What Xero is
Xero is online accounting software. It holds your bank feeds, invoices, bills, payroll, and GST, and your bookkeeper or accountant can log in to the same file. A lot of Australian small businesses use it, and most bookkeepers know it well.
Xero is only as good as what goes into it. In most small businesses, someone still types supplier invoices in line by line and copies sales across from the store. That’s the part we work on.
How a small team uses it with AI
We work with a five-person online homewares store that typed about 60 supplier invoices a month into Xero. We set up an AI helper (the industry calls it an agent) that reads each invoice as it lands in the inbox and drafts the bill in Xero. The bookkeeper now checks and approves the drafts in one sitting a week.
Overseas invoices in other currencies are still done by hand, because the exchange rate and fees need a person to check. Read the full story.
What we connect and build around it
- Connecting your tools (data pipelines), so sales from Shopify, Square, or Stripe arrive in Xero without copying.
- Better instructions (prompt optimisation), so the AI helper codes each bill the way your bookkeeper wants it.
- A review step, so nothing gets approved or paid without a person.
Where Xero falls short
Xero can’t tell you whether a bill is right. A wrong price, a short delivery, or a duplicate invoice still needs someone who knows the supplier. An AI helper can flag what looks odd, but it can’t ring the supplier. And if your invoices are mostly paper, the first job is getting them into an inbox, before any AI can help.
Where this fits
See how Xero shows up in automating repeat work and connecting your tools, and in e-commerce and hospitality and events. If invoices are eating your bookkeeper’s week, get your AI Starter Plan.
