Connecting Xero
Type the invoice once, not twice
Why this one matters
Most builders enter every supplier invoice twice: once against the job so the costs are right, and again in the accounting system so the books are right. It is the same information, typed by the same person, half an hour apart.
Connecting the two does not make the bookkeeping disappear. It means nobody types it the second time, and the two sets of numbers cannot drift apart.
What you will see
- The connection made once, with your own Xero login
- An invoice recorded against a job going across as a bill
- Which records have gone and which have not
- What stays in SmarteBuild, and what belongs in the accounts
What was said
The narration, word for word, for anyone who would rather read it than watch it — or who is on a train.
Connect Xero, and a supplier invoice entered in SmarteBuild goes to Xero as a bill. No typing it twice.
Connect once, and choose your Xero organisation.
Test asks Xero whether the connection still works. Underneath, setup progress shows how much is still to link: your cost codes to accounts, your jobs to tracking, and your suppliers to contacts.
Match your cost codes to your Xero accounts, so every bill lands in the right place.
On the Jobs tab, link each job to a Xero tracking option, so the bills in Xero are split by job too. Where the names match, SmarteBuild suggests the link, and Link obvious matches does them all at once.
Suppliers work the same way: each one is linked to its contact in Xero. Two of yours can share one Xero contact, and a supplier Xero does not have yet can be created there with one click.
Xero connections expire if they are not used. Tick reconnect when you sign in, and reconnect automatically, and you will rarely notice. Refresh connections renews them all by hand.
Send expenses to Xero one at a time, or in a batch.
When you pay a bill in Xero, the payment comes back, and the expense is marked paid for you.
If a bill in Xero stops matching the expense, SmarteBuild flags it, so you find out before the end of the month.
Doing it, rather than watching it
This page is the tour. When you are in SmarteBuild with a job open and need the detail — every option, every exception, the things the video had no time for — the help centre has the full article.
Read about it instead: Integrations · Expenses & Invoices · Purchase Orders
Start with one job and see
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