Before You Integrate Erply with Xero

This guide outlines essential preparations and key considerations to ensure a smooth and successful integration between your Erply and Xero accounts using eXconnect. Taking these steps beforehand can save you time and help prevent common issues.

Essential Prerequisites: What You'll Need

Active Erply Account

• A working Erply account is required.
• Admin user permission in Erply is required to authorize the integration (e.g., admin rights).

Active Xero Account

• A working Xero account is required.
• Ensure you have the necessary user permissions in Xero (usually Standard or Adviser role with access to settings and integrations) to set up eXconnect.

Key Considerations: Planning Your Integration

Data Mapping - The Basics: Ensuring Your Financial Data Goes to the Right Place

Think of data mapping as telling eXconnect how information from your Erply account should be recorded in your Xero account. For your financial information to sync correctly, eXconnect relies on a configured mapping for your Chart of Accounts.

• What's a Chart of Accounts? It's essentially the list of all the financial accounts your business uses, organized to track your income, expenses, assets, and liabilities (e.g., "Sales Revenue," "Office Supplies Expense," "Bank Account"). Both Erply and Xero use a Chart of Accounts.
• Why is mapping it important for eXconnect? When eXconnect sends transactions (like invoices or payments) and documents from Erply to Xero, it needs to know exactly which account in Xero each part of the transaction should go to. For example, it needs to know which Xero account should record your sales revenue from Erply, or where to post payments.

Chart of Accounts in Xero: Specific Needs for eXconnect

While Xero comes with a set of default accounts, eXconnect requires certain specific accounts to be present in your Xero Chart of Accounts before you begin the setup. This ensures your Erply transactions and documents are synced accurately. Please review and create the following if they don't already exist:

For Document Mapping (Invoices, Sales Receipts, etc.):

• Sales Accounts: Xero has a default sales account. However, if you need to differentiate sales types (e.g., Point of Sale (POS) receipts vs. Backoffice/B2B invoices), you'll need separate sales accounts in Xero. For instance:
  • Sales - POS
  • Sales - B2B
• Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) Accounts: Similarly, you'll need corresponding COGS accounts for each sales stream if you track them separately. For example:
  • Cost of Goods Sold - POS
  • Cost of Goods Sold - B2B
• Shipping Accounts: It's important to distinguish between shipping charged to customers and shipping you pay to suppliers. Please ensure you have two distinct accounts:
  • Shipping Revenue (or Freight Collected - for income from charging customers for shipping)
  • Shipping Expense (or Freight Paid - for costs you incur for shipping goods)
• Inventory Management Accounts:
  • Inventory Adjustments/Write-offs: For tracking changes or discrepancies in your inventory.
  • Erply Inventory (or a similar unique name): This separate asset account is used by eXconnect to manage your inventory value from Erply.
  • Important Note: eXconnect does not use Xero's default "Inventory" asset account (often account code 630 or similar that Xero uses for its own tracked inventory). You must create and use a separate account as mentioned above for the eXconnect integration.

For Payments Mapping:

• Payment Clearing Accounts: For each payment type you accept, especially those that don't deposit into your bank account immediately, you'll need a dedicated clearing account in Xero. This helps with reconciliation. Examples include:
  • Card Payments Clearing (or Undeposited Card Funds)
  • Cash Clearing (or Cash on Hand)
  • Bank Transfer Clearing (if there's a delay or batching)
  • Online Sales Clearing (e.g., for PayPal, Stripe, if not directly deposited)

Customers and Suppliers: Important Notes on Existing Data

If you have existing customer and supplier lists in both your Erply account and your Xero account, careful attention is needed before you integrate to avoid creating duplicates.

• How eXconnect Handles Matching: The eXconnect integration attempts to map customers and suppliers between Erply and Xero based on their full name.
• Potential for Mismatches: While this matching process is designed carefully, it's not foolproof. Slight variations in names (e.g., "John Smith" vs. "John H. Smith" or "ABC Ltd" vs. "ABC Limited") can lead to duplicates or incorrect matches.
• Action Required for Complex Lists: If you have substantial existing customer/supplier lists in both systems, we strongly recommend you contact our support team before you run the initial integration. We can provide guidance and help ensure your contacts are mapped as accurately as possible to prevent issues down the line.

Pre-Integration Checklist: Your Action Plan

Before you start the setup, run through this quick checklist:

• [ ] Confirm User Access: I have the necessary admin/user permissions in both my Erply and Xero accounts.
• [ ] Understand eXconnect Basics: I have read the "About eXconnect" article (link to be added here).
• [ ] Review Xero Chart of Accounts: My Chart of Accounts in Xero is up-to-date, organized, and includes the specific accounts needed for eXconnect as detailed above.
• [ ] Verify Tax Rates: Tax rates are correctly configured in both Erply and Xero and I understand how they will map.
• [ ] Backup Xero Data (Recommended): I have considered backing up my Xero data.
• [ ] Determine "Sync Start Date": I have decided on a date from which eXconnect will manage data transfer to Xero, and I will stop manual entries for these transactions from that date.
• [ ] Consult Accountant/Bookkeeper (Recommended): I have discussed this integration with my accountant or bookkeeper.
• [ ] Gather Login Details: I have my Erply and Xero login credentials handy.