Ordermentum offers a seamless integration with Xero to streamline your accounts payable processes. This integration automates the transfer of invoices to Xero, facilitating easy reconciliation without the need for manual data entry.

The proper implementation of this integration with Xero will give you hours back every week in admin time, as well as the assurance that your bookkeeping data is accurate, up-to-date, and of the highest quality as it is automated from one platform to another.

Getting Started

1. Connect your Xero account

Log in to your Ordermentum account and navigate to Settings > Add-ons.
Choose 'Xero' as your accounting platform and click Connect.
You will be redirected to Xero's login page. Enter your Xero credentials to authorize the connection.
Once the connection is authorized, you'll be returned to Ordermentum.
Proceed to configure your integration settings.

2. Configure Your Default Settings

a. Auto-approve bills

Enable this option to automatically approve invoices for reconciliation if Ordermentum recognizes the appropriate expense account for each item. This ensures one-click bookkeeping for your venue.

b. Set up your default expense accounts

Default Expense Account: The required account assigned to each invoice line item if no other account is specified in Ordermentum.
Freight Account: Reconciles all freight charges from Ordermentum suppliers to this expense account.
Surcharge Account: If certain Ordermentum suppliers charge a surcharge for payment processing, those charges should be reconciled to this account.

c. Set Expense accounts per item

Once your account is integrated, every time you place an order, Ordermentum will immediately send invoice data to your accounting system as a "draft" bill. After configuring default accounts for all line items, it converts the draft into an approved, ready-to-pay invoice.

To set the expense accounts for each item:

Ordermentum will prompt you on the Pay Tab to set expense accounts for unconfigured items.
Once set, Ordermentum remembers each item’s expense accounts for future invoices, eliminating the need for you to configure it repeatedly.

d. Set supplier defaults

You can also set supplier defaults, which means that any new item from a particular supplier will always be allocated to the default account, unless you manually assign a different expense account in the future.

3. How does the Xero sync work?

Ordermentum automatically syncs invoices to Xero when key actions occur. This keeps your financial data up to date without manual intervention.

When an invoice sync is triggered

An invoice will sync from Ordermentum to Xero when:

An invoice is generated
An order is updated (for example, quantity or pricing changes)
An order is marked as paid

Each of these actions prompts Ordermentum to create or update the corresponding invoice in Xero.

Important note about paid invoices

Once an invoice is marked as Paid, Xero locks the invoice.

This means:

The invoice can no longer be updated by Ordermentum
Any changes made to the order after payment won’t sync to Xero

If changes are needed, you’ll need to manage them directly in Xero.

4. Where does my Accounting data export to in Xero

After you have successfully set up all of the above, then your invoices will land in Xero, ready to reconcile. Now you’re ready for one click bookkeeping.

5. External Invoices

In addition to the internal Xero integration, you can also import and manage invoices from external sources. To upload an invoice, either:

Email your invoices to your Ordermentum address (found in your integration settings), or
Upload your invoices directly from the Pay tab, Add-ons page, or Integration Settings pages using the plus icon in the top right.

To access your external invoice PDFs in Xero, locate the invoice, then click "Files", find your PDF, and click "view"

Learn more about importing external supplier invoices.

6. Frequently Asked Questions

What if there’s a mistake with the GL account?

It’s super easy to fix any incorrect account allocations in both Xero and Ordermentum, so if there’s anything wrong, you or your bookkeeper can quickly correct the GL allocation. If you change the GL account of an item in Ordermentum, the system will remember the newly updated account, and in all future invoices, the item will be allocated to the new GL account.

What if I order a new product?

If Ordermentum doesn’t know which account to allocate the item to, we will mark it as “GL account required”, and will not set the invoice as approved in your accounting system. When it’s ready to reconcile, we’ll automatically mark it as approved. So the reconciliation is just a single click.

How much does this cost?

You can sync up to 30 invoices per month for free. To unlock unlimited invoice syncing, please upgrade to Ordermentum Pro

We hope this guide helps you successfully sync your Ordermentum invoices with Xero for efficient and hassle-free bookkeeping. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to our support team.

What Data is Accessed via Xero Sync?

Ordermentum connects to Xero using their standard API connection, which requires read access to certain parts of your Xero account to support features like invoice syncing and reconciliation. Specifically, we access:

Contacts – This is required to match and create customer/supplier relationships for invoice syncing.
Invoices – So we can sync Ordermentum-generated invoices into Xero.
Payments – To reconcile payments made through Ordermentum against the relevant invoices in Xero.

Why “All Contacts” Access is Requested:

The permission wording “access to all contacts” comes from Xero’s own permission model. Unfortunately, Xero doesn’t currently support more granular access scopes for just some contacts — it’s either access to the full contact list or none.

That said, Ordermentum only interacts with contacts relevant to your synced transactions. When we sync an invoice, we send the contact details across to Xero, and the contacts permission allows our sync to attempt to match to an existing contact (instead of creating a new contact each time).

Assurance:

Ordermentum only uses the contact information required to complete the sync.
We do not use or retain broader Xero contact data for any purpose outside the invoice and payment sync.
Data handling aligns with our Privacy Policy and Xero’s API usage terms.