Data Entry: Xero Import – Knowledge Centre

Overview

Our Xero integration allows you to import your financial transactions directly from Xero into Sumday. The best way to connect Sumday and Xero is by starting a transaction import. Once you have finalised the accounting for a period in Xero, you can connect to your Xero organisation and import the necessary transactions into Sumday through the Data Entry section.

🎬 Watch this video on how to import from your Xero account

Data flow diagram

Connecting Sumday and Xero

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Hint: We recommend that you finalise your end of period procedures and adjustments prior to importing from xero, this will help to ensure that the amounts in Sumday reconcile back to your Xero file. And there is nothing more satisfying when the books balance - so try and keep it that way!

Navigate to the Data Entry section of the left hand menu.

Select Import transactions

If Xero isn’t already connected, you’ll be able to select the green ‘Connect now’ button.

Hit Connect and log in to Xero (if you aren’t already)

Select the Xero organisation you want to provide Sumday with access to, and select ‘Allow access’.

You’ll then see the below confirmation screen. The connection between Sumday and Xero may take some time depending on the size of your Xero file. If it takes longer than 60 minutes to connect, flick us an email at support@sumday.io.

Once it’s ready you’ll see a green confirmation button in the top right hand side corner that says ‘Xero connection complete’ and you’ll be able to click the ‘Select’ button.

That’s it! You’re now connected to xero and can proceed with importing transactions from your Xero organisation.

Connect from Settings

Alternatively, you can also establish the Xero connection through the Sumday settings.

To establish the connection this way you can:

Navigate to the Settings section in the left hand Sumday menu.

Select ‘Connect now’ within the Xero connection area.

And then follow the same authorisation flow as above.

You can also see active Xero connections and disconnect these through the Sumday settings.

Import from Xero

Step 1: Choose the date range for your import, this could be the previous financial year or the prior month depending on how often you are importing your Xero data into Sumday.

Step 2: You will now be presented with the Import Confirmation screen which will summarise the date range, number of transactions, number of suppliers and the transactions associated with each of the General ledger accounts as part of the import.

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Hint: As part of the confirmation process users have the ability to determine how transactions within the import are treated in each of the general ledger accounts. Users have the ability to choose if either of the following actions should be applied across each of the general ledger accounts:

Import Monthly Totals Only - Users have the choice if transactions are consolidated to a monthly total amount or if they should be imported as each of the individual transactions separately. Importing monthly totals will reduce the amount of transactions that need to be coded in the Carbon Ledger, however this approach generally results in less detailed data being available on that ledger account. Where transactions are routine, repetitive and high volume (bank fees as an example) this approach can be applied successfully.

Reconcile as Excluded - Some transaction in a business’ accounting file are not relevant for carbon accounting purposes and as a result need to be excluded. General ledger accounts such as salaries, GST and balance sheet accounts like accounts receivables will be excluded from the GHG Inventory consistently. In order to save time, transactions in these accounts can be marked as excluded and those amounts will automatically be coded through to excluded in the reconciled transactions screen. Some common examples are:

Income and revenue

Salaries and Wages

Superannuation/Pension payments

VAT/GST payments

Leave and other provisions

Prepayments

Most balance sheet accounts can be excluded - an important one to note are asset additions to account for capital goods purchased during the year.

By default there are several GL accounts that the system recognises as generally excluded. These include depreciation and accumulated depreciation. The system recognises these GL accounts on import and makes the suggestion that these should be included as totals and then excluded. This saves users time on import and streamlines the coding process in the carbon ledger. Often through these actions users experience that between 20-40% of their transactions have already been reconciled on import.

Once the import confirmation is complete transactions will be imported from Xero and transactions will automatically be pulled through into the Carbon Ledger for the next steps.

Checking imported transactions and making adjustments

Once you’ve completed your transaction import, you can check the totals of the imported transactions by GL account on the Imported Transactions screen, and make any necessary adjustments.

Checking Imported Transactions

After you have completed your transaction import, you can navigate to the Data Entry section in the left hand Sumday menu, then select the ‘Imported Transactions’ tab at the top of the screen.

Check / enter the relevant date range.

You will then see a table summarising the total imported transactions by general ledger account. These should agree back to the totals in your financial ledger.

Making Minor Adjustments to Imported Transactions

In some situations you might need to make adjustments to imports. This might be necessary when, changes have been made in your financial ledger since you did the initial import, for example.

You can archive individual transactions imported (so they are excluded from the Carbon Ledger all together) or manually add transactions within each general ledger account if required.

From the ‘Imported Transactions’ tab, you can view and edit the transactions imported for each general account by selecting the below edit icon to the right.

From within the edit screen, you can select the checkbox for the individual transactions on the left and then elect to archive these transactions by selecting the ‘Archive transactions’ button that appears at the bottom of the screen.

Alternatively, you can manually add transactions within each general ledger account by selecting the ‘Add transaction +’ button at the top left of the edit screen.

Once you’re comfortable the imported transactions all agree back to your financial ledger, you’re ready to start assigning the necessary GHG categories in the carbon ledger.