XERO - Back End Settings in printIQ

Invoice status passing to Xero

When invoices are exported from printIQ, the settings below control the status of sales and supplier invoices imported into Xero.

Yes – the invoices will import into Xero under Draft status.

No – the invoices will import into Xero under Awaiting Payment.

Controls sales invoices

Controls supplier invoices.

Tax Types

Tax types in printIQ need to match the tax types within Xero.

If a tax type exists in printIQ and is not present in Xero, this setting allows printIQ to create the tax type in Xero.

Sent Payments from printIQ

These two settings can also be controlled at the Site record level and Customer record level.

When a job has been paid for within printIQ, we can pass this to Xero to mark the invoice as paid. We do not recommend this setting on as

If this setting is turn on, we also have the option to choose which general ledger account the payment is pushed to.

printIQ Checks Xero for Payment

This setting enables the Check for Payment option.

When used, printIQ will check Xero to determine whether the job or invoice has been paid. If it has, printIQ will pull the payment information from Xero and mark the job or invoice as paid within printIQ.

The check is not automated. It runs when Check for Payment is selected from the Manage Invoice board, Dispatch board, or within the Job Details.

Account Status Check

printIQ has the ability to put a customer account on hold if the customer has overdue invoices within Xero when this setting is enabled.

When the setting is enabled, it uses the following two settings to determine the criteria.

The first determines the number of days beyond the customer's credit terms before the account is put on hold.

The second determines the minimum overdue amount required before the account is put on hold.

Customer information passed to Xero

This setting determines the customer information passed from printIQ to Xero.

printIQ will pass the following customer details:

printIQ	Xero
Name	Contact Name
Account No	Contact Code
Email	Email
Phone	Phone
Mobile	Mobile
Billing Address	Postal Address
Contact First Name / Surname	Primary Person

How Xero handles customer information from printIQ

When customer information is passed from printIQ to Xero, it is important to distinguish between the initial matching of an existing Xero contact and subsequent matching once the contact has previously been sent from printIQ.

Initial matching

When a customer has not previously been sent from printIQ, there is not yet a Contact Code relationship established by printIQ.

In this situation, printIQ attempts to match the customer against the existing Xero contact by Name.

If a matching Name is found, the existing Xero contact is used. If no matching contact is found, a new contact is created in Xero.

The Account No in printIQ is passed to Xero as the Contact Code as part of the customer information sent by printIQ.

Important: An account number or customer reference already present in Xero from another MIS, CRM, or legacy system should not be assumed to represent a Contact Code relationship previously established by printIQ. The presence of the same historic account reference in both systems does not, by itself, establish the initial printIQ/Xero match.

For this reason, the Name held in printIQ should correspond with the existing Contact Name in Xero when initially integrating existing customer records.

Differences such as punctuation, abbreviations, spelling, legal suffixes, or trading names may prevent a Name match and can result in a new Xero contact being created.

Subsequent matching

Once a customer has been sent from printIQ before, the Contact Code has been established and printIQ matches on this.

The matching sequence is therefore:

If the customer has previously been sent from printIQ, match using the Contact Code.
If there is no contact with a matching Contact Code, match using the Name.
If there are no matching contacts, create a new contact in Xero.

Example

An existing Xero contact is:

Example Printing Limited

The corresponding customer imported into printIQ is:

Example Printing Ltd

Even if both records contain the same historic customer reference from a previous system, that reference should not be assumed to represent a Contact Code relationship previously established by printIQ.

If this is the customer's initial match from printIQ, the difference in Name may prevent the existing Xero contact from being matched and result in a new contact being created.

Once the customer has previously been sent from printIQ and the Contact Code relationship has been established, subsequent matching uses the Contact Code.

Best Practice - Initial Customer and Supplier Migration

Where Xero is already in use before implementing printIQ, we recommend using Xero as the source of customer and supplier data for the initial import into printIQ.

This helps ensure that the Names imported into printIQ correspond with the contacts already held in Xero when initial matching takes place.

Rather than automatically importing an entire historic customer and supplier database from a previous MIS or CRM, consider importing the relevant active accounts based on an agreed period of recent activity – typically the previous 18-24 months, depending on the customer's requirements.

Best Practice: Where Xero is the existing accounting system, sourcing the initial customer and supplier data from Xero reduces the risk of Name differences between a legacy system and the existing Xero contacts.

Changing an Account No after Xero integration

The Account No in printIQ is passed to the Contact Code in Xero.

Care should therefore be taken when changing an Account No after a customer has already been sent to Xero.

Where an established customer Account No needs to be changed, review the corresponding Xero contact and existing Contact Code before making the change to ensure the established integration relationship is understood.

Duplicate contacts and merging in Xero

If duplicate contacts are subsequently identified in Xero, care should be taken when merging them.

The Xero contact containing the Contact Code used by printIQ should be retained. The existing duplicate-contact troubleshooting article confirms that this is the contact printIQ uses and warns against merging the contact containing the Contact Code into another contact, as this can archive the contact being used by printIQ and cause subsequent exports to fail.

If the wrong contact has already been merged:

Check both active and archived contacts in Xero.
Identify the contact containing the Contact Code used by printIQ.
Restore that contact if it has been archived.
Merge the other contact into the contact containing the Contact Code.

See also: Xero Export Failed – Duplicated Contact number.

Exporting the invoice

Clicking the Export button will export the invoice to Xero.

An exported invoice will show under:

Business → Invoices

Customer account balance sync from Xero

Due to Xero API limitations, only the customer's Account Balance can be synced from Xero. Credit Limit is not supported.

To enable the account balance sync, set Credit & Account Balance Functionality to:

Controlled Internally

Xero data sync pulls the Customer Account Balance each day as a scheduled job.