How to sync bills with Xero?

What is the Bills sync feature for Xero?

The Sync Bills for Xero is a feature that allows you to sync any bills created using Aspire’s Bills feature directly to Xero. Aspire provides an end-to-end account payable in our Bills feature, which allows your business to create, approve and pay bills and also offers advanced features like OCR and customizable approval workflows.

With the Bills sync feature for Xero, you can also sync the bills with Xero and track your accounts payable without any additional effort!

To learn more about the Bills product, refer to the FAQs in the Bills module on your Aspire account

What are the different Bill statuses that I can sync with Xero?

You can sync any approved bills with Xero, specifically, the bills in status - Pending payment, Payment scheduled or Paid. For each synced bill, we will create a create a record in the Xero Bill-to-Pay module.

What will be the status of the bills on Xero?

If you sync a bill that is yet to be paid, i.e. when if it is in Pending payment or Payment scheduled status, a bill will be created on Xero in Awaiting payment status.

If you sync a bill that is already in Paid status, the corresponding bill on Xero will also be created in Paid status.

What happens when a payment is completed on Aspire, for a bill that was synced before it was paid?

If you sync a bill that is yet to be paid, ie and the payment is completed on Aspire, we will automatically update the payment details to the Awaiting payment bill on Xero. This bill will then automatically move to Paid status on Xero! You don’t have to manually update the payment details to Xero

My bills usually contain multiple line items. Can Aspire also capture and sync line item details with Xero?

Yes! Before syncing any bill with Xero, you will have the option to split the bill into its different line items and assign different accounting values to each line item.

Getting started

You can access the bills sync feature by navigating to the Xero homepage under the Accounting section, in the left navigation pane.

Do note that you will need to have connected your Xero organization to be able to use this feature. To know how to do this, please refer to the Xero connection guide.

Mapping Xero accounts

When you first click on the Sync expenses workflow, you will be asked to Map your Xero accounts.

You can set up a mapping between your Aspire categories and your Xero chart of accounts on this screen.

Once you map a Xero account to an Aspire category, any bill in that category will automatically be linked to the mapped Xero account.

You can always update the Xero account for any individual bill or update this mapping later.

Reviewing a bill

The Bills sync workflow has three different sync statuses - Pending Review, Pending Sync, and Synced. You can switch between these tabs at any time.

Once you are on the Sync expenses homepage, you will be able to see the list of bills in Pending Review status. This will include all bills that are in Pending payment, Payment scheduled or Paid status in the Aspire Bills module.

You can click on any Bill to review and update all information about the bill, before syncing it with Xero. The attached bill document will be visible so that you can review and update any details easily.

You can update the following values in the Bill details panel:

• Vendor name
  • If there is a Xero contact by the same name as the Vendor for the bill, we will sync the bill to that Xero contact.
  • If there is no vendor by the same name, Aspire will create a new contact on Xero for you.
  • You can also update the merchant to any of your Xero contacts or create a new contact on Xero, by editing the Vendor name.
• Invoice description
  • We will auto-populate a description for the bill for you.
  • You can edit this value to any description that you would like to sync to Xero.
• Aspire category - The Aspire category can be updated to any of your Aspire categories.
• Xero Account - The Xero account will be automatically filled if you have mapped the Aspire category to a Xero account. You can update the value to any of your Xero account values.
• Tax Rate - The tax rate will default to the Xero tax rate linked to the selected Xero account. You can update the value to any of your Xero tax rates.
• Xero Tracking categories - If you have any tracking categories added on Xero, you will be able to fill their values from Aspire.
• Internal Notes - You can leave a note for your team in the internal notes section. This value will not be synced with Xero.

You can also click on the "Add new line items" option, to split the bill into different line items. This will open up the line items pane, where you will be able to enter the different line items.

You can enter Description, Quantity, Unit price, Account, Tax rate and any tracking categories for each line item. 

You can add as many line items or delete line items by selecting them using the checkboxes.

If the total of the line items, does not align with the Bill amount, there will be an error shown as the Difference in the top right corner of the line items pane.

Once you fill in all mandatory information and adjust the line item prices to match the bill total, you can save all the details to return back to the bill details.

Once all details are reviewed, you can move this bill to the next status by clicking on the "Add to pending sync" button.

Once the bill is in Pending sync status, you can review all details once again and sync the bill with Xero. The bill will then move to the Synced status.

You can check the details of the synced bill on Xero by going to the Xero Bill-to-Pay module.

Once the payment is completed on Aspire for this bill, it will automatically be updated to Paid status on Xero as well.

Suggestions? Let us know here.