Why You Should Link Shopify And Xero
In 2021, Shopify and Xero announced a transformative new collaboration between their platforms.
With it, you could link your Shopify store to your Xero account for maximum accounting convenience.
At least that’s what both companies promised. But is integrating your Shopify and Xero a good idea?
This short Xero and Shopify guide will explain why you should link Shopify and Xero. We’ll also share the benefits and downsides of using this new integration and how to set it up.
What Is Xero?
Xero is a cloud-based financial and accounting software solution for businesses. Small businesses, such as Shopify eCommerce sites, primarily use Xero to simplify their accounting tasks.
You’ll find that Xero has various fantastic accounting capabilities, including bookkeeping, invoicing, document control, and more.
By automating and simplifying the accounting process, Xero makes it easier for savvy business owners to stay in control of their online bookkeeping.
The more you know about how your business works and whether it’s making money, the better you can grow your business.
How To Link Shopify And Xero In 7 Easy Steps
Here are seven steps to follow when linking your Shopify and Xero accounts:
- Download the Xero app on Shopify and install it.
- Choose a payment plan and accept the Ts and Cs.
- Select ‘Connect now.’
- Go to the popup screen and log in to Xero, choosing the company you want to link. Choose ‘Allow Access.’ This will redirect you back to Shopify, where you must pick the Xero accounts you wish to link to Shopify.
- Now, you’ll have to adjust your payment settings. You may have to ‘create a new expense account.’ Once you’ve done this via Xero, refresh your Shopify page and choose the newly created expense account.
- Next, adjust your tax settings, customer export settings, export settings, and current price plan. You can set these according to your preferences. Once done, click ‘Complete setup.’
- To check whether the integration has worked, click on ‘Launch Xero.’ This should redirect you to Xero, where you can check the integration under the Connected app’s settings. If successful, you should find Spotify as one of the connected apps.
Why Integrating Shopify And Xero Is A Good Idea: The Benefits
The integration promises a lot of excellent capabilities. These are the main benefits of connecting your Shopify store to Xero:
Improve Data Gathering And Accuracy
Entering data, mainly numerical data, can get strenuous and time-consuming. It can get easy to make errors and fill in the wrong information with too many numbers.
With automated data logging, you can ensure accurate data at all times. You also get better visibility over all incoming and outgoing funds like payments, transaction fees, etc.
Monitor Cash Flow In A Single Place
Xero has a cash flow tool to help you get insight into your business’s financial performance. With it, you can track the flow of your capital and make better informed financial decisions.
Automate Accounting Tasks
The system automatically gathers the Shopify sales and orders for that day.
It collects this data directly from your store’s payment or checkout gateway, organizes them, and transfers them to Xero. Xero then reconciles these numbers for you.
In addition to these benefits, these are some of the functions that the Shopify and Xero integration has:
- Generates daily invoice summary for each payment gateway you use.
- It helps you decide on the best invoice structures based on your payment gateway.
- Automatically sync Shopify order and sales data to Xero.
- Categorizes invoices into gift/refunds/discounts/ shipping/sales/fees.
- Allows you to have invoices pre-paid into a clearing account as you wait for PayPal or Shopify Payments payment.
Issues Integrating Xero With Shopify
Although it has some great basic functionalities, the Xero app doesn’t cover all merchant accounting needs.
For instance, it lacks inventory management, split sales, COGS, and single Shopify orders. It also doesn’t import customer information.
Many customers also complained that they couldn’t get the integration with Shopify to function correctly.
With such a significant flaw, the standalone integration doesn’t present itself as a completely viable option just yet.
Luckily, there are several efficient and functional platforms to help you reconcile your store numbers, track sales, and balance your books effectively.
Reconcilely: A Shopify And Xero Accounting Integration Alternative
Instead of manually tracking payments, refunds, and fees with Xero and Shopify, use Reconcilely. At Reconcilely, we offer excellent reconciliation features and capabilities, and we have a track record of satisfied customers.
Our platform integrates well with Shopify and Xero. It does all the work required to reconcile your financial data accurately.
Ranked as the Xero Emerging App Partner Of The Year, we offer premium accounting support to all our customers.
With our platform, you can save time from manual reconciling, condensing hundreds of orders into a single invoice in one click.
Other fantastic Reconcilely features include:
- Tax reporting: automatically and accurately report taxable fees, shipping, etc.
- Instant reconciliation and invoicing
- Customization: set your preferences for contacts, references, and more for simple reconciliation.
- Organization and categorization: you can exclude some orders from specified payment gateways. You can also categorize sales by order type.
- Multi-currency support
Since Reconcilely works amazingly with both Shopify and Xero, you can still integrate the two and use Reconcilely as the brilliant middleman.
It can become one big, integrated accounting solution that automates daily tasks and puts you in the driving seat!
The Bottom Line
The move by Xero and Shopify to develop an integration of their services was an immense leap for Shopify store accounting.
The aim was to simplify the accounting process for merchants and create a system that automates complicated financial processes.
While it was an excellent move and idea and may yet actualize into a fully-functional and ideal platform, it still leaves much to be desired.
We’ve got you covered for Shopify users looking for an application that can complete all the same actions as the integration promised.
And if you’d like to give us a whirl, we’ve got a 14-day free trial waiting just for you. Just one click, and we’ll reconcile it!
