Xero Integration Setup Guide

Xero Integration Setup Guide

Connecting to Xero

Because Xero and Lightyear are both cloud-based, set-up and connectivity between the two systems is seamless.  Here's how.

From the Navigation Pane, head over to Settings > Accounting Software > select Xero from the dropdown menu > Connect.

You will be redirected to the Xero website and asked to log in to your account.  

If your login to Xero accesses more than one Xero Company please be sure to connect to the correct Xero account. The screen you will see will look like this:

If you are trying to connect multiple Xero files, Xero will present the drop down above with a mention of files that are 'already connected'. Don't worry! This not in relation to your current connection (unless you have multiple Lightyear accounts connecting to a single Xero file). Please proceed to select your current file to establish the connection between Xero and Lightyear.
Lightyear will automatically sync the following data back from Xero which are required to process your payables bills: 
  1. Xero Suppliers
  2. Accounts
  3. Tax Rates
  4. Tracking Categories (if setting is switched on and set up in Xero)
The name of the Xero company will be displayed Once the connection is established to inform you which account is connected.  The connection will remain active even when you log out and back into both systems and any user with Export permissions within Lightyear will be able to export bills to Xero.  

Syncing of your Lightyear and Xero account is now complete and you will be connected.
If you do nothing else in this section, please ensure you skip ahead to set your default tax rates before you move on. Trust us, it will make your life SO much easier moving forward.

Software Settings

Customize your Xero settings by selecting Accountancy Software Settings.  In this section, you can:
  1. Export a bills as Awaiting Payment or Awaiting Approval
  2. Activate Tracking Categories
  3. Automatically apply Categories on line item level
  4. Automatically apply Chart of Accounts on line item level
  5. Send Quantity and Unit Price to Xero for line item bill/credit notes
  6. Export Unit Prices to 4 decimal places
  7. Send Product Code to Xero
  8. Auto split Sort Code/BSB and Bank Account Number
  9. Send Attachment to Xero
  10. Group line item data

Export Bill As

  1. Awaiting Payment - As invoices are already approved with a full audit trail in Lightyear, you can choose for your bills to be exported directly to "Awaiting Payment" in Xero
  2. Awaiting Approval - Some may require an additional approval after exporting, thus the option is available to export to "Awaiting Approval" into Xero

Active Tracking Categories

  1. For those using categories in Xero, you can select Yes for this option to allow us to code within Lightyear and export the details to Xero as coded. Save time by coding it in Lightyear, and we'll remember the next time we extract the line item what your preferred category settings are too!
  2. If you do not require categories, you can simply select No.

Automatically apply Categories on Line Item Level

  1. Yes - save time by coding it in Lightyear, and we'll remember the next time we extract the line item what you last coded the supplier lines.
  2. No - keeps these blank and code them individually 

Automatically apply Chart of Accounts on Line Item Level

  1. Yes - Save time by coding it in Lightyear, and we’ll remember the next time we extract the line item what you’ve coded the supplier lines to.
  2. No - keeps these blank for you to code individually.

Send Quantity and Unit Price to Xero

  1. Lightyear will send Xero the unit cost and quantities if this option is enabled for Line item Bills/Credit Notes.  
Please Note: due to Xero rounding, rounding rows may be inserted into Xero where the unit price is calculated in Lightyear up to 4 decimal places.  If you wish to avoid this, please activate "Export unit prices to 4 decimal places" to support this function.

Export Unit Prices to 4 Decimal Places

  1. Working with the above setting, unit prices will be exported to Xero working with 4 decimal places.

Send Product Code to Xero

  1. Lightyear will send Product Codes to Xero. Please note this will only be successful if the products already exist in Xero.  Products will be added to Xero inventory.

Auto Split Sort Code/BSB and Account Number

  1. Yes -  In Xero, the Bank Account Number field holds both the Sort Code/BSB and Account Number e.g. 123-456 78901234. If this is set to Yes, we will separate the Sort Code/BSB and Account Number into the relevant fields in Lightyear.
  2. No - Selecting No will keep the Sort Code/BSB and Account Number in one field in Lightyear. This will be saved into the Account Number field.

Send Attachment to Xero

When this is selected, we will send the bill/credit note document to Xero along with the data.
If you choose to send the attachment to Xero, keep in mind there is more data to push through so it may take a little bit longer to complete the export
Lightyear strips ou​​​​t any symbols within the File Name of the attachment and replaces them with spaces to reduce the likelihood of the attachment failing to send. For example, a file name as Hawthorne Leisure (London) - £12.50 will be renamed as Hawthorne Leisure London 12 50

Group Line Item Data

  1. Turning this on will allow you to export Grouped Account data, rather than line item data. For the full article on this, click here.

Xero Suppliers

This is what Lightyear uses to connect a Supplier within Lightyear to a Supplier within Xero. Any existing Suppliers in Xero will appear here after connection.

When you connect to Xero, by default, your list of existing Xero Suppliers are synced to Lightyear.

Importing from Xero

To import your Xero Suppliers, go to Accountancy > Xero Suppliers > Import Suppliers

This import will include the following details, taken from your Xero account:
  1. Supplier Name
  2. VAT Number
  3. Country Code
  4. Currency
  5. Default GL
  6. Category 1
  7. Category 2
  8. CIS Registered
  9. Sort Code/BSB Number
  10. Bank Account Number
  11. Bank Account Name
  12. IBAN 
  13. BIC
  14. Default Tax Code

If you want to remove a Supplier, simply click the red trash can icon  on the right of each line. 

Create a New Supplier 

If you find you don't have a Supplier set up in your Xero account and Lightyear, you can easily create this within Lightyear.

To do this, click the + Supplier  button in the top right of the Xero Supplier page. The following modal will display:

In the Supplier Name field, enter the name of the Supplier as you would like it to display from within Lightyear and Xero. Once this is entered, click Confirm.


This will be created both in Lightyear and Xero. The Supplier in Lightyear will display with the Default Account Code, Country and Currency set up within your Xero account.

If you make any changes or update the details of the Supplier within Xero, you can update this in Lightyear by clicking the Import Suppliers button.

Update Lightyear Suppliers

After importing your Suppliers from Xero, you can quickly create Lightyear Suppliers alongside this. While in Accountancy > Xero Suppliers, click the Update Lightyear Suppliers   button. You will be given the option to Create & Override or Create Only New.  
Create & Override will create new suppliers that don't exist within Lightyear, and update the information with what's set up in Xero.
Create Only New will create new suppliers that don't exist within Lightyear, without updating any current suppliers.

Suppliers in Lightyear will then be created with the information from Xero, automatically populating the Supplier Name, Country, Currency, Default Account Code, Default Tax Code and Bank Details.

This supplier information can be updated at any time, and changed from what's saved in Xero. For full details on this, click here.
Missing Country Codes? Click here to fix this.

Chart of Accounts

Active Account codes are all synced with Xero when you connect your Xero & Lightyear accounts and displayed within the Chart of Accounts section of 'Accountancy Settings'.  The Account codes are all listed in a long list or you can select to filter by 'Type' (area 1) as seen in the below screen shot.


Lightyear does not sync back 'bank account' type Chart of Accounts.
If you make any subsequent updates to your Accounts within Xero, you simply need to go to Accountancy Settings > Chart of Accounts in Lightyear, click import from Xero (area 2), this will refresh your list.

If you wish to reduce the number of Accounts that Lightyear presents to you in its drop down lists, then de-select the tick boxes (area 3) for those particular Accounts that you do not want to have displayed.

Don't forget to select a Rounding Account Code (area 4) as this will automatically code any automated rounding rows you add for any variances.

Set Your Default Tax Rates

When you initially connect to Xero, Lightyear will automatically import all your Xero defined tax rates.

You will need to choose two Xero tax rates to act as the defaults for taxable and non-taxable items.  Lightyear will use these defaults to send the relevant tax code to Xero if a line is taxed/tax free, this is unless you choose to manually assign a different non-default tax rate to the item from within Lightyear's Bill Review section.  

To choose your 2 defaults go to Settings > Accounting Software > Tax Rates.

The below image shows what a typical setup looks like. We have ticked the 2 standard tax rates (GST on Expenses and GST Free Expenses).


Now when Lightyear detects that an item is taxable or non-taxable, it will use these defaults to send with the bill/line-data to Xero (unless you select one of your other non-default codes for the item/supplier). 

Setting a Default Tax Rate Against a Certain Supplier

Usually the Supplier tax rate is left blank, which allows the 2 defaults set above to work with maps.

But there may be circumstances where you assign a certain supplier with a different tax code to the defaults you have set at company level.

Go to the Suppliers > Select Supplier > Edit. You can then choose to set a default tax rate from the drop-down list.


Please Note: you can only set one default tax rate on a Supplier.  If you set a taxable rate as the Supplier default, your Lightyear company non-default tax rate will still be applied if there is a non-taxable item within the supplier bill, and vice-versa.

Tracking Categories, Departments, Locations

When syncing with Xero, Lightyear can import all of your Tracking Categories automatically if you have them setup in Xero and have this option selected in Lightyear. Here we refer to them as Departments & Locations, but you may have them named something else.

To turn on this option in Lightyear:  Go to the Accountancy > Accountancy Software Settings > Select Yes for "Do you use Categories?"


You then need to import them into Lightyear. You also use this next step when you have added new Tracking Categories in Xero and want to import the new ones to Lightyear. To import them go to the Accountancy Software Settings > Categories > Import from Xero.
Please Note: this will import both Categories if you use them in Xero. Both of these can be viewed if you click on the drop down box for Category (as shown in below image).

If you have tracking categories that you won't be using in Lightyear, you can set these to Inactive by unchecking the In Use box. Note that having a large number of active tracking categories could degrade the app performance.

Selecting Categories, Departments or Locations

Lightyear allows you to apply one or two Tracking Categories at either an invoice level (from the drop down list presented to you at the top of Panel 2 - (the tall panel to the right hand side of the Lightyear screen), or at individual line item level. You can do this in Panel 2 of either the Approval Tab or the Review Tab. In the example below, you are looking at a section of Panel 2 in the Approval Tab.  This is the detailed view which shows Accounts, Tax codes, Categories/Departments/Locations. To see the expanded view you need to either drag the separator bar that splits the 2 sections across to the left, or you can click on the words 'View Details' in blue at the top of Panel 2 (above the supplier name).

In order to apply a separate Tracking Category, Department or Location etc to some or all of the rows of the bill, you can select it line by line or to change all the lines to the one category you can click on the Category Boxes within the View Detail section of the data extracted.
Please Note: your Tracking Categories may be labelled something else

More about Automatically Applying Categories

By switching this on, Lightyear will remember the Tracking Categories you have previously selected, and automatically apply these the next time the invoice is received in the Approvals tab.

This can be set as a supplier default, meaning one category will be selected for all lines of an invoice, or it can be set on a line-by-line basis, based on the product code.

To set as a supplier default, go to your Supplier, and under the Class/Location fields (these may be called something else in your Account), select the required option from the dropdown:

To set on a line-by-line basis, go to your Supplier > Products. Click the green pencil on the item you want to edit, and under the Class/Location fields (these may be called something else in your Account), select the required option from the dropdown:


Support for Multi-Currency  Exports

Whatever currency is on the bill we can export that to Xero. Ensure that your Xero file is on the right subscription level to accept multi-currencies and is set to the same currency extracted from the bill. Xero will be expecting the currencies to match their supplier settings or else you'll be presented with an error.





      

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