Xero Integration Tips

The integration to accounting creates a posting each time your confirm an accounting record in Wise Owl Legal.

This means if you set up a new matter and a new contact, they happily sit in Wise Owl until there is an outlay or an invoice associated to that matter that is confirmed in Wise Owl and needs to move to Xero.

The components of the integration are in diagrams located here.

Components Described

The components of Xero integration:

• Wise Owl creates a customer in Xero every time you post with a new client / contact. The accounting system name is the part that posts to Xero.

• Xero looks to the field of Work Email in Xero and posts that to the new contact. To be successful the work email from Wise Owl MUST validate as a valid email address.

• Once a post has occurred for a contact, it is imperative:

  • the Accounting System name of the Wise Owl Contact is identical to the customer in Wise Owl.

  • Various Fields from the Wise Owl Legal Contact post to become the customer details in QuickBooks Online. These need to be manually updated in both systems if they change.

• The Wise Owl Legal matter number forms a sub customer in Xero.

• Items:

  • Disbursement Items and Invoice Items need to be identical in Wise Owl Legal and Xero.

  • New items in Wise Owl Legal will auto create in Xero, so long as there is not a pre-existing Item in Xero with the same name.

  • The Disbursement Items in Wise Owl Post to Purchase Items in Xero.

  • The Invoice Items in Wise Owl Legal Post to Sales Items in Xero.

  • Fee Earners are invoice items. It is important to leave former staff active in Wise Owl Legal until all fees generated by them have been billed and posted to Xero.

• Outlays

  • Outlays will post from Wise Owl Legal to QuickBooks Online once confirmed in Wise Owl Legal.

  • if there is no supplier recognised on the Disbursement, Wise Owl Legal will post it to the supplier “Generic Supplier”

• Invoices

  • Invoices post from Wise Owl Legal to Xero once confirmed.

  • professional fees post as one line per fee earner.

  • Disbursements and recoveries post line by line.
    
    

Matching Receipt Transactions in Xero

External Accounting Error

Error - ‘Cannot Post to Xero: Xero API Error: Payments can only be made against Authorised Documents

Contact not posting (email error)

Q: Why isn’t my contact posting correctly to Xero?
A: When creating or posting a contact from Wise Owl Legal to Xero, the system uses the Work Email Address of the primary contact on the matter.

If the contact fails to post, please check the Work Email field for that contact. It must contain only one valid email address — multiple addresses or incorrect formatting will prevent successful integration.

Note: The Work Email is automatically retrieved from the primary contact of the matter when you create a contact via the matter. Ensure this field is always correct before posting to Xero.