Bookkeeping connection for Xero
Manu Online can be connected to the Xero accountancy system.
You system will be configured to connect to Xero if you selected Xero as your accountancy system when you first signed up for Manu. If this is not the case, then please contact Manu Online support to make the initial configuration. You can tell if you system is configured by going to Invoicing – Bookkeeping connection and see if the Xero button exists there. This button will go to the screen for managing the synchronisation.
This connection will achieve the following:
- Import the chart of account from Xero and configure the default accounts in Manu
- Export sales and purchase invoices to Xero, together with their associated contact and item data
- Optionally export purchase invoices to Xero
- Import sales invoice payments from Xero for the purpose of controlling credit limits and overdue payments
- Export direct sales information
Important note: When you wish to connect a new Manu Online account to Xero, you should import your chart of accounts BEFORE creating invoices in Manu. This is so that the sales and purchase accounts will be correct on the invoices before they are transferred. Please also review the various configuration options for the transfer. These are described at the end of this chapter.
- Inventory transactions
Disconnecting and Reconnecting
You system will be configured to connect to Xero if you selected Xero as your accountancy system when you first signed up for Manu. If this is not the case, then please contact Manu Online support to make the initial configuration. You can tell if you system is configured by going to Invoicing - Bookkeeping connection and see if the Xero button exists there.
To connect to Xero, go to Invoicing - Bookkeeping connection and press the button "Bookkeeping Export: Xero". This will go to the screen for managing the synchronisation. Before you connect the buttons to synchronise invoices and import accounts will be disabled. Note that you need to have “Standard” user rights in Xero to do this. If you do not have these rights, then your company will not be listed in the list of available companies. The connection to Xero will be available from the time you connect to the time you disconnect even if you leave this page or close your browser. Also once connected, the connection is available for all other Manu users that have the “Bookkeeper” right. If your Xero user account has access to multiple companies in Xero, choose the correct company when first connecting and save this choice in Manu Online.
Once you connect, you can leave the two systems connected for "a long time". In practice it will need to be reconnected if there is a major upgrade on Manu Online or Xero.
You connection will fail if the user account in Xero is disabled or deleted. If it becomes disconneced just connect it again to the same Xero account.
Important note: Manu Online keeps a record of "mappings". These are identifiers from Xero that are generally hidden from the user. Mappings are kept for accounts, contacts and items. If you disconnect from your Xero account and then reconnect to another account, then the information that Manu Online has on Xero such as contacts will no longer be valid. Regardless if a contact has exactly the same name in Xero, the contact of an invoice will be recreated as duplicate or errors will occur that a certain contact can not be found. We strongly advise that connections should be changed to different accounts only at start up and after all data has been cleared from the Manu Online account.
Using
When you take the Xero connection into use, it is recommended that you no longer enter sales or purchase invoices into Xero, but rather use Manu Online for your entire invoicing creation, both sales and purchase. The benefit is that invoices can be created more easily in Manu Online because this is where order and delivery information is available. It is also possible to create invoices in Manu Online that are not related to orders and deliveries, so Manu Online can be used as the single channel for all invoicing. If you do want to create invoices in both systems, make sure you choose a sufficiently large difference in the number ranges for the invoices so that they will not overlap. The next invoice number in Manu Online is set in Admin – Company settings – System numbers.
Sales invoices can be printed either from Xero or Manu Online. It is the same data in slightly different format. However it may be convenient to print invoices from Manu Online as they are created (for instance it is possible to create invoices at delivery time if needed to include them with the shipment). The transfer of data can be made then at the convenience of the person responsible for accounts which maybe weekly rather than daily. It is possible to give a Manu Online account to your bookkeeper so that they can manage this process.
| Export invoices | Exports sales invoices together with items and partners (contacts). Optionally exports purchase invoices (see below for the setting for this) |
| Export direct sales | If your system has Direct sales licensed and in use, this will export direct sales to Xero. According to Xero best practices, sales are grouped by register and day (so each day will create one Xero invoice per register) and Xero invoice lines will be summed by payment method. Each exported Xero invoice will also have a "clearing line" which is a negative amount to credit a clearing account, so the exported invoice sum will be zero. Search Xero documentation for further illustration on how POS systems are to be connected to Xero. |
| Export inventory | Creates manual journal entries in Xero for inventory transactions in Manu Online. See below for details. |
| Import chart of accounts | Imports the list of accounts from Xero to Manu Online (Note: You will normally only need to do this once when you first implement the system. Do it first before creating invoices in Manu Online. See below.) |
| Import items | Creates new items in Manu Online from the list in Xero. Note that Manu Online Item ID is 25 characters. If the item code is longer in Xero then it will be truncated on import, and this may lead to duplication of the item later on invoice export. We recommend to edit item codes to 25 or less in Xero before importing. Manu Online item description field is set from the Xero Item name. Xero also has fields for sales and purchase descriptions, and the data in these is not imported. If you need this data it should be taken via excel to Manu Online after the import has been made. If item codes in Xero contain an apostophe mark ' these items will not be imported as this not a permitted character in Manu Online. Update the item codes to remove the apostrope and import again. |
| Import partners | Creates new partners in Manu Online from the list of Contacts in Xero. |
| Import payments | This will import payment data of sales invoice into Xero. This is for the purposes of give credit warnings on sales order entry or sales dispatch is a customer exceeds their credit limit or have overdue invoices. |
| Connect/Disconnect | Connects or disconnects your company’s Manu Online account to Xero. You need at least “Standard user” rights in Xero to do this. If you connect, this applies to all users of your system that have rights in Manu Online to use this screen. |
Press Connect. This will open Xero’s log-in screen where you should login with your Xero user name and password. Then select your company (if you have rights to several) and press Authorise. If this is successful a message that you are now connected will be displayed. Press OK to close this message and the connection window.
If you are setting up the Xero connection for the first time, you should first import the list of your accounts from Xero. (Make sure it is correct in Xero before doing this.) This will create the same accounts in Manu Online for use in invoicing, and also set the default values of purchase and sales accounts. If you later add accounts in Xero, you can import them again, but it will not over write or delete accounts. If you are making more fundamental changes to your list of accounts in Xero, please contact Manu Online support and ask them to remove all accounts from your system so a clean import can be made again. After this has been done, any invoices made in Manu Online will need to have correct account information entered before being activated. In general the defaults will work correctly, so after initialling reviewing your invoices, you will find there is no extra work in this.
After connecting the list of invoices that have been created in Manu but not yet transferred to Xero can be reviewed. Simply press the Synchronize button and these invoices will be transferred. After the synchronisation is complete, there is a link to a log file which will display the technical details of the transfer together with any error messages.
Optionally disconnect after the transfer is complete.
The status of the invoice as it arrives in Xero can be set from the system settings - features screen. The alternatives are DRAFT or SUBMITTED or APPROVED. The default is DRAFT. According to your business processes you may wish to change these values.
Exporting purchase invoices to Xero is optional. The reason not to export invoices is if you are entering purchase invoices directly to Xero and also entering them by hand to Manu. Although this is not a recommended practice, by using this setting you will avoid invoice duplication in Xero.
To change this settings go to Admin - System settings and click the link "Connected systems data". For the record labelled "Export purchase invoices" change 1 to 0 (zero) Set the appropriate values for invoice statuses.
Direct sales
Exporting direct sales information uses the format recommended by Xero for connecting POS (Point of sales systems). Direct sales are grouped into one Xero invoice:
- An invoice is from direct sales grouped for one day and each direct sales register
- The invoice line has the total for each payment method
- An additional line is added with a negative quantity that sets the line total to be zero and in effect "moves" the sales amount to the clearing account specified for that register.
Inventory transactions
To track inventory on your balance sheet and income statement in Xero, you need to export inventory transactions to Xero.
To do this, note the following:
- Do not use Xero's features for inventory. These are not compatible with advanced manufacturing systems. So do not mark any items in Xero as "tracked".
- Ensure that the system has the license for "Export inventory to accounts". See Admin - Licensing.
- Ensure that the settings for this feature are completely set up. You will normally need to create accounts for this in Xero and import them to Manu Online. Some accounts are balance sheet accounts and some are income statement accounts. Please consult your accountant for the correct set up of accounts. Also, decide the correct date from which transactions should be exported.
- Note that transaction values are exported in summary by the activity in Manu Online. For instance, one receipt makes one manual journal entry, one work order makes one manual journal entry.
- WIP (Work in progress) is not separated out from inventory in the exported data. For this reason, there will be a small discrepancy between an inventory value shown in Xero and inventory value in Manu Online reports. This is by design, and is to prevent a large number of low value transactions being taken to Xero from a manufacturing environment.
- Work orders can have products taken to inventory before a work order is closed. Subsequently, Manu Online does not prevent further costs being added to a work order. This can cause minor discrepencies in inventory values and is not a recommended way of operating.
- Inventory values of manufactured items may include work time, machine time, sub-contract or other cost items. To eliminate these from the material costs, it is necessary to write the non-material costs to "burden" accounts that are offset from material values in accounts.
Each exported inventory manual journal entry has an entry to the inventory account. In addition depending on the activity being exported there will be a number of other lines as follows:
Direct Sales One line for the whole transaction against COGS Tracking code for the Project The amount is the same as the inventory line but a positive number.
Sales order Dispatch One line for each dispatch line. Cost centre and project from a linked sales order creates Xero tracking codes in the same way as invoice export.
Receipt Uses the purchase account One line for the total value of the receipt.
Product return If there is no linked sales order for the return, then uses ManualInventoryAdjustment account. Looks up the linked sales order line project and cost center Open box return: uses the COGS account Repair and return: does not make a journal if there are no stock transactions, otherwise ReturnedProductRepairs (inventory line is negative) Scrap: Does not make any manual journal Return to stock: uses the COGS account
Service work order Sums separately lines to be invoiced and not invoiced, and by project (only material lines) For invoiced lines, use the COGS account For not invoiced lines, uses the ServiceWorkOrder account.
Manual stock adjustment Uses the Manual Inventory Adjustment account.
Amount is the opposite sign of the inventory adjustment and may be either + or -
Production work order The first inventory line is the sum only of products made by the work order. (positive number) Second line is the sum of all consumed materials, inventory account (negative) Third line for the sum of work time "Work time burden for work order Fourth line for the sum of machine time "Machine time burden for work order Fifth line for the sum of subcontract "Subcontract burden for work order Sixth line for sum of other cost items "Other cost burden for work order Seventh line for discrepancy between the first line and the sum of all other lines. This is the case where the user adds items to the work order after moving products to stock and before closing the work order. "Value discrepancy for work order
Settings for inventory transactions.
All these accounts need to be created in Xero and imported to Manu Online before selecting here. It is possible to use one account for all burden accounts if you don't need the level of detail in your income statement.: These values are in the settings tab of Invoices -> Bookkeeping connection.
Tracking categories
Xero supports multiple tracking categories. One tracking category can be mapped to the Manu Online cost center, and another to the Manu Online project name.
Both the categories and their options need to be created in Xero before their use. In the features screen for Xero, the category names should be entered to do the mapping.
Importing payments
Payment data for sales invoices can be imported. This will mark sales invoices as "Paid" or "Part paid" and is used to give the data for evaluating a customer's credit limit and whether invoices are excessively late.
These warnings are shown on sales order activation and sales dispatch. The customer's credit limit is set on the partner card and the allowable number of days for late payment is set in system settings.
If your system contains a large amount of invoices where payments have not been imported, it is not practical to import them. Please contact Manu Online support and inform your oldest unpaid invoice and we can arrange to have all earlier ones marked as paid.
Truncating data
If data is too long for a field in Manu Online, the individual fields will be truncated. Address fields are generally 80 characters long except for person names, towns, counties and postcodes which are 50 long. Telephones are 30 long.
Rounding data
In some cases there can be a rounding error between the way that Xero sums an invoice's lines and the way Xero sums the lines. In the is case the export process may add a rounding line to the exported invoice to fix the totals displayed for an invoice.
Partner numbers
Xero has an optional field “Account number”. If you import contacts from Xero, the system will attempt to use this number as the Partner ID in Manu Online. It will not be used if the account number contains non-numeric characters e.g. A123, or if the number is use already.
Updating Partner Mapping
If a contact in Xero that is mapped to Manu Online is merged or archived, exporting an invoice for that customer will give an error "The contact with the specified contact details has been archived. The contact must be un-archived before creating new invoices or credit notes. " If you cannot or do not want to unarchive the contact, then the Manu Online partner should be mapped to the correct, new Xero contact.
To do this go to the partner card in Manu Online. Ensure that the company name field has exactly the same text as the contact name field in Xero (copy it taking care over special characters and blank spaces), then go to the mappings tab and click "Update". If the same named contact is found it will allow you to change the mapping id and then the invoice export should be successful.
