When you integrate your Xero accounting system with the Tall Emu CRM, you’re able to control the direction and frequency of the information flow between the two systems.

When you first connect Xero to CRM, all your sync settings will be set to Manual by default. You will then need to amend them to appropriately push data between the systems. If you haven’t connected Xero yet, please view the connection instructions.

Once you’ve connected the CRM to your accounting system, our integration options let you define sync preferences that suit you. These preferences determine the direction and frequency of data syncing between your accounting system and the CRM.

As a general rule, we recommend that you use CRM as your master system and push required data over to Xero for accounting and compliance purposes.

Ultimately, every business is different and you are free to configure these settings as you see fit. However, having your sync settings incorrectly configured will lead to sync errors and issues between the two systems when data overlaps or fails to either update correctly, or in the correct order. For this reason, we have put together guidance on how to configure your sync for optimal results.

So that we can guide you through any potential impacts on your data, please contact us at [email protected] with any queries that you have, or if you feel you may want to apply a custom configuration to your sync settings. 

Note that if you do not configure a sync schedule for items, you can still manually push records between systems. In CRM, any time you see a Xero logo on a record, click to reveal the option to Import or Export data.

If the record has not yet been created in Xero, you can click on the Create button to export it straight away.

 

While in the Xero sync settings page, you can also manually push records in bulk to Xero. Just click on the Xero logo to reveal the option to Import or Export.

In most areas of CRM you can also add the column to your list view for Accounting Code, which is a quick way of determining which records have been synced with Xero i.e. any record that has a code has been synced and records without a code have not been synced.

Following is a guide to the recommended settings for each sync data type.

Note that  ‘OUT’ refers to data being exported to your accounting system from the CRM while ‘IN’ refers to data being imported from your accounting system to the CRM.

Accessing your Xero sync settings

To set-up your sync, head to the Main Menu and scroll down to the Admin section and select Integrations, then click on Settings for Xero.

Import All button

Pressing the Import All button will import everything from Xero again. This means that if you’ve made changes to data in CRM after you’ve connected Xero, the data you’ve edited may be overwritten.

For example, if you’ve gone and edited your Product or customer data in CRM after it’s connected to Xero and choose Import All, all the changes you made in CRM will be overwritten with the original data in Xero.

Disconnect button

Pressing the Disconnect button at the top of the sync settings page will disconnect Xero from CRM – all information will remain within the two systems and nothing will be lost, you just won’t be able to push data between them.

Reauthorise the connection

If you need to reauthorise the connection with Xero (for example, your password has changed), you can click on the Re-authorise button which will prompt you to enter your Xero credentials again and reconnect Xero to CRM.

Data sync accounts

You can use this drop-down list to select the correct accounts in Xero for stock adjustments and stocktake movements to be posted to.

Note that unless these accounts have been populated, your stock movements and/or stocktakes will not sync from CRM to Xero. 

For more information on how to set up these accounts in Xero, please see this guide.

Lock Invoices when transferred to Xero

We recommend that you tick this box, which will mean that once an Invoice is sent to Xero, it cannot be altered.

Altering Invoices in Xero once they have been finalised in CRM could cause potential issues between the systems.

Rather than amending or deleting an Invoice, we recommend that you use a Credit Note and then re-issue the Invoice.

Sync Inventory with Xero

This setting determines whether or not inventory syncs with Xero. We recommend that this box is ticked. If the box is not ticked, only non-inventory tracked items will be synced with Xero.

Sync Invoice Item Descriptions

We recommend that this option is ticked so that full item descriptions are synced over to Xero with your Invoice data.

Company

You can leave the IN setting here as Manual.

If you are using CRM each day to run your business, there should not be any new Companies in Xero that you need to push into CRM.

You should change the OUT setting here to Automatic.

When you create a new Company record for a customer in CRM that you want to keep updated in Xero:

• Click on the Xero logo in the Company record to reveal the Export button, then click it.
• The Automatic setting means that when this record is updated in future, changes will automatically be sent over to Xero.

By selectively choosing which Company records you initially send to Xero (and then automatically maintain) you are not clogging up your accounting system with records for companies that are not customers as these serve no accounting purpose.

CRM will look for an existing match for the Company record in Xero – it determines this based on an Accounting Code that acts as a unique identifier. You can view these codes by adding the Accounting Code column to your view in Companies.

Contact

You can leave the IN setting here as Manual.

If you are using CRM each day to run your business, there should not be any new Contacts in Xero that you need to push into CRM.

You should change the OUT setting here to Automatic.

When you create a new Contact record for a customer in CRM that you want to keep updated in Xero:

• Click on the Xero logo in the Contact record to reveal the Export button, then click it.
• The Automatic setting means that when this record is updated in future, changes will automatically be sent over to Xero.

By selectively choosing which Contact records you initially send to Xero (and then automatically maintain) you are not clogging up your accounting system with records for companies that are not customers as these serve no accounting purpose.

CRM will look for an existing match for the Contact record in Xero – it determines this based on an Accounting Code that acts as a unique identifier. You can view these codes by adding the Accounting Code column to your view in Contacts.

Product

You can leave both IN and OUT settings here as Manual. This is because when you sync your Invoices out from CRM to Xero, the following will take place:

• Xero will look for an existing match for the Products you have on the Invoice and automatically relate the records.
  
• If there is not an existing match for the Product in Xero, a new Product record will automatically be created and linked to the Invoice.

CRM will look for an existing match for the Product record in Xero – it determines this based on an Accounting Code that acts as a unique identifier. You can view these codes by adding the Accounting Code column to your view in Products.

If you are using CRM each day to run your business, there should not be any new Products in Xero that you need to push into CRM. In addition:

• You may not want every single Product record pulled through to Xero to potentially clog up your system e.g. Products that you haven’t sold and therefore don’t need them to be in Xero for accounting or compliance reasons.
• The CRM Product form is rich in detail (compared to Xero product records) and you will want to avoid potentially overwriting any of your data in CRM.

Also remember that you can selectively push records to Xero manually – just open the Product record, click on the Xero logo and select Export.

Quote

You can leave both IN and OUT settings here as Manual. This is because the information in Quotes is related to sales and reporting, not accounting. Xero cares about what you have invoiced, not what you may (or may not) end up selling.

You can access your Quote data in CRM for reporting purposes by using the Dashboard View in Sales > Quotes. From here, you can select from numerous pre-formatted Dashboards and adjust the relevant date periods as required.

Invoice

 

Invoices are key accounting data and you will need to set a schedule to push them out from CRM to Xero on a regular basis. You should leave the IN setting as Manual and change the OUT setting to Scheduled.

When Xero receives an Invoice from CRM, it automatically decreases stock for the item/s on the invoice.

We recommend that you set this up as follows:

1. Change the OUT setting to Scheduled.
2. Select the days of the week you want this to run e.g. Monday to Friday or 7 days a week. We recommend this is set to reflect the days that you conduct business, so if you don’t operate on weekends, you won’t need to select them as there will be no Invoices to push to Xero on these days.
3. Select the time you want this to run – we recommend you set this after your business hours typically conclude so that all of your Invoices for the day will be pushed to Xero.

Note that while you can opt to push Invoices to Xero more frequently (e.g. hourly), most businesses don’t require this unless accountants or bookkeepers are in Xero constantly and need immediate data.

Setting your Invoices to push to Xero at frequent intervals throughout the day will slow down your system as the export function heavily uses your system resources.

Also remember that you can selectively push Invoice records to Xero manually – just click on the Xero logo and select Export.

You can also quickly export all previously un-exported Invoices to Xero from the sync settings page by clicking on the Xero logo and selecting Export.

CRM will look for an existing match for the Invoice record in Xero – it determines this based on an Accounting Code that acts as a unique identifier. You can view these codes by adding the Accounting Code column to your view in Invoices to quickly see which records have been synced.

If you are using CRM each day to run your business, there should not be any new Invoices in Xero that you need to push into CRM.

Don’t forget that you can access reports in CRM on your Invoice data from the following areas:

1. By using the Dashboard View in Sales > Invoices. From here, you can select from numerous pre-formatted Dashboards and adjust the relevant date periods as required.
2. From Reporting > Reports by selecting from any of the sales-focused reports.

Note that once an Invoice has been synced with Xero, you will not be able to delete it in CRM. Rather than amending or deleting an Invoice, we recommend that you use a Credit Note and then re-issue the Invoice.

Credit Note

If you are using CRM each day to run your business, there should not be any new Credit Notes in Xero that you need to push into CRM. You can leave the IN setting here as Manual.

Payment

Payments are key accounting data and you will need to set a schedule. The direction of the sync will depend on how you are taking payments from customers. For best results, we recommend taking payments in CRM and then pushing them to Xero, but it is also possible to process payments in Xero and pull them into CRM:

1. If you are using CRM with a payment gateway, you will need to schedule to sync your Payments OUT to Xero daily.
2. If you are taking payments in Xero, you will need to schedule to sync your Payments IN from Xero daily.

We recommend that you set up your OUT sync as follows:

1. Change the OUT setting to Scheduled.
2. Select the days of the week you want this to run e.g. Monday to Friday or 7 days a week. We recommend this is set to reflect the days that you conduct business, so if you don’t operate on weekends, you won’t need to select them as there will be no Payments to push to Xero on these days.
3. Select the time you want this to run – we recommend you set this after your business hours typically conclude so that all of your Payments for the day will be pushed to Xero. You should also set this to run at least 5 minutes after your Invoices are scheduled to sync.

We recommend that you set up your IN sync as follows:

1. Change the IN setting to Scheduled.
2. Select the days of the week you want this to run e.g. Monday to Friday or 7 days a week. We recommend this is set to reflect the days that you conduct business, so if you don’t operate on weekends, you won’t need to select them as there will be no Payments to push to Xero on these days.
3. Select the time you want this to run – we recommend you set this after your business hours typically conclude so that all of your Payments for the day will be pushed to Xero. You should also set this to run at least 5 minutes after your Invoices are scheduled to sync.

Note that while you can opt to push Payments to Xero more frequently (e.g. hourly), most businesses don’t require this unless accountants or bookkeepers are in Xero constantly and need immediate data.

Setting your Payments to push sync either way at frequent intervals throughout the day will slow down your system as the export function heavily uses your system resources.

Also remember that you can selectively push records to Xero manually – just open a Payment record and click on Create next to the Xero logo.

You can also quickly export or import all previously un-exported/imported Payments to and from Xero from the sync settings page by clicking on the Xero logo and selecting either Export or Import.

You can also quickly view which Payments have been synced with Xero by adding the Accounting Code column to your view in Payments – any record that has a value for Accounting Code means that it has been synced with Xero.

Purchase Orders & Supplier Bills

There isn’t a specific area in the sync setup for Purchase Orders and Supplier Bills at the moment.

We recommend that you manually export your Supplier Bills to CRM as you confirm receipt of goods. When you manually export a Supplier Bill to Xero, the associated Purchase Order is automatically pulled through to Xero as well, so you don’t need to export these manually.

The following Status of a Supplier Bill in CRM will equal the status of the bill record in Xero once the exported record has been received:

• ‘Entered’ in CRM = ‘Draft’ in Xero,
• ‘Generated’ in CRM = ‘Submitted’ in Xero,
• ‘Cancelled’ in CRM = ‘Deleted’ in Xero,
• All other statuses are exported as ‘Authorised’ in Xero.

On a Supplier Bill, click on the Create button next to the Xero logo to push the bill over to Xero.

This action will increase stock of the item/s you have purchased in Xero if the Status is set accordingly.

You can also manually push Purchase Orders to Xero, just click on the Create button next to the Xero logo.

Stock Level

Stock Levels are key accounting data, but you don’t need to set this to sync with Xero. You can leave the IN setting here as Manual.

This is because:

• Your Invoices should be syncing OUT to Xero on a daily basis, thus reducing stock for items in Xero.
• Your Supplier Bills should be being synced OUT to Xero as goods are received, increasing stock for items in Xero.
• You should be syncing Work Orders OUT to Xero on a daily basis (if you are using them in CRM) so that Xero can decrease stock levels for your input products and increase stock levels for your output products in Xero.

If you are using CRM daily for your operations, your stock levels in the system will always be correct because CRM is tracking your ‘Tracked Stock’ items by:

1. Reducing stock when an item is on an Invoice.
2. Increasing stock when you receipt items on a Purchase Order.
3. Reducing your input product stock and increasing your output product stock when you complete a Work Order.

We strongly recommend that you do not perform some activities in CRM and some in Xero and then try to sync stock levels between the systems. It is better to perform all your operations in CRM and then sync information out to Xero.

Stock Adjustment

If you are using Work Orders, you will need to see the section below for how to sync order stock adjustments to Xero.

The stock adjustment settings here relate to manual adjustments. We recommend that you perform any changes to stock levels via a Stocktake, rather than a manual adjustment. You can therefore leave both the IN and OUT settings here as Manual.

 

Stocktake List

Stocktakes are key accounting data, but you don’t necessarily need to set this to sync with Xero. This is because when you create a Stocktake record and mark it Complete, you will have the option to export this to Xero straight away. You should leave both the IN and OUT setting here as Manual.

However, before you push a Stocktake record to Xero manually, you must perform the following steps IN SEQUENTIAL ORDER:

1. Export all your Invoices to Xero.
2. Export all your Supplier Bills for receipted goods to Xero.
3. Allow 5 minutes for these exports to complete.
4. Then push your Stocktake record manually to Xero.

You can push all your Invoices OUT to Xero from the sync settings page by clicking on the Xero logo and then choosing Export.

 

You can push your Supplier Bills for receipted goods to Xero by opening a record and clicking on the Create button next to the Xero logo.

Learn more about how to perform Stocktakes in CRM here.

Work Orders

If you are not using Work Orders in CRM, you can skip this section.

If you are using Work Orders in CRM, you should change the OUT setting to Scheduled.

This is because when you mark a Work Order complete in CRM, the system automatically reduces the stock of your Input Products and increases the stock of your Output Products – Xero then needs to know this information so that it can adjust your stock levels accordingly.

We recommend that you set this up as follows:

1. Change the OUT setting to Scheduled.
2. Select the days of the week you want this to run e.g. Monday to Friday or 7 days a week. We recommend this is set to reflect the days that you conduct business, so if you don’t operate on weekends, you won’t need to select them as there will be no Work Orders to push to Xero on these days.
3. Select the time you want this to run – we recommend you set this after your business hours typically conclude so that all of your Work Orders for the day will be pushed to Xero.

Note that while you can opt to push Work Orders to Xero more frequently (e.g. hourly), most businesses don’t require this unless accountants or bookkeepers are in Xero constantly and need immediate data.

Setting your Work Orders to push to Xero at frequent intervals throughout the day will slow down your system as the export function heavily uses your system resources.

Also remember that you can selectively push Work Order records to Xero manually – just click on the Xero logo and select Export.

You can also quickly export all previously un-exported Work Orders to Xero from the sync settings page by clicking on the Xero logo and selecting Export.

GL Code

When you initially connect Xero to CRM, it will pull through all your existing GL Codes. You can leave the IN setting here as Manual.

If you need to create more GL Codes, this should be done in Xero first, and then pulled into CRM by clicking on the Xero logo and selecting Import.