You’ve made the decision to adopt Xero for your small business, and now it’s time to get it up and running. We’ve pulled together a quick Setting up Xero checklist below to help guide you through the set up stage, with some helpful links to Xero resources for more information.
Link your bank accounts
Once you have opened a business bank account, you need to link it and authorise the bank feed into Xero. This will allow you to ensure you capture all transactions and reconcile these regularly.
Set up and link payment services
If you want your customers to be able to pay you using their credit card, you may want to set up a payment service and link it to your invoices in xero. The main payment services xero integrates with are Stripe, Paypal, GoCardless, Eway – you can also set up a custom payment URL.
Invoice templates
You’ll want to set up an invoice branding theme and link any payment services. You can have multiple branding themes but be sure to select one as your default.
Invoice reminders
To help you get paid on time and follow up late payments, Xero has a reminder feature. You can set your own timeline of reminders and text.
Given that everything is electronic these days it’s very easy for your customers to forget to pay you – so we recommend sending a due date reminder 1 day prior.
If you want to stop reminders being sent to specific customers, you can turn invoice reminders off either in the customer card or on a specific invoice.
Set up your dashboard
When you first log into Xero, you’ll land on your Xero Dashboard – this gives you a quick view of your accounts.
You’ll see:
- Bank Accounts: number of transactions to reconcile, balances
- Invoices owed to you and what is expected to come into your bank over the coming weeks
- Bills you need to pay and when they are due based on due dates entered
- Accounts Watch List: this is a customised list that you can set up to keep an eye on key accounts
- Cash in and out: a basic bar chart showing differences in receipts and payments
