Create Account
To set up a Xero Accounting Channel on Despatch Cloud, you first need a Xero account. If you don't have a Xero account, Follow the steps below to sign up for one:
1. Go to https://www.xero.com/signup/.
2. Fill in the sign up form and click on the "Next: Confirmation" button.
Then an email will be sent to your email address.
3. Open the email and click on the "Yes, it's me - let's get started" button.
4. Enter a password for your account and click on the "Activate your account" button.
5. Fill in the fields about your business and click on the "Start trial" button.
Then your account will be created and you will automatically log in to your dashboard.
Setup Account
If you already a Xero Account, please keep the login credentials of the Xero channel you wish to set up to hand. In order to obtain the required credentials and set up a Xero accounting channel on Despatch Cloud, follow the steps below:
1. Sign in to your Xero account by going to the URL: https://login.xero.com/identity/user/login
2. Go to the Xero Developer website via this link: https://developer.xero.com/
3. Click on the "Log In" button from the top right corner of the screen. As you have already logged into your Xero account, you don't need to sign in to the developer account since these two are automatically linked.
4. Click on the "New App" button.
5. Select the "Web App" option and fill in the required fields as bellow:
App Name: You can enter anything you want to call your app in this field.
Company or application URL: Enter your Despatch Cloud URL in this field. For example, it might start with your store or company name, like the following link:
http://yourstorename.despatchcloud.net/
Redirect URL: Enter the link below as the Redirect URL:
https://production.channelapi.co.uk/authorization/xero
6. Once you've finished filling out these fields, tick the terms and conditions box to confirm you have read and agreed to it and click on the "Create app" button.
7. Click on the "Configuration" from the left-hand side menu.
8. Click on the "Generate a secret" to generate the Client Secret. Copy the "Client ID" and "Client Secret" and keep them to hand because you will need them to set up your Xero Channel on Despatch Cloud.
9. Now log in to your Despatch Cloud account, then select the "Accounting Channels" from the "Settings" menu.
10. Click on the "Install" button on the Xero channel.
11. Fill out the required fields as explained below:
Name: Enter the name you want to call the accounting integration.
Client ID and Client Secret: Enter the Client ID and Client Secret that you had obtained from your Xero developer account into their respective fields here.
Add Products: This option allows products created in the system to be sent to Xero. Therefore, it needs to be ticked here.
Xero Tenant ID: You can leave the Xero Tenant ID field blank. Xero Tenant ID gets sent to Despatch Cloud automatically once you have completed the authentication steps.
Account Nominal Code: You may leave this field blank it is not a required field.
12. After filling the required fields correctly, click on the "Submit" button.
13. Click on the Channel Connect (chain icon) in order to connect to the channel.
14. Click on "Allow access" to give the required access to the channel from Xero.
Your Xero channel will now be added and connected.
15. Go back to the Xero channel page on Despatch Cloud and click on the "Edit Channel" option (pencil icon).
16. Turn on the "Active" switch by clicking on it to activate your channel.
17. Click on the "Save Changes" button.
Now if you go to the "Settings" tab of the Edit Channel popup, you will see here the configurations to set default values for options such as account code or tax option.
If you click on the "here" link as shown in the picture below, a page with a list of countries with their default configurations on the system will be open. You can set your required configurations here. For example, you could change the "Account Code" or "Tax Type" for a specific country.
Then click on "Save Changes" again to save the changes you've made.
Your Xero accounting channel should now be active and configured to your required settings.
Extra Settings
Once you set up your Xero account to ensure that your account is working appropriately, you might need to do some settings. Most of the time, these settings are done automatically. But to make sure your account is working appropriately, you may check out the following settings:
Currencies
If you selected the United Kingdom as your country while you were setting up your account, your main account will be based on GBP. But if you operate based on euros, dollars or any other currency in Despatch Cloud, then you might need to add that currency within your Xero account. If you receive a transaction to your Despatch Cloud account that is something other than the currency set up initially, then those orders will not come to Xero, which means you won't have your invoices created in Xero. To add currency, follow the steps below:
1. Log in to your Xero dashboard and navigate to your account "Settings".
2. Select "Currencies" from the list.
3. Click on the "Add Currency" button.
4. Select your wished currency from the drop-down list.
5. Then click on the "Add Currency" button.
Global or Fullfilment
Another setting that you need to check is whether your Accounting Channel was assigned to work globally or was assigned to a fulfilment client. In order to check this, follow the steps below:
1. Log into your Despatch Cloud account, then select the "Accounting Channels" from the "Settings" menu.
2. Click on the "Edit Channel" option (pencil icon).
3. Go to the "Settings" tab of the channel and check the "Fulfillment Client" option
For example, as you can see in the picture below, this channel has not been assigned to any fulfilment customers, which means it's a global channel and can only be used for global inventory or global orders.
If you go to your sales channel settings, you can see what actually goes on.
4. Select one of your channels. As an example, we choose our "Manual" channel.
As you can see, there are Fulfilment channels here as well as the Global channel.
5. Click on the "Edit Channel" option (pencil icon) of the channel you want to check.
We are going to check both the Global channel and a Fulfilment channel in continue.
6. Go to the "Accounting Channel" tab.
If we choose the Global channel, since we had assigned our Xero channel to work as a Global channel, We can see that the accounting channel is set to Xero.
Please note that you can also remove the accounting channel from the sales channels by selecting "Please select a channel" from the drop-down list and clicking on "Save Changes".
But if we go into one of the channels that are linked to a fulfilment customer, under the accounting channel tab, we will notice that the Xero channel will not be listed. And the reason is the fact that we have set our Xero channel to work as a global channel, not to any fulfilment client.
Similarly, the same thing applies to inventories.
7. Select the "Inventory" from the left-side menu.
8. Select one of the inventories you want to check and click on its "Manage Inventory" button.
For example, if we select the inventory in the below picture, which is not assigned to any fulfilment customers, then we will be able to see the Xero account settings in its Manage Inventory section.
As you can see in the image below, we have the Account Code and Tax options settings here.
But in the inventory item that has been assigned to a client, as you can see in the image below, the Xero settings will not appear on the Manage Inventory page. And as previously mentioned, the reason is that we set our accounting channel to work as a Global channel.
Accounting Channel Limit
Each Despatch Cloud account has been set to have only one accounting channel. So if you have already set up Xero and try to add a second instance of this channel, you won't be able to add that to your account.
