Why connect Xero to Supply Lens
Lesson 1 of 12 6 min read
What a Xero Integration can post to your ledger, what it can read back, and where it sits alongside your other systems.
Every order you ship has to end up in the books. If someone in your finance team is retyping invoices from a storefront, an ERP or an EDI portal into Xero, that's slow, it's easy to get wrong, and month-end turns into a hunt for the missing ones. By the end of this lesson you'll know what a Xero Integration in Supply Lens can do, so you can decide which parts of your finance flow it should take over.
Where Xero fits
Supply Lens is a hub. Each system you use is connected as one Integration, and Mappings decide where each Document goes next. Xero sits at the finance end of that flow: Supply Lens takes Documents that started somewhere else, such as an order from a storefront or a shipment from a warehouse, and turns them into the records Xero expects.
What Supply Lens can create in Xero
The Xero Integration has a configuration for each kind of record. You switch on only the ones you need.
| Supply Lens configuration | What it becomes in Xero |
|---|---|
| Xero Invoice | A sales invoice, optionally with a payment recorded against it |
| Xero Credit | A credit note, optionally with a refund payment |
| Xero Purchase Order | A purchase order to a supplier |
| Xero Purchase Invoice | A supplier bill (Xero calls these ACCPAY invoices) |
| Xero Journal | A manual journal |
| Xero Bank Transaction | A bank transaction against one of your bank accounts |
| Xero Statement | A statement-style record built from tagged amounts |
The Xero Invoice configuration can also receive: Supply Lens reads invoices out of Xero so they can be sent on to another system. You'll meet that in the purchasing and ledger module.
Why not just type it in?
- Consistency. Every invoice gets the same account codes, tax treatment, tracking categories and status, because the rules live in one configuration.
- Traceability. You can carry the source order number into the Xero reference, so anyone in finance can trace an invoice back to the order that caused it.
- Visibility. Every Document keeps its source data, its logs and the data that was sent to Xero, so when something looks wrong you can see exactly what was posted and why.
Supply Lens's Xero Integration is not Unleashed's Xero link
If you use Unleashed, you may already have Unleashed's own Xero connection. That link is Unleashed's, not Supply Lens's: it creates stock journals in Xero when shipments and stock adjustments complete, using Unleashed's account settings. The Supply Lens Xero Integration is a separate connection that you configure in Supply Lens. Before you switch anything on, be clear which connection will post which records, so nothing is posted twice.
Learning about Unleashed's journals
The Unleashed integration course has an advanced module on COGS and stock on hand in Xero. Take it if your finance team is asking why stock values in Xero don't match Unleashed.
Hilltop Coffee
Hilltop Coffee sells beans through Shopify and to cafés through an EDI portal, and runs Unleashed for stock. Their bookkeeper spends a day a week keying wholesale invoices into Xero. They decide that Supply Lens will create the wholesale invoices in Xero, with the EDI order number as the reference. Retail sales already reach Xero through a separate payout process, so they leave those out. The first decision wasn't a setting at all: it was agreeing which records each connection owns.
Recap
- Xero is connected as one Integration; Mappings decide which Documents reach it.
- Supply Lens can create invoices, credit notes, purchase orders, supplier bills, manual journals, bank transactions and statements in Xero, and can read invoices back out.
- Switch on only the configurations you need.
- If another connection (such as Unleashed's own Xero link) already posts to Xero, agree who owns which records before you start.
Quick guides for this topic
Your progress is saved in this browser. Create a free account to keep it everywhere, take quizzes and earn certificates.