Integrating with Xero UK

Xero UK offers user-friendly cloud-based accounting software for small businesses, simplifying invoicing, expense tracking, and payroll. Trusted by businesses and accountants, Xero UK empowers financial management with innovative solutions.

When Workable and Xero UK are connected, you can:

• Create detailed employee profiles in Xero when employees are onboarded or published in Workable.
• Run payroll in Xero if you map Workable and Xero time-off policies during setup.

 

Connecting your Xero account

To connect Workable and Xero, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to Workable as a Super Admin and navigate to Integrations > Apps
2. Locate Xero in the list of HR information systems integrations
3. Click Connect with Xero and enter your Xero login details 
4. Choose which Xero Organisation you'd like to connect to and allow access 

 

 

Enabling Xero export/sync configuration

Once your Xero account is connected, click Enable and follow the steps to configure the exported/synced data. 

❗Before you start:

• Make sure you create Xero mandatory fields on your default profile template and fill them in for the employee profiles you want to sync. These are:
  • Salutation (short text): I.e., Mr, Mrs, Miss, Dr, etc
  • NI category (dropdown): I.e., A, D, F, J, L, N, V, X
  • Earning Rate (dropdown): I.e., Regular Hours, exact same name as in Earnings tab from settings
• If salary details are present, they must be set in a compatible manner with Xero to avoid errors.
  • The pay rate frequency (Workable) must be set to hourly or annual, or else you will receive the error 'Salary Pay rate frequency must be set to hour or year'.
  • The currency must be GBP, or else the request will fail with the error 'Salary Pay Rate Currency must be set to GBP'.
• A work schedule must be created and assigned to the employee; otherwise, the request will fail with the error 'Employee must have a work schedule assigned'. 

1. Integration settings

Set up the data transfer from Workable to Xero by filling in the necessary information:

• Choose an organization in Xero to send data to
• Choose when Workable will create an employee profile in Xero
  
  • When an employee completes onboarding
  • When an employee profile is published
• [Optional] Auto update: Choose if you’d like employee profile edits and time-off data to be synced into Xero automatically

2. Integration sync criteria

Here you will select who & what will be excluded/included while syncing between Workable and Xero. 

• Select the types of employees you’d like to transfer data from.
• Exclude specific employees you do not want to be synced from Workable to Xero.

3. Map fields

Match the employee profile fields in Workable to the corresponding fields in Xero. The first time you do the mapping, you will see only the mandatory fields required to set up the Personal Details & Employment Information sections in Xero successfully (these will be grayed out), which are:

• Title (Salutation)
• First Name
• Last Name
• Date of Birth
• Gender
• Start Date
• Employee Number
• NI Category
• Pay Calendar
• Earning Rate

Click Add field at the bottom of the mapping list to add and map additional fields. If you choose not to match a field, data from that column won’t be synced.

Auto-mapped fields

If auto-mapped fields exist, they will be visible at the bottom of the page. These are: 

Workable	Xero
Address	Address
Work Schedule	Work Schedule
Pay rate frequency*	Payment Type
Pay rate amount*	Amount (Annual / Rate per hour)
Salary Effective date*	Salary Effective date

* Salary details won't be available for mapping because they're included in the auto-mapped fields. If the salary fields are left empty in Workable, salaries will not be synced. However, if values are present, they must be configured properly to avoid errors. 

4. Map values

Match the employee profile field values from Workable to the corresponding values in Xero. If you choose not to match a field value, any data of that value won't be synced.

5. Map time-off data (Optional)

If you’d like to send employee time-off data (real-time sync) to run payroll in Xero, match your Workable time-off policies to the corresponding policies in Xero by selecting them from the dropdown list as they appear in Xero. Mapped time-off policies in Workable can be of any unit type - all requests will be converted into hours, as that is being used by Xero.

If you don’t want to send payroll data, click next to complete setting up the integration.

6. Summary

Last, see a summary of your integration based on what you’ve selected in your previous steps. Click ‘Enable integration’ to save your settings and start the data sync. If you need to make changes, click 'Previous' to go back to the previous setup steps.

That's it! Your integration will now be enabled. Through the menu you can edit, view sync history or disable the integration as needed. 

 

Sync history

Via the 'View Sync history' option from the menu you can view all integration logs. The following event types are recorded:

• New hire (Onboarding completed/ Employee published)
• Employee record updated: Shows the value(s) changed, which got exported
• Time-off: Shows the approved time-off request(s) exported

For the above, the following statuses can be shown:

• Success: the event synchronized to Xero
• Fail: the event did not synchronize to Xero. A “Retry sync” button is available. The following are the two failure reasons:
  • Validation error: the field was not sent in an acceptable Xero format and needs to be reviewed.
  • System error: there was an unexpected system error occuring with either the internal or external system. Please contact support if this case happens. 

 

Finding exported data in Xero

Employee data:

When an employee has been exported, you'll find their details in your Xero account:

1. Go to Payroll > Employees
   
2. Exported data will be visible in the sections 'Personal details' & 'Employment information' of the employee profile. 

Time off data:

If you have chosen to send employee time-off data in Xero, you will see all leave requests under the Leave tab of the employee profile.