Reconciling Payments in Xero

Overview

Once an invoice has reached Xero, Xero is where you record the payment. Reconcile it there and Astalty picks it up on its own, creating the matching payment against the same invoice — so the invoice is marked as paid in both systems without anyone entering it twice.

This is the flow for plan managed and self managed invoices. NDIA managed invoices work differently — see NDIA Managed Invoices.

Before You Start

Three things have to be true before a payment recorded in Xero can find its way back:

1. The invoice batch has synced to Xero. Astalty matches on the Xero invoice itself, so an invoice that never reached Xero can never be reconciled from it. With Sync invoices automatically on, this happens the moment you finalise the batch. If it's off, click Sync with Xero on the finalised batch first — see Sync With Xero.
2. The invoice is approved in Xero. Xero doesn't let you record a payment against a draft invoice. Your New Invoice Status setting decides how invoices arrive, and it defaults to Draft — so unless you've changed it to Authorised, someone has to approve the invoice in Xero before it can be paid. See Configuring the Integration.
3. The invoice still has an amount outstanding in Astalty. A payment already recorded manually in Astalty leaves nothing for the Xero payment to fill.

Reconciling the Payment in Xero

Reconcile in Xero however you normally would. Astalty reads the payments recorded against the Xero invoice, so it doesn't matter which route you take:

• Bank reconciliation — match the deposit in your bank feed to the invoice.
• Batch payment — the usual case for a Plan Manager paying several invoices in one deposit.
• Add a payment directly on the invoice in Xero.

There is nothing to configure in Xero to make this work, and nothing to click in Astalty afterwards.

What Happens in Astalty

Astalty creates a payment against the invoice, usually within a few minutes of you reconciling in Xero. That payment carries:

The invoice's outstanding amount drops accordingly and its status moves to Paid, and the invoice batch's Outstanding total refreshes to match.

Plan Managed and Self Managed

The reconciliation itself is identical for both. The only differences are who the invoice is addressed to in Xero, and how the resulting payment is labelled in Astalty.

Everything else — approving in Xero, recording the payment, what comes back — is the same.

Partial Payments

A part payment is handled the same way as a full one. Astalty brings across each payment recorded in Xero as its own payment record, so an invoice paid in two instalments ends up with two payments and shows as Partially Paid until the second one lands — or Overdue, if it's already past its due date.

Payments From Xero Are Managed in Xero

Once a payment has come across, Xero owns it. In Astalty, a payment with a Xero source can't be edited, can't have its allocations cleared, and can't have documents attached. Trying to delete it gives you a Cannot Delete Payment message:

This payment has been synced with Xero and cannot be deleted. Please delete it in Xero first.

That is the correct order of operations. Remove or amend the payment in Xero, and the next time Astalty syncs that invoice it removes the matching payment here too — dropping the invoice back to outstanding. Manual and NDIA payments on the same invoice are left alone.

If the Payment Hasn't Appeared

Nearly always this is one of the three conditions above — most often an invoice still sitting in Draft in Xero, or a Xero error on the invoice.

If everything looks right and the payment still hasn't come through, you can ask Astalty to go and check:

1. Open the batch from Invoice Batches.
2. Click Actions.
3. Choose Sync Xero payments.

Astalty confirms with Xero payments will be synced shortly. Please check back in 5 - 10 minutes. Come back to the batch after that and the payment will be there.

What Doesn't Come Back From Xero

Only payments are read from Xero. In particular:

• Credit notes and write-offs applied in Xero don't reduce the outstanding amount in Astalty. Handle the balance in Astalty as well — see Writing Off an Unpaid Balance.
• Changes to the invoice amount in Xero don't flow back, and editing an invoice in Xero after it has synced is what produces the total mismatch error described above.
• Invoices imported into Xero from a CSV export aren't linked to Astalty at all, so they never reconcile. This flow only works for invoices Astalty created in Xero through the integration.

NDIA Managed Invoices

NDIA managed invoices are deliberately kept out of this flow. Astalty never brings a Xero payment back onto an NDIA managed invoice, because it reconciles NDIA claims line by line from the receipt file instead. That exclusion always applies — it isn't something you can switch on.

Whether the invoices themselves reach Xero is a separate question, controlled by the advanced setting Send NDIA invoices to Xero. It's off by default and Astalty doesn't recommend turning it on — see Configuring the Integration.

Either way, reconcile the payment itself in Astalty using Reconciling NDIA Payments. What you do on the Xero side depends on that setting:

• Setting off (the default) — the NDIA invoices never reach Xero, so record the total the NDIA paid as a single Receive Money transaction.
• Setting on — the invoices are already in Xero, so reconcile the NDIA deposit against them there. Don't also add a Receive Money transaction, or you'll count the income twice. Reconciling in Xero still won't create the payment in Astalty, so you have to record it in both places.

Video Walkthrough

Related Guides

• Sync With Xero — manually syncing a batch or its payments.
• Configuring the Integration — the New Invoice Status and plan managed contact settings referenced above.
• Plan and Self Managed Payments — recording a payment manually when you aren't using Xero.
• Reconciling NDIA Payments — the separate NDIA process.
• Deleting Payments — removing a payment that was recorded in Astalty.