Available for the following plans: Employment Plus, Employment Unlimited
Available for the following HR classic plans: Premium, Platinum
Available for the following User Access level: Admin
Integrating Employment Hero with your Xero platform makes Employment Hero your source of truth for information such as company settings, payroll settings, and employee file data. When you connect the two platforms, Employment Hero will import your organisation details, payroll settings, and employee details from your Xero platform automatically.
After this initial connection, the data will only flow automatically from Employment Hero to your Xero platform, as this data connection is not bidirectional. So Employment Hero becomes your source of truth, where you and your employees update details as they change, and once saved, those changes would automatically reflect in your Xero platform.
If you have duplicated employee files, we recommend keeping the files that have already been synchronised to Xero. Then from the People list, you can simply click the Actions button followed by the Delete button. Which will permanently delete the file or, you can terminate the file if you wish to keep a record of it. Before actioning this, please make sure the information on Active files that you are keeping is true, correct, and up to date.
Warning
To read a complete breakdown of what fields and data points sync between Employment Hero and Xero, refer to the following article.
Getting started
Helpful Hint
When connecting your Xero account to Employment Hero, you can use the credentials of any full-access user within Xero. The login email of the Employment Hero account being used does not have to match the login email used to log into Xero.
- Click the Settings menu.
- Under Security & Access Control, click Add-ons.
- Click the Connect button for Xero.
- Read the contents of the Connecting to Payroll screen.
- Click the Start button.
- Read the contents of the Current Employees screen.
- Click the Next button.
- Read the contents of the Terminated Employees screen.
- Click the Next button.
- Read the contents of the Match Emails screen.
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Click Yes or No to the question Do you have your own employee file within payroll (are you paid from this payroll file?)
Helpful Hint
If you answered Yes, you need to confirm the email address used in your employee file in payroll.
If you need to switch to another email for Xero, follow these steps:
- Click No to the question Is this the email address used in your own employee file in payroll.
- Type your email address in the text field that will appear.
- Click the Update button.
You will receive an email with instructions on how to verify your new email address.
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Click the Connect now button.
Helpful Hint
After clicking the Connect now button, you will be redirected to Xero.
- Enter your username and password.
- Click the Log in button.
- Enter your two-factor authentication code.
- Click the Confirm button.
- Select the required Xero organisation.
- Click the Allow access button.
- Select the required organisation from the Company File Selection drop-down.
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Click the Select button
Important
Once Employment Hero has imported the data from Xero, you will see a status screen which will display any integration errors. If there are integration errors, you can click the View Conflicts button to learn more about the import conflicts.
Daily activities
Important
New employees who are imported from Xero will not have invitation emails automatically sent out to them. To send invitation emails to these users, you will need to send invitations in bulk. To learn how to do this, click here.
- Click the Settings menu.
- Under Security & Access Control, click Add-ons.
- Click the Action button for Xero.
- Click the Update button.
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In the Employees section, click the Update From Payroll button.
Helpful Hint
The Update From Payroll button for the Employees section will turn into a green Updated button. This means Employment Hero has successfully imported your employee files from Xero.
Warning
Employing Entities are case and typography sensitive, i.e., when importing your Employing Entities from the payroll classic platform, make sure both Employment Hero and payroll classic platform use the same type of case and that there is no .com or .au in the name.
- Click the Settings menu.
- Under Security & Access Control, click Add-ons.
- Click the Action button for Xero.
- Click the Update button.
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In the Organisation Details section, click the Update From Payroll button.
Helpful Hint
The Update From Payroll button for the Organisation Details section will turn into a green Updated button. This means Employment Hero has successfully imported your organisation's details from Xero.
- Click the Settings menu.
- Under Security & Access Control, click Add-ons.
- Click the Action button for Xero.
- Click the Update button.
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In the Pay Items section, click the Update From Payroll button.
Helpful Hint
The Update From Payroll button for the Pay Items section will turn into a green Updated button. This means Employment Hero has successfully imported your pay items from Xero.
- Click the Settings menu.
- Under Security & Access Control, click Add-ons.
- Click the Action button for Xero.
- Click the Update button.
- In the Payslips section, click the Update From Payroll button.
- Select the required payslip from the drop-down menu.
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Click the Import button.
Helpful Hint
The Update From Payroll button for the Payslips section will turn into a green Updated button. This means Employment Hero has successfully imported the payslips you selected from Xero.
Important
You can re-authenticate your payroll integration if the connection between Employment Hero and payroll classic platforms is lost. For example, this might be the case if the person who previously did the authentication has left your organisation.
- Click the Settings menu.
- Under Security & Access Control, click Add-ons.
- Click the Action button for Xero.
- Click the Update button.
- In the Re-authenticate section, click the Re-authenticate button.
- Click the Time menu.
- Under Timesheets, click Timesheets Management.
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To filter timesheets, input details in Timesheet Approvals:
- Date range.
- Personnel.
- Cost Centre.
- Group By.
- Status.
Important
Timesheets need to be approved before you upload them to Xero.
- Click the Run report button.
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Click the Upload to Xero button.
Important
Once the 'Upload to Xero' button is clicked, Employment Hero will upload all approved timesheets for the selected pay period.
- Choose a Pay schedule and Pay period.
- Click the Upload button.
- Approve the timesheets in Xero before running pays.
Removing data
Warning
After disconnecting from Xero, Employment Hero will no longer synchronise your employee data between the two platforms. However, all existing employee data will remain within Employment Hero.
- Click the Settings menu.
- Under Security & Access Control, click Add-ons.
- Click the Action button.
- Click the Disconnect button.
- Click the Disconnect Application button.
Further information
Employment Hero will check once a day for eligible pay slips and requires two conditions to import pay slips automatically from Xero; they are:
- A posted pay run.
- The payment date is within three days of the current date, i.e., four days prior and/or four days after the current date.
Employment Hero will update an employee's leave balance each time a new pay slip imports from Xero over to Employment Hero. This payslip import process can either be an automatic or manual process depending on the urgency needed with having payslips available to your employees.
The only time the Leave feature in Employment Hero will automatically import your leave balances from your Xero platform is when an approved leave request syncs over from Employment Hero to your Xero platform.
- Onboard the employee to Employment Hero.
- Once the employee has completed their portion of the onboarding experience in Employment Hero, their profile will automatically sync to Xero.
- From there, navigate to the new employee’s profile in Xero and under the Employment tab.
- Assign the Holiday Group.
- Assign Ordinary Earnings Rate.
- Assign KiwiSaver memberships.
- Click Save.
- Next, under the Leave tab, assign leave types.
- Click on Save.
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Under the Pay Template tab, add the Earnings Rate and KiwiSaver fund.
- Click on Save.
Explore related content
- Leave balance visibility This guide walks you through how to customise your employee's leave balance visibility in Employment Hero.
- Common Xero Import Conflicts This section contains a range of error resolution articles that cover common import conflicts our clients run into when syncing their Xero data.