Xero Accounting Integration
Connect your Xero organisation so agents can answer financial questions from your accounting data: reports, invoices and bills, contacts, payments, the fixed asset register, payroll, projects and the file library. Every Xero tool is read-only. Agents cannot create, change or delete anything in Xero.
Before you start
- An active Xero subscription. Any plan works, and asset depreciation is available on all plans.
- A Xero user with the Admin or Adviser role in the organisation you connect. The connection acts as that user.
- Payroll admin rights, if you want payroll data. Xero refuses consent for the payroll permissions unless the connecting user is a payroll admin in the organisation. Payroll is available for Australian, UK and New Zealand organisations only.
- A tenant admin in Outermind with permission to manage connections.
You do not register an app in the Xero developer portal. Outermind uses its own Xero app, and you sign in to it.
The permissions Xero asks for
When you sign in, Xero lists the permissions Outermind requests. They are all read permissions:
| Area | Xero permissions |
|---|---|
| Sign-in | openid, profile, email, offline_access |
| Accounting records | accounting.invoices.read, accounting.payments.read, accounting.banktransactions.read, accounting.contacts.read, accounting.settings.read, accounting.attachments.read, accounting.manualjournals.read, accounting.budgets.read |
| Reports | accounting.reports.profitandloss.read, accounting.reports.balancesheet.read, accounting.reports.trialbalance.read, accounting.reports.banksummary.read, accounting.reports.budgetsummary.read, accounting.reports.executivesummary.read, accounting.reports.aged.read, accounting.reports.tenninetynine.read, accounting.reports.taxreports.read |
| Fixed assets | assets.read |
| Payroll | payroll.employees.read, payroll.payruns.read, payroll.payslip.read, payroll.timesheets.read, payroll.settings.read |
| Projects and files | projects.read, files.read |
offline_access lets Outermind refresh the connection automatically, so you do not have to sign in again each
time the access token expires.
Connect in Outermind
- Open the Capabilities hub, go to Connections, and open Xero Accounting. The page is at
/capabilities/integrations/xero. - Click Connect Xero. The setup wizard opens at
/capabilities/integrations/xero/setup. - Click Connect. Xero opens in a pop-up window; sign in as the Admin or Adviser user, choose the organisation to connect, and approve the permissions.
- The wizard shows the organisation name and base currency when the connection is complete. You return to the connection page.
- Grant the Xero tools to each agent that needs them from the agent's Tools tab (Workforce > Agents > Agents & SMEs).
If your browser blocks the pop-up, the wizard falls back to a full-page redirect and finishes the same way.
Reconnect banners
A connection approved before a group of permissions was added does not have those permissions until an admin signs in again. The connection page shows a banner for each missing group: Reconnect to enable financial reports, Reconnect to enable payroll reports, Reconnect to enable Xero Projects data and Reconnect to enable Xero Files access. Click Reconnect and approve again; the connection is kept in place. If a report returns a permission error, reconnecting is the fix.
What your agents can do
Every action below is class read and tier read, so it runs without asking a person at every autonomy level.
| Tool | Actions | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
xero_records | list, get, query, list_history, list_attachments, download, get_online_url | Invoices and bills, contacts and contact groups, payments, credit notes, quotes, purchase orders, bank transactions and transfers, overpayments and prepayments, items, repeating invoices, manual journals, budgets, organisation settings, accounts, tax rates, tracking categories and currencies. query filters the chart of accounts; get_online_url returns the online payment link for a sales invoice. |
xero_reports | get | Profit and loss, balance sheet, trial balance, bank and budget summaries, aged balances by contact, and the US, Australian and New Zealand tax reports. |
xero_assets | list, get, list_types, get_settings | The fixed asset register, asset types and the register's settings. |
xero_payroll | list, get, list_leave_balances | Employees, pay runs, timesheets and leave. Salary and bank details stay out of the employee summary. Leave balances are for UK and New Zealand payroll only. |
xero_projects | list, get, list_tasks, list_time_entries | Projects, their tasks and the time logged against them. |
xero_files | list, get, read, list_folders, list_associations | The file library, its folders and the transactions a file is linked to. |
Files and attachments are never pasted into a conversation. xero_records.download and xero_files.read save a
file of up to 1.5 MB as an asset and return a download link, so an agent can attach it to a message by its asset
id.
Safety
- Read-only. No Xero tool has a write, delete or admin action, and the permissions Outermind asks for are read permissions, so the connection cannot change your books even if an agent tried.
- One organisation per connection. Agents see only the organisation you chose at sign-in.
Testing and disconnecting
- Test Connection on the connection page checks that Xero still accepts the connection.
- Disconnect Xero revokes Outermind's access and removes the Xero tools from every agent. To connect a different organisation, disconnect and run the wizard again.