Can I connect multiple Lightyear accounts to a single Xero file?
Xero's API is designed to allow one Lightyear account per Xero file. However, at Lightyear, we recognise that may not suit everyone's business needs. This article will give you a workable solution in order to operate in this set up - multiple Lightyear accounts to one Xero file.
Let's take for example, a Hospitality Group with 5 venues
- Hospo HQ
- Hospo Sydney
- Hospo Melbourne
- Hospo Brisbane
- Hospo Perth
Some groups have a single Xero file and use Tracking Categories or GL Codes to manage multiple venues, e.g. HQ, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.
With best practice in mind, we recommend one Lightyear account per venue to streamline efficiencies. This approach allows you to set appropriate defaults for each venue i.e. you can set all the default GL codes and Categories in the Hospo HQ Lightyear account to be HQ ones, then export from that account with all items precoded as HQ when sending your data into Xero. This will save you from having to recode a bill every time you receive it.
However, in order to successfully create this set up, you will need as many unique users in Xero as you do venues/Lightyear accounts. This will allow you to connect each Lightyear account to the Xero file with a different user's Xero login. If you try to have a single Xero user connect multiple Lightyear accounts to Xero at the same time, you will experience continual disconnection issues.
Our advice -
- Set up a generic email for each site, e.g. hospo.hq@gmail.com
- Invite them into Xero as an Advisor. You will now have 5 different Advisors in Xero.
- Invite them as an Admin into the respective Lightyear account hospo.hq@lightyear.cloud
- Log into Lightyear with hospo.hq@gmail.com and into the hospo.hq@lightyear.cloud Lightyear account. Go to Accountancy > Connect to Xero, and connect to the Xero file using the hospo.hq@gmail.com credentials.
- Do the above for each Lightyear account - ie, connect each Lightyear account to the same Xero file using different Xero Advisor credentials
- Share these details with any users who may need to connect or disconnect accounting softwares at any point, e.g. Lightyear Company Admins, Regular Users with Accounts Payables rights.
Repeat these steps for each venue.
Remember! If you need to disconnect/reconnect the accounts for any reason, please use the assigned email to establish the reconnection.
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