Salesforce and Xero
Today we’re launching functionality that allows you to sync your Salesforce CRM account and contact information with Xero. Rather than having to enter the details of your customers and suppliers in both systems you can now simply choose which of your Salesforce contacts you’d like to appear in Xero. Then whenever they are updated in Salesforce they are immediately updated in Xero too.
This short video gives you a quick overview of the functionality.
To learn more about the functionality we’ve put together some frequently asked questions.
To get started, you will need to follow these setup instructions – this one-off process will take you about 10 minutes to complete. We’ve also put together a 4 minute screencast that takes you through the whole process step-by-step.
We know there is a lot more we can do with this integration so we’d like to hear from you what we should be working on next – please let us know on our UserVoice Forum where you can suggest improvements and vote on ideas suggested by others too.
If you have any questions to get up and running with this integration please contact our API team on network@xero.com
22 comments
XeroFan
Great integration, but useless for most of the SME businesses that use Xero. The fact that you must have an expensive top level Salesforce.com edition (either enterprise or unlimited) to order to integrate Xero means that this is really only for the big players. Pity.
ryan
Hi There,
I am wondering who wrote this tool for you?
I am finding some discrepancies in the way it operates.
I am an apex coder myself, happy to share some info on the bugs we are seeing so that maybe it can be refined in a future release?
Ryan
Hi Ryan,
Please email me directly (alastair@xero.com) and I can out you in touch with the developer. They have a new release underway so any feedback will be very helpful.
rgds
Alastair
What I’d love to see is an Opportunity to Invoice button. Financial Force has this (though admittedly their price is a magnitude higher). It looks like a great start!
Tat
Sadly, Salesforce.com Enterprise Edition customer most probably will need an enterprise grade Accounting Package which is a different league (market segment) from the market Xero appeals to.
Better to have Xero take a export (.csv formatted file) from a Salesforce.com Opportunity with Products report and import it to the GL.
There’s a big install base of Professional Edition customers who would love that.
i need moneybookers intergration- similar to your paypal module. Also zoho, is there any news?
JoeyTheFish
Any plans to have Xero as being the master in the relationship, ie one way sync from Xero to Salesforce, or X2S as opposed to S2X – in the near future?
Hi all, you might like to know you can request API access for your users under Pro Edition (PE). This is USD30 per user, per year, and allows the API access like Enterprise. This is an undocumented feature that our sales rep has enabled for us.
I have also added this comment under: http://xero.uservoice.com/forums/32883-integration-with-salesforce-crm
Marcel
I am a big Xero fan since it greatly helped us get our accounting in order at a very fair price.
Now we are looking for an online based software to manage our sales process.
Salesforce is highly recommended but I realized that only the very expensive Salesforce version integrates seamlessly with Xero.
Also I dislike that Salesforce obviously is pursuing a platform lock-in strategy similar to what Apple does.
Since I am sure that you have a lot of customers with similar questions is there a powerful sales-support software – if open source even better – that integrates nicely with Xero.
If no one can recommend something similarly powerful as Salesforce as an alternative – can anyone else confirm the API purchase option totalinz mentions in his comment?
@Marcel, Have you tried Capsule CRM? it works great with my Google Apps.
Got all I need from Salesforce Group edition. Iink to Xero as well.
@Tony and Jerry,
thanks for your feedback.
I checked out all CRM solutions offered here:
http://www.xero.com/advisors/solutions/crm/
The problem I have – before i opt for one of the CRM systems I would like to know WHAT features exactly the integration brings.
The Sugar connnector for example seems to allow to create invoices in Sugar and then synch them to Xero.
But does it work the other way round – a feature I find important.
And is that the only feature – for only this AUD 500 a year would be a bit steep.
Highrise and Capsule do not mention anything about a Xero integration on their websites and which features and advantages this might bring.
Trineo Dime connects Salesforce with Xero as well – but I have no clue what it does…what advantages the connectivity brings.
The lack of this excludes a Xero integration as a buying argument for the respective CRM.
So Jerry, are you using Salesforce or Google Apps finally?
What I like about Salesforce is that it seems to integrates Google Apps pretty neatly.
If Capsule I still need to check.
@ Marcel
Trineo Dime for Developers can implement all of the functionality that the Xero API offers but requires development support to implement.
http://tinyurl.com/dimefordev
Trineo Dime for CRM offers out of the box functionality to send a Salesforce.com opportunity to Xero as an invoice. In the next release it will offer contact syncing.
http://tinyurl.com/dimeforcrm
Both products require Salesforce.com Enterprise Edition. In the future Dime for CRM will be available for Salesforce.com Professional Edition
@ Tony, thanks for your feeeback. I checked it.
However, seems Highrise does not know too much about the Xero integration – so we should not expect many new integration features to be developed on their end in the future – here is the feedback of their customer support:
“Hey Marcel, I’m glad you’re interested in Highrise! 
Right now, I’m not aware of any integration between Xerox and Highrise, actually. You can check out all the available third-party apps here:
http://highrisehq.com/extras
And here’s a tour of Highrise:
http://highrisehq.com/tour
If you have any further questions, please let me know and I’ll be happy to help.
I hope you have a lovely day!
Kristin A.
37signals Customer Service”
@ Dan: thanks for your feedback. I will prepare an overview of functionalities I would like to have and email it to you.
@ All: since this entire topic seems to be very confusing I am preparing an overview of several CRMs and the Xero integration features they currently offer to post it here at a later point.
Feedback from Capsule:
Hi Marcel,
> Can Capsule synch invoices in only one or two ways? I can see all INV in Xero in Capsule but can I create or edit these in Capsule as well or does that all work from Xero?
The invoice details displayed in Capsule are only a read-only summary it’s not possible to update them – for this you’ll need to log into your Xero account. If you’re looking at a contact in Xero and you want to add an invoice – click onto the invoice tab and click the “Add customer invoice option” this will open a screen for you in Xero with the customer details already populate for you.
> Can Capsule synch contacts in only one of two ways?
Once a contact is linked with Xero if you update the contact details in Capsule these changes will also be pushed out to Xero you automatically so you only need to make your changes in one place. However changes you make to contacts in Xero will not be loaded into Capsule.
> Does the contact synching happen automatically?
Yes when you make a change to a linked contact in Capsule the change will be applied to Xero immediately – when you add new contacts to your Xero account the Capsule checks you Xero account and imports these every few hours.
> In your video tutorial you talk not about Capsule-Xero integration but JavelinCRM-Xero integration – why is that?
Javelin is the old name you used to Capsule when it first launched – the video hasn’t been updated with the new name:
http://capsulecrm.com/blog/comments/javelin_is_being_renamed_to_capsule/
> Users in Capsule can see the overview of invoices (new, paid, due) of a customer – but which user rights does the Capsule user need in Xero to be able to use that feature?
All users in Capsule can view the invoice summaries if they have a Xero login or not – however the user will not be able to follow the links that switch over to Xero unless they have a login. (e.g. add an invoice, view contacts or invoice details in Xero).
> Do you plan a feature for a Capsule administrator to manage user rights? I want to be able to avoid sales people seeing supplier information. I also want to avoid sales people being able to extract the entire client database if we are working with several sales people and have the opportunity to assign specific user rights.
Our design approach for Capsule has been to encourage collaboration and sharing of contacts and the sales pipeline. We are getting a number of prospective customers who are interested in constraining user access to a subset of the pipeline and contacts. We are considering changes in this area but I don’t have a timeline at this stage.
> Is there an Outlook Plugin when I am writing emails in Outlook?
We’re not planing a plug-in for Outlook but the drop box feature still work nicely with Outlook:
http://capsulecrm.com/help/page/storing_emails_via_the_drop_box/
> Where can I find information on how the Google Apps integration works?
http://capsulecrm.com/blog/comments/capsule_integrates_with_google_apps/
http://capsulecrm.com/blog/comments/capsule_contextual_gadget_for_gmail/
> Is there a function in Capsule allowing me to schedule follow-ups with clients and receive automatic reminders for that?
Use task to manage your client follow-ups. Also take a look at tracks if you want to be a bit fancier. Details under help:
http://capsulecrm.com/help/
> Is there a function in Capsule allowing to link emails exchanged with a client to the client contact lead-history – i.e. whenever I click on the client/lead I can see the entire email (and general communication history) with that client?
Use the dropbox (or the Google Gadget) to add emails to your contacts history – when viewing the contacts summary screen you see the emails along with any notes you’ve made.
Phillip H.
Capsule Customer Support
Hayden Whitworth
Hi Tony
We’ve got the integration setup and operational betw. Xero and Salesforce and all seemed to be functioning well until we bulk uploaded a new database to SF and despite them not having “synchronise with Xero” checked, they have ALL synced so our Xero database is now enormous and causes our book keeper huge headaches.
Have checked the uploaded contact records in SF and “synchronise with Xero” is definitely NOT checked.
Has this happened to anyone else? Is there a fix?
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