Simpro connects to Xero through its built-in accounting link, which shares contacts, invoices, credit notes, payments and tax rates, sends timesheets and journals to Xero, and pulls in your chart of accounts and tracking categories. For anything the link does not cover, such as your CRM, website forms or reporting, you connect through the Simpro API or an automation platform. The work that makes it reliable is the set-up: matching contacts, cost centres and tax settings before the first sync.

What the Simpro and Xero link actually syncs

According to the Simpro listing on the Xero App Store (UK), the integration shares the following:

• Both ways: contacts, invoices, credit notes, payments and tax rates
• Simpro to Xero: timesheets and manual journals
• Xero to Simpro: your chart of accounts and tracking categories
• Also listed: supplier invoices, inventory journals and, for the UK and Ireland, CIS payments

In practice, that means your engineers and office team work in Simpro, and your bookkeeper or accountant sees the finished invoices, bills and payments in Xero without anyone retyping them.

Set it up in the right order

Most Simpro and Xero problems we see come from switching the link on before the data is ready. Work through it in this order:

1. Agree who owns what. Decide which system is the master for customers, suppliers and prices. Usually Simpro owns jobs and quotes; Xero owns the ledger.
2. Clean your contacts. Remove duplicates in both systems and make names match exactly, so customers and suppliers link to the right record.
3. Map your accounts and tax. Line up Simpro cost centres and tax codes with your Xero chart of accounts and VAT settings, including CIS if you use subcontractors.
4. Test with a handful of jobs. Raise a few invoices and supplier bills, send them across and check them in Xero with your bookkeeper before you go live.
5. Write it down. Create a one-page procedure for invoicing, supplier bills and month-end, so the process does not live in one person’s head.

Common problems and how to avoid them

• Duplicate contacts. Caused by creating customers in both systems. Pick one place to create them.
• Failed supplier invoices. Usually a missing account mapping, tax code or supplier match. Check the sync log after every batch until it runs clean.
• Wrong VAT. Caused by tax settings that differ between the systems. Map tax rates before the first sync, not after.
• Month-end surprises. Caused by invoices sitting unsent in Simpro. Build a weekly check into the office routine.

Reviews of the integration on the Xero App Store include complaints about supplier invoice transfers failing, so it is worth testing that part carefully rather than assuming it works.

Connecting Simpro to everything else

The accounting link only covers finance. Most trade and field service businesses also want Simpro connected to:

• Website enquiry forms, so new leads arrive in Simpro without retyping
• A CRM or email platform for quote follow-ups and customer updates
• Reporting dashboards that combine Simpro jobs with Xero figures
• Supplier price files and stock

These connections are built through the Simpro API (Simpro publishes developer documentation for it) or through an automation platform. This is where an implementation partner earns their keep: deciding what to connect, what to leave manual and how to stop the connections breaking when someone changes a setting.

When to get help

You can switch on the Xero link yourself. It is worth getting help if you are moving from another system, use CIS, run multiple cost centres or branches, or already have a sync that fails every week. Getting the structure right once is cheaper than fixing a ledger every month. See Simpro implementation and automation and our Simpro implementation checklist.

Frequently asked questions

Written by Charlie Baker BSc (Hons), founder of CB Tech Consulting, a business systems consultancy in Witham, Essex and an official Simpro Partner. Last reviewed October 2026.