Xero Integration

How to Create Xero Invoices from Jira Time in Clerk
How to Set Products and Services for Xero Invoices in Clerk
How to Set Taxes for Xero Invoices in Clerk
How to Set Accounts for Xero Invoices in Clerk
How to Export Invoice Time Reports to Xero in Clerk

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Xero integration is used by the Clerk Invoices app.

If you use Xero, you can connect it to Clerk Invoices to enable the following features:

• See all your Xero customers in Clerk. In Clerk, customers are called clients. You could work with them like with regular Clerk clients — create invoices and invoice templates, see reports, etc. Renaming and deleting for Xero clients will be disabled. They will have a small Xero badge. Xero clients are updated in Clerk in real-time when you change them in Xero.
• Sync all invoices from Clerk to Xero. Clerk Invoices supports automatic and manual sync. With automatic sync, every created or updated invoice will be automatically created or updated in the connected Xero organization. If you enable manual sync mode, you can manually sync any invoice using the Export menu of a specific invoice. Sync works for invoices that belong to Xero clients only. At the current version, this is a one-way sync from Clerk Invoices to Xero. Clerk Invoices uses automatic sync mode by default.

Enabling Xero Integration

Enabling Xero integration requires just a few clicks! Go to Settings ▸ Integrations, click the Connect Xero button, and follow the onscreen instructions.

Every exported invoice in Xero will have a link to the corresponding invoice in Clerk in the invoice footer.

Setting Xero Products and Services for Invoice Items

In Xero, every invoice item may be connected to a product or service that you pick from a list. To set a Xero product or service for an invoice item in Clerk, just put its Xero item code at the beginning of the item description in square brackets. The code should be written exactly as it is written in Xero. Clerk will automatically search for the corresponding Xero product or service by its item code and set it for each invoice item. If a corresponding product or service is found in Xero, its code in square brackets will be removed from the invoice item description. If the product or service cannot be found, the invoice item will not have any product or service attached to that invoice item in Xero.

You can use non-trackable products and services only.

Let’s look at the example. We have the following products and services in Xero with the following item codes:

We have created the following invoice in Clerk and put Development Hours and Design Hours item codes in square brackets inside invoice item descriptions:

Invoice items in Xero will have corresponding services connected to the first 2 invoice items:

Setting Products and Services Depending on The Role in Clerk

If you use the Invoice Generator to build invoices, you can set individual Xero product or service for each invoice line depending on the role of that line. Here is how to do that:

1. Put each Xero product or service item code in the corresponding role description in Clerk.
2. Put the {{Role Description}} variable inside square brackets in the line description of the invoice template.
3. When the invoice is generated, it will have lines with correct item codes put in square brackets for each invoice line. Each product or service item code will be taken from a corresponding role description.
4. Clerk will apply the same logic as described before for setting a product or service for each invoice line in Xero.

Setting Xero Accounts for Invoice Items

Every invoice item in Xero should be connected to Xero account. Clerk will automatically connect every invoice item with Xero account using the following logic in the following order:

1. Use the default sales account from the product or service connected to the invoice item. That happens only if we have a product or service connected to the invoice item and that product or service has a default sales account set in its settings.
2. Use the default sales account from invoice client. That happens only if the invoice client has a default sales account set in its settings.
3. Use the Sales account that is created in Xero by default. We try to find it by name. That happens only if the default Sales account was not deleted, renamed or archived.
4. Use the first account from the Revenue accounts list in Xero.

Applying Taxes for Invoice Items

Taxes in Xero work in a different way compared to Clerk. So taxes are not exported from Clerk invoice. Instead, they are applied automatically based on the following logic in the following order:

1. Use the default sales tax from the product or service connected to the invoice item. That happens only if we have a product or service connected to the invoice item and that product or service has a default sales tax set in its settings.
2. Use the default sales tax from the invoice client. That happens only if the invoice client has a default sales tax set in its settings.
3. Use sales tax from invoice item account.

Applying Discounts for Invoice Items

Discounts that you set in Clerk Invoices are exported to Xero. You can enable or disable discount to any invoice item individually.

At the export, the discount from Clerk is rounded to hundredths of a percent — that is a Xero discount limitation. For example, the discount of 18.555% will become 18.56% in the exported Xero invoice.

Invoice Currency

If the exported invoice currency is not present in the list of organization currencies in Xero, it will be automatically added to your Xero organization before exporting the invoice.

Automatic and Manual Sync Modes

By default, Clerk Invoices automatically syncs all created or updated invoices with Xero. Sync works for invoices that belong to Xero clients only. To enable manual sync (that is available via the Export menu of a specific invoice), please go to Settings ▸ Integrations and uncheck “Export invoices automatically”:

Exporting Time Reports

If you have Show Time Reports to Clients enabled in the related invoice layout settings, time reports will be automatically attached to the Xero invoice as PDF files.

Disabling Xero Integration

To disable Xero integration, open Clerk Invoices app in your Jira instance, go to Settings ▸ Integrations and click the red cross icon to disconnect Xero:

We would be happy to hear your feedback about Xero integration. Please let us know if something is missing!