Xero Integration Guide

Integrating with Xero

Introduction

This guide details the steps required to enable and configure your Xero Integration in Khaos Control Cloud in order to start exporting information to your Xero account. There are help videos in the different sections to help you.

Before You Begin

There are several things you should do:
  1. Read this page and any associated documents before you begin, this will give you an understanding of the process required to setup Xero and what you need to prepare before you start the setup.
  2. Create a Sales Delivery Nominal in your Xero Account.
    1. You must ensure  a  Sales Delivery Nominal account exists in your Xero system which will need mapping to the Sales Delivery nominal in Khaos Control Cloud. This should be of type  Revenue with VAT.
  3. Create a Purchase Delivery Nominal in your Xero Account.
    1. You must ensure a Purchase Delivery Nominal account exists in your Xero system which will need mapping to the Purchase Delivery nominal in Khaos Control Cloud. This should be of type Expense with VAT.
  4. Create a Purchase Delivery stock item in your Xero Account.
    1. Your must ensure that a stock item of stockcode PDELIVERY exists in your Xero account and it is mapped to the Purchase Delivery Nominal  created in step 3.
  5. Please read and fully understand the process here,  Managing Your Stock Nominal . It should be noted there is NO Inventory or CoS feature within Xero when connected to Khaos Control Cloud.
  6. Check out the Xero videos and articles on the Knowledgebase. You can do this by searching for Xero or clicking here,  Xero Articles .
  7. Please notify  training@khaoscloud.com  of your intent to integrate Xero but please note that you do not need to undertake training. This purely allows us to offer assistance quicker if things go wrong.
  8. Please see Usage with Accounts Package Integration for details about what the integration will do and how to use it once it has been setup.

It should be noted there is NO Inventory or CoS feature within Xero when connected to Khaos Control Cloud. Khaos Control can not talk directly to the Stock Nominal in Xero, we would recommend creating a custom nominal called Stock in Hand.

Initial Setup

You must log into your  Live database  when setting up and integrating your Xero account.

Enabling Xero Integration

  1. Go to the Accounts tab of [System Setup | System Values].
  2. Click  Edit  and enable the option for  Accounts Integration  (turn the toggle green).
  3. Click  Save Screen .
Please Note:
The above procedure only needs to be done once and must be performed by a user with the Admin permission.
The above procedure can be viewed in this video,  How To Enable Synchronisation with an Integrated Accounting Package.

Connecting to Xero

After enabling Xero, you will need to connect to your Xero account in order to complete the Setup:
  1. Open  [Accounts | Accounts Integration].
  2. Click on the  Action  button.
  3. Select  Connect to Xero .
    4. Please Note:
    Once this is clicked, Khaos Control Cloud will attempt to communicate with Xero by opening the Xero website in another browser tab – you may need to authorise this within your web browser.
  4. In the Xero tab, select the option to  Allow access for 30 mins .
  5. A new Khaos Control Cloud tab will be opened once connected to Xero.

Get Nominal Accounts

Fetching the nominal account information from Xero is one of the first steps you need to complete.
  1. Open [Accounts | Accounts Integration].
  2. Click on the  Action button.
  3. Select Get Nominal & Tax Accounts.
Please Note:
This step will fetch the nominal accounts already set up in Xero and make them available to map to in Khaos Control Cloud, it will  not replicate nominal accounts from Xero in Khaos Control Cloud automatically. You will need to ensure any nominal accounts you want to map to Xero are already set up in Khaos Control Cloud.

Apply Default  Setup

The next step in the first-time setup of Xero Integration is to apply the default setup. 
Please Note:
The system will specifically look for Xero account names “Sales”, “General Expenses” and "Prepayments". If the names of these have been changed in Xero, the sync may not work fully.
  1. From the [Accounts | Accounts Integration] screen, click the Action button.
  2. Select  Apply Default Setup.
  3. Acknowledge the popup.
You should now be able to see that the Nominal Defaults have been mapped automatically.

Please Note:
You might prefer to map your sales transactions to custom nominals based on your preferences, and do not intend to use a default sales nominal at all. However, it is essential that a nominal is enabled in Xero and correctly mapped in Khaos Control Cloud. Once set up, this default sales nominal will act as a ‘safety net’ to record sales transactions that don’t match against other nominals, intentionally or otherwise.

Manually Mapping Nominal Accounts

You must manually map all nominals and bank accounts you intend to use within KCC by following the below steps:
  1. Click the Edit button.
  2. Click +New on the Map your Khaos Control nominals to your Account Package nominals grid.
  3. Click on the drop-down next to the nominal default you wish to map and then select the Xero Nominal account you wish to map to.
  4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for each nominal code to be mapped.
  5. Click Save Xero .
The above procedure can be viewed in this video,  How to Manually Map Nominal Accounts to Xero.
ALERT:
If the following error occurs when trying to syncronise with Xero "A validation exception occurred Account code or ID must be specified" then nominal account mappings are missing within your Xero integration configuration. Any new nominal accounts you have created in KCC must also exist in Xero, and be mapped accordingly.

If you need to add more nominals at a future date, then you will need to get the nominals again, see above Get Nominals Accounts, and then map them again as described above.

Configuration Options

Within the system itself, there are eight main configuration options which you will need to consider during the setup process, these are detailed below:

Only Export Stock on Invoices

Xero has strict limits on the number of stock items it can manage, so this option gives the ability to only export items which appear on sales or purchase invoices to Xero. If this option is not enabled, all new stock items will need to be created in Xero.
Please Note:
This option can be used on its own or in conjunction with the ‘Use Rollup Transactions’ option below.
To enable this option:
  1. Click the  Edit button.
  2. Click on the toggle next to Only Export Stock on Invoices to make it green.
  3. Click Save Xero .

Multi Currency

Enabling this option will send currency details against transactions to Xero. Your Xero account MUST support multiple currencies before enabling this option.
Please Note:
Currencies cannot be synchronised directly, which means that currencies must be set-up in Xero and those currencies must match the ones set up in Khaos Control Cloud.
If your Xero account type supports this option , and you want to enable it in Khaos Control Cloud:
  1. Click the  Edit   button.
  2. Click on the toggle next to  MultiCurrency  to make it green.
  3. Click  Save Xero .
The above procedure can be viewed in this video,  How to Enable the MultiCurrency Option when Integrated with Xero .

Use Rollup Transactions

We recommend that all Khaos Control Cloud clients use this feature. Using Rollup Transactions means that Sales and Purchase Invoices exported to Xero do not detail the individual stock items purchased, but instead group the stock items and related financial information by VAT Rate. The following steps go through how to set up the rollup stock items and how to assign those rollup stock items to the different VAT rates.

If Rollup transactions will not be used you MUST create a stock item in Xero for Purchase Delivery Costs or ensure it already exists, this should use stock code PDELIVERY. The image below details how this should be set up, although the VAT rate should be set accordingly.


Creating Rollup Transaction Stock Items

A non-controlled stock item must be assigned to each  VAT Rate when using Rollup Transactions within Xero Integration. This can be done by following the steps below:
  1. Use the drop down menu next to the blue button at the top of the screen to create a New Stock Item.
  2. Click Yes I do to confirm your choice in the popup.
  3. In the Stock Code, enter an identifying code for the item (e.g. “XERO_STD_20”).
  4. In the Description, enter an identifying description (e.g. “Xero Standard 20 VAT”).
  5. Choose a level 2 Stock Type (Please Note:  You might want to consider setting up separate ‘miscellaneous’ stock Level 1 and Level 2 Stock Types for these items under  [System Setup | System Data] ).
  6. Go to the Options tab and disable the Controlled toggle (i.e. click it to turn it grey) and confirm the popup warning of the non-stock-controlled element.
  7. Save Stock Item.
  8. Once the item is saved, you should now create this item in Xero.
  9. You can click the Actions button and select  Copy Stock Item. This will allow you to quickly create multiple stock items based on the one you created, you will then need to repeat steps 3 to 7 for each stock item you require for each VAT rate.

Setting up Rollup Transactions Creating Rollup Transaction Stock Items

Now that the non-stock-controlled stock items have been setup, you can enable Rollup Transactions and assign those stock items to the individual VAT rates as required by the use of this function. To set up Rollup Transactions, you need to complete the following steps:
  1. Go to [Accounts | Accounts Integration].
  2. Click Edit .
  3. Click on the toggle next to Use Rollup Transactions  to turn it green.
  4. Scroll down to the bottom Tax Codes grid, where the tax codes will already be populated. You will see each VAT rate appears twice, once for Sales Invoices (Green ticked) and once for Purchase Invoices (unticked).
    KCC to Xero tax code map
  5. Use the magnifying glass button on the Roll Up Stock Item Code field next to the VAT Rate you wish to allocate to and select the relevant rollup stock item. You can use the same rollup stock item for the same VAT rate on both Sales & Purchases row (e.g. “XERO_STD_20” Stock item can be used for both “Standard” tax code on Sales and “Standard” tax code on purchases).
  6. Allocate a Rollup Stock Item for each tax code row, then click Save Xero to save the configuration.

Create Authorised Invoices

With this option off, invoices must be manually approved in Xero after they have been exported from Khaos Control Cloud. This also means that payments cannot be allocated immediately as the invoice must be approved before a payment allocation can be synchronised. Toggling this option on enables invoices to be sent over to Xero as approved, with no manual intervention required, which also means that any related payment allocations can be synchronised much earlier.  To turn on this functionality:
  1. Click the  Edit  button.
  2. Click on the toggle next to Create Authorised Invoices to make it green.
  3. Click Save Xero.

Don't Export Payments

With this option enabled, any manually created payments on KCC will not be sent to Xero for recording and allocation. All payments must be created and allocated in Xero which will then be fed back to KCC as part of the Import  syncronisation process.

Sales Other Ref Mapping

This setting allows you to specify what field is used for mapping to the Sales Other Ref field in Xero, by default this is set to SOrder code. However, there are a number of other options to choose from if you prefer.

Export Invoice Type

This drop-down menu gives users the ability to chose whether to export both Sales and Purchase invoices, or alternatively only Sales Invoices or only Purchase Invoices over to Xero.

Exclude Sales Sources

This drop-down menu give users the capability to not sync sales from the specified sources. In the drop-down menu click the sources you do NOT want to sync with Xero and a small tick will appear to the left hand side of the description. T o prevent duplicates, this option should be used for all sales sources that are directly integrated with your Xero account.

Manually Mapping Nominal Accounts

The following steps enable you to manually add and map nominal accounts between Khaos Control Cloud and Xero:

  1. Click the Edit button.
  2. Click the +New button above the middle grid.
  3. The drop-down selection in the popup is for you to select your Khaos Control Cloud Nominal Account.
  4. Click  Continue, and the nominal account you have just chosen will now be added to a row at the bottom of the grid.
  5. Use the drop-down to the right-hand side of the row to select the Xero nominal account  you wish to map it to.
  6. Click Save Xero .
The above procedure can be viewed in this video,  How to Manually Map Nominal Accounts to Xero.

Assigning SP Ledger Stock Items to Tax Codes

We advise all SP Ledger entries are carried out in Xero however if you are looking to enter your SP Ledger entries in Khaos Control Cloud and synchronise these to Xero, you will need to assign a stock item to the relevant VAT rates in the bottom grid of the configuration screen. In our example, we have used the same non-controlled stock items for the SP Ledger Stock Items as we did for our Rollup Stock Items. To see how we set this up, see the section above, Creating Rollup Transaction Stock Items. To assign stock items to SP Ledger Stock Items:
  1. Go to [Accounts | Accounts Integration].
  2. Click Edit .
  3. Scroll down to the bottom Tax Codes grid, where the tax codes will already be populated.
    1. You will see each VAT rate appears twice, once for Sales Invoices (Green ticked) and once for Purchase Invoices (unticked).
    2. Use the magnifying glass button on the SP Ledger Stock Item Code field (next to the VAT Rate) you wish to allocate to, and select the relevant stock item.
      3. Please Note: 
      You can use the same stock item for the same VAT rate on both Sales & Purchases rows (e.g. “XERO_STD_20” Stock item can be used for both “Standard” tax code on Sales and “Standard” tax code on purchases).
  4. Allocate an SP Ledger Stock Item for each tax code row.
  5. Click Save Xero to save the configuration.
  6. Check that in your Xero account under Business - Products and Services that your roll up stock items appear in your inventory. They will need creating if not present.

Disconnecting Xero

If you wish to disconnect KCC from your Xero account this must be done from within Xero. At the time of writing, 6 October 2021, the process below details the steps required to do this.
  1. Go to your Xero portal.
  2. At the top left hand corner, click your company name.
  3. Click Settings.
  4. Click Connected Apps.
  5. Click the Disconnect button located on the Khaos Control row.

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