Sending invoices to Xero or QuickBooks

Go to Account, Your data, Send invoices to your accounting app. Choose the format (Xero invoices, QuickBooks Online invoices, or Payments received), the year, a date format, and the settings the format needs:

• Xero: the sales account code (a Revenue account from your chart of accounts) and the tax type name exactly as your organisation spells it, for example Tax Exempt.
• QuickBooks: the product or service name.

Then download the CSV. In Xero, open Invoices, choose Import and upload it: the invoices arrive as drafts to approve, and Xero asks whether the amounts include tax (ours do not). In QuickBooks, use its invoice import and map the columns by name.

Before a QuickBooks import:

• The product or service must already exist, spelled exactly the same.
• To keep your own invoice numbers, switch on Custom transaction numbers in QuickBooks (Account and settings, Sales). Otherwise it numbers them itself.
• Tick Add new customers during the upload if the client is not in QuickBooks yet, and keep each file under 1,000 rows.
• Files with several currencies are written one currency at a time (choose it in the export).

These files follow the apps' published import formats, but have not yet been checked against every account setup. If an import complains, send us the message (see Where do I report a problem?).