Xero Integration Guide: Syncing Quotes and Invoices from Your CRM
Learn how to connect your CRM to Xero for seamless quoting, invoicing, and payment tracking. A practical guide for UK businesses.
Onarvo Team
Why Connect Your CRM to Xero?
If your sales team creates quotes in one system and your finance team creates invoices in another, you're wasting time and creating errors. Every manual re-entry is a chance to get a number wrong, miss a line item, or delay an invoice.
Connecting your CRM directly to Xero eliminates this gap. The deal your sales rep closes becomes an invoice your finance team sends — without anyone retyping anything.
The Quote-to-Cash Flow
Here's how the integrated workflow looks:
1. Create a Quote from Your Deal
When a deal reaches the proposal stage, create a quote directly from the CRM. The quote pulls in:
- Contact details from the linked account (synced to Xero as a contact)
- Line items with descriptions, quantities, unit prices, and tax rates
- Reference number from the deal name or PO number
2. Send the Quote
Send the quote through Xero to the client. They receive a professional PDF with your branding. The quote status updates in your CRM automatically — you can see whether it's draft, sent, or accepted.
3. Convert to Invoice
When the deal is won, convert the quote to an invoice in one click. All line items, tax rates, and contact details carry over. No re-entry required.
4. Track Payment
Invoice status syncs back to your CRM. You can see at a glance which deals are quoted, invoiced, paid, or overdue — directly on your pipeline dashboard.
Setting Up the Integration
Prerequisites
- A Xero account (any plan)
- A CRM that supports Xero OAuth integration
- Your chart of accounts set up in Xero
Connection Steps
- Go to Settings > Integrations in your CRM
- Click "Connect to Xero"
- Authorise the connection via Xero's OAuth flow
- Select which Xero organisation to connect (if you have multiple)
Once connected, your CRM can:
- Sync contacts — CRM accounts become Xero contacts automatically
- Create quotes — with line items, tax types, and account codes from Xero
- Create invoices — from deals or by converting existing quotes
- Send invoices — trigger email delivery via Xero
- Track status — paid, overdue, and voided statuses sync back
Tax Rates and Account Codes
One of the most common integration pain points is getting tax rates and account codes right. A good integration should:
- Pull tax rates from Xero — so you're always using the correct VAT rates
- Pull account codes from Xero — revenue accounts for proper categorisation
- Default sensibly — standard 20% VAT and a default revenue account for quick entry
What to Look For in a CRM with Xero Integration
Not all Xero integrations are created equal. Look for:
- Two-way sync — not just pushing data to Xero, but pulling status back
- Account code selection — per line item, not just a global default
- Tax type selection — per line item, pulling from your Xero tax rates
- Webhook support — so payment status updates in real-time, not on a polling schedule
- Quote and invoice support — some integrations only handle invoices
How Onarvo Does It
Onarvo CRM integrates with Xero out of the box:
- Accounts sync as Xero contacts with matching details
- Quotes created with your Xero tax rates and account codes
- One-click send via Xero email
- Invoices created from deals or converted from quotes
- Payment status syncs back via webhooks
- All visible on your CRM dashboard — quoted, invoiced, paid, overdue
No middleware, no Zapier, no manual steps.