5 ways to use the Zapier Xero integration

You likely started using Xero because you wanted to streamline your accounting processes. The software promises to help you spend less time in the books so you can get back to what you love, after all. But what happens when your accounting tool isn't talking to your other apps?

Copying and pasting invoice details or tracking down your teammates to pass on sales info effectively throws all your streamlining efforts out the window. Let Xero do its job by using automation to bridge that communication gap. With Zapier's automated workflows—we call them Zaps—you can easily connect your Xero with your business-critical tools.

Simplify your accounting even as your business grows with these automated workflows.

Table of contents

• Create invoices automatically

• Keep your team in the loop

• Create a spreadsheet backup of payments and invoices

• Manage your customer and product information

• Connect Xero to almost any app

Create invoices automatically

No matter what you're selling, invoices are probably a critical part of your accounting workflows. But if you're generating a lot of sales—the dream!—building out those invoices can consume a significant portion of your day. Make it easier for your accounting team to scale their work along with your sales by automating it.

Maybe you make sales through an eCommerce app, or you charge for service appointments scheduled in Acuity. Or maybe you track your sales in a humble spreadsheet. Regardless, Zapier can help you automatically create invoices in Xero from payments, orders, and sales. 

But what happens if an invoice needs adjusting? Sometimes, orders might change in other apps, like if there are added shipping fees or a customer requests a refund on a product. When that happens, you'll want to update your sales invoices accordingly so your records are up to date. 

The moment an order gets updated in Shopify or WooCommerce, these Zaps will update its corresponding invoice in Xero: 

Keep your team in the loop

Need to share accounting updates across teams? Keep everyone on the same page about payments and invoices by posting about them in Slack or sending them to the right inbox. That way, important information is shared right away so follow-up can happen more quickly—without you having to nag anyone.

Try one of these Zaps to automatically send Slack messages to a specific Slack channel or an email for every new Xero payment or invoice.

Pro tip: Not every invoice or payment needs to hit Slack. Use Filter by Zapier to post only the updates that matter—like overdue invoices, large payments, or those from specific clients. This helps your team stay focused on the most important follow-ups without sifting through routine transactions.

Create a spreadsheet backup of payments and invoices

A big part of accounting is accounting for your payments and sales. Adding your sales data to a spreadsheet or database app can make it easier to share data with other teams who may not have access to your accounting app.

By logging all invoices and payments into a spreadsheet, you can have all the relevant data you need in one place, formatted just the way you want. Set up your spreadsheet just the way you want it, and customize the data that goes into each column. It also makes a great backup, just in case.

Pro tip: Before sending invoice or payment data to your spreadsheet, use a formatter step to convert timestamps, clean up currency formats, or extract specific details like customer names or invoice numbers. For even deeper insights, add AI by Zapier to summarize invoice notes or customer interactions from the invoice description. It's a powerful way to prep clean, readable data that's ready to share with teams or use in reports.

Manage your customer and product information

While Xero is your first port of call for all your accounting needs, you still need a way to sync your contacts—and any new products you're selling—across your different tools. 

You might have just added a new product to your online store, for example, and you want to reflect that new inventory in Xero.

Or maybe you need to add new Xero customers to your CRM so your sales and marketing teams can reach out accordingly. In that case, these Zaps will do the heavy lifting for you: 

If you have different contact handling rules (like enterprise vs. SMB clients or new vs. returning customers), use Paths by Zapier to build conditional workflows. You can automatically send leads to different pipelines in Salesforce or trigger follow-up emails from different platforms based on different criteria.

Connect Xero to almost any app

Zapier connects to thousands of apps, but there may be tools you use that don't have a Zapier integration. In that case, you'll want to use a webhook to push info from your apps to Xero.

For example, if you process sales through an eCommerce app that doesn't integrate directly with Xero or Zapier. Rather than manually adding the sales information in Xero, you can create a webhook that automatically looks for new sales and sends them over to Xero. Use these Zaps to get started.

Automate your accounting

Accounting is a critical part of running a business—and that business can't scale unless your accounting processes do, too. Automate your manual accounting tasks so you can focus on what matters most—your customers and clients.

This article was originally published in December 2022. It was most recently updated in June 2025 by Nicole Replogle.