accounts and your accountant works from what was really billed.
Xero is cloud accounting software with a public API. A custom system and Xero do different jobs. Your system knows the customer, the job, the quote and the delivery. Xero is where the accounts, bank feeds and returns live. The integration lets each do its job and passes the money facts between them.
Done well, an invoice is raised once, in your system, and appears in Xero as a matching invoice against the same contact. A payment recorded in Xero shows up on the invoice in your system. Staff work in one place, and the accountant works in the other. This sits naturally next to quoting and invoicing in a custom system.
When an invoice is approved in your system, a matching sales invoice is created in Xero against the right contact, with the same lines, VAT treatment and reference. The accountant never asks for a spreadsheet of what you billed.
A payment recorded in Xero, through the bank feed or by hand, closes the invoice in your system and stops the overdue chasers. Customers stop receiving a reminder for an invoice they paid last week.
A new client created in the CRM becomes a Xero contact once, and an address change is made in one place. Duplicates are matched, not multiplied.
A refund or correction raised in your system produces a credit note in Xero, rather than someone editing a posted invoice and breaking the audit trail.
Bills or receipts captured in your system can be pushed to Xero as draft bills for the accountant to code and approve, which keeps the judgement with the person who owns it.
A screen that lists what your system thinks is billed and paid against what Xero holds, with the differences highlighted. When the two disagree, you see it the same day.
For each type of record, decide which side is the master. Typically invoices and contacts start in your system and payments arrive from Xero. Conflict rules are decided up front, so two edits never silently overwrite each other.
You authorise the connection from your own Xero login using OAuth. Xero splits access into scopes for areas such as invoices, payments and contacts, so the connection asks only for what the sync needs, and you can revoke it at any time.
Xero limits how many calls an app can make per organisation, per minute and per day. The sync batches its calls, backs off when told to, and uses Xero’s notifications for changed invoices and contacts where available, with a scheduled pass to catch anything missed.
Failed pushes are queued and retried rather than dropped, and an alert goes out if something stays stuck. A regular reconciliation compares both sides, so drift shows up as a line on a report, not as a surprise at year end.
I haven’t built a Xero connection for a named client, and none is published here. What I describe rests on Xero’s public API and on the same invoice-sync building blocks that run in Storex.
Not if Xero covers how you quote, book and deliver. A custom system makes sense when the work before the invoice (quotes, jobs, stock, client portals) lives in spreadsheets, and the accounts are the only tidy part.
Yes. They keep working in Xero, where the synced invoices, payments and contacts appear as usual. They also get a reconciliation view if they want one.
Usually, yes, checked against the source before you switch. See my data migration guide for how that is done and what can go wrong.
The quote builder puts accounting software at roughly 20 to 40 build hours, on top of the 30 to 50 hours of shared groundwork. The longer end is for two-way payment sync and credit notes.
Tell me which one. If it has a public API, the same design works. If it doesn’t, a scheduled export in the format your accountant already imports is often the sensible answer.
Quotes from your rate card, invoices with VAT, deposits and automatic chasing.
ServiceCustom ERPQuotes, stock, staff, jobs and invoicing on one shared set of data.
ServiceIntegrationsWix, Shopify, Gmail, WhatsApp, Stripe, calendars and accounts, synced both ways.
ServiceCustom CRMEnquiries, clients, pipeline and follow-ups in one place, shaped to how you sell.
GuideMalta VAT invoicesThe details a Malta tax invoice must carry, and what that means for invoicing software.
GuideData migration checklistA checklist for moving data to a new system: mapping, cleaning, duplicates, test imports and cut-over.
IntegrationStripeCheckout, deposits, subscriptions and payment links tied to your invoices and bookings.
SystemRent invoicingRent schedules, deposits, receipts, utility recharges, arrears reminders and owner statements.
Case studyStorexA storage and logistics company’s whole operation in one custom system: quotes, clients, invoicing, the warehouse and the crew in the field.
PageIntegrationsWhatsApp, Stripe, Xero, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Shopify, Wix and more.
The quote builder opens with Xero already selected. Add the rest of your system and I reply with a fixed quote.