Xero and AI agents
A practice does not have one set of books, it has thirty. No single organisation is hard; the difficulty is that a few of them go untouched for weeks while you are inside the others. An agent runs the same routine across all of them and brings back what needs a decision — the decisions, and the sign-off, stay yours.
What an agent does in Xero
- Runs the same routine across every client organisation you carry, instead of whichever one shouted loudest this week.
- Reconciles bank lines against invoices, bills and payments already recorded, and keeps a live count of what is still open in each organisation.
- Treats a foreign-currency line as its own problem: shows the rate applied and where the difference on settlement landed, rather than folding it into something tidier.
- Watches the bank rules and reports the one that has stopped matching what is actually arriving.
- Chases the client for the document that is missing, and drafts the reconciliation with the source behind every figure for you to sign off.
Processes that run themselves
A playbook isn't a button — it's a process with a condition that starts it. In a practice the condition almost always fires in one organisation while you are looking at another, which is exactly why it is worth having.
A backlog in one organisation gets worked before you notice it
Unreconciled items start building up in a client organisation
- Reconcile each item against the invoices, bills and payments already in that organisation
- Classify what the contact and the history make unambiguous, in that organisation's own chart of accounts
- Set the rest aside as a short list, one specific question against each
- Bring the list to you rather than reconciling anything on a best guess
The missing document is chased before the period closes, not after
A client's document is missing and a period is about to close
- Work out precisely what is missing by comparing what reconciled against what did not
- Ask the client for those items, with a date to reply by
- Follow up when nothing comes back, and tell you when a client has gone quiet
- Attach each document as it lands and tick it off the outstanding list
A bank rule that has drifted gets caught, not trusted
A bank rule stops matching what is actually arriving
- Notice that a rule is firing less than it used to, or catching lines it never used to catch
- Compare what the rule assumes against what the bank is sending now
- Hold the affected lines instead of letting the rule keep classifying on an old assumption
- Write up what changed and what the rule should be instead — the change itself is yours to make
Where the agent stops
- Nothing is filed or submitted to any authority by an agent. It prepares the numbers; a person submits them.
- A transaction it cannot classify with confidence is left for a person, not guessed at.
- It drafts the reconciliation; a person reviews it and signs it off. That step is not something a setting removes.
- Responsibility for the numbers stays with the bookkeeper or the owner — that isn't small print, it's how the thing is built.
- It will not invent a receipt or a category to make an organisation balance. An unexplained difference — including one that exists only because of an exchange rate — stays visible as a difference.
FAQ
We carry thirty organisations in Xero. Does it work across all of them?
Across the ones you connect, and each stays its own world: its own chart of accounts, its own rules, its own access. Nothing from one client's organisation is used to reason about another. Which organisations get worked, and in what order, is something you set rather than something it decides.
How does it handle invoices and bills in another currency?
It reconciles them like anything else, but it never quietly absorbs the difference. The rate it applied is shown, and the difference on settlement stays as its own visible figure. If that difference isn't explained by the rate, it comes to you as a question instead of being smoothed away.
It found a bank rule that no longer fits. Will it rewrite the rule?
No. It tells you the rule has drifted, shows what it used to catch and what is arriving now, and holds the affected lines so nothing gets classified on the old assumption. Rules encode your judgement about a client, so changing one stays with you.
Can it handle a client's periodic reporting for us?
It can get the numbers to draft, with the source behind each one, and stop there. It does not submit anything to anyone. What is submitted carries liability, and liability belongs to whoever signs — you or your client, never an agent.
Where this comes up
Walkthroughs in which Xero holds part of the process.