Xero Plugin?

[hayden]

Hi Guys,

Does CommitCRM have any plan to integrate Xero in to their product? (www.xero.com). If not, has anyone else? Otherwise I'll get cracking... :D

[Support Team]

Hi Hayden, so far we have only received a few requests to integrate with this accounting package and therefore we're do not officially integrate with it. However, consider using our open APIs to integrate with it. Maybe others that use Xero will be willing to pay for such a plug-in.

Thanks,
Dina

[hayden]

Exactly what I'm going to do. Just noticed 5.6's API... Interesting :)

[Support Team]

Perfect. Please contact us directly so we can provide you with the new libraries etc.

Thanks,
Dina

[DynamicIT]

Hi Hayden,

We would be interested, but have no development skills in-house. LOVE using Xero, and our existing method of invoicing from CommitCRM works fine, but integration is likely to be better.

[hayden]

I'm just trying to get the library offCommitCRM. Depending what the requirements are I was going to start development right away because I need this. Maybe i should create a mailing list.

I've actually created a test app for Xero using the Xero OAuth api and it works fine. So half of the work is already done.

[Shippy]

Hello Hayden...I am interested to see how far you developed the linkage to Xero. I'm not an API scripting wizz but we do see a useful need to link to Xero.

Regards Neil

[hayden]

I've got no further due to having other projects on. I'll revisit that towards the end of the month.

[paulNZ]

Hayden

Have you gotten any further with s working Xero integration process?

[orbit1234]

Hi,
wonder if anyone made further progress with this? I like CommitCRM but the lack of integration with something decent for invoicing is causing us headaches. Now that CommitCRM has quoting integrated it really would be ideal to be able to "send to Xero" for invoicing purposes.

[Support Team]

Thank you for asking, the below is mainly copied from our reply to your email :

It is possible that someone used RangerMSP's API to integrate with Xero. Whether we will develop such an integratino module - we're not sure. The majority of our users (and of potential ones) currently use QuickBooks and this is why a robust integration with QuickBooks is supported, in case Xero will become more popular among our user base we will definite consider it.

For what it worth, RangerMSP API is very easy to use. It should be easy to develop such an integration using the RangerMSP APIs, and the APIs offered by Xero.

Thanks.

[mkomad]

Just adding my vote for Xero integration.

[stephan]

We are also interested dumping Quickbooks for Xero..

[nattivillin]

We are probably dumping quickbooks for xero. We outgrew QB years ago, but couldn't find anything better.

Xero will work with all our locations.

+1 for a xero integration

But in the meantime, who wants to put some money together to get someone to build this?

[smeggar]

In our case, and I would expect other companies as well, our choice of accounting package is dictated by our CRM tool, they are not independent choices. So yes the majority of your customers use Quickbooks, because that is what you support! I'm afraid to even upgrade my Quickbooks! I would love to move to Xero if I could. but the integration of the CRM with the accounting side is key to our business.

For what its worth a tiny investment in Xero integration would return the investment many many times over in this part of the world anyway (AUS/NZ).

[lpopejoy]

Commit,

Does the API allow you to set the billed status and the invoice number?

[Support Team]

@smeggar - Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We will take this into account and consider.

@lpopejoy - Yes, the Billed flag for a Charge can be set using the API. The Invoice number is dedicated to QuickBooks and therefore it's irrelevant for and therefore not supported by the API.

[racassel]

This looks nice, and QB could use some competion. They haven't innovated anything in 10 years, its the some old stuff with a little lipgloss and glitter each year. I don't see any payroll for this, what are you guys using for payroll?

Regarding API's is there an API to quick close tickets?

[nattivillin]

I wouldn't call what quickbooks does each year lipgloss! More like foot powder....lol

We use Paycycle for payroll. They were bought by Intuit a few years back, but havent changed much so we are staying put for now.

I am willing to pay someone to create / support an API for me to integrate CommitCRM with xero.

[lpopejoy]

I think for the API to be a viable solution, CommitCRM needs to make the invoice number accessible via API. Otherwise you will have no way of knowing in CommitCRM which Xero (or other) invoice # the charge is billed on.

[hayden]

I'd put up some cash for a build. I was going to write it myself, but I don't have the time.

I've got someone doing it manually everyday (export tickets to Xero). On one hand it's good as our tickets get manually reviewed, but god damm is it a waste of time.

[nattivillin]

CommitCRM ticket numbers are not accessible via API?

[lpopejoy]

No, the field that shows the Quickbools invoice number isn't accessible.

[Support Team]

Ticket numbers are accessible with the API.

[DynamicIT]

Our process is to print an invoice (using a modified CommitCRM report) and then our office lady enters a 'stub' invoice into Xero using the CommitCRM Ticket Number as the Xero Invoice Number. Virtually no details are recorded in Xero. But we can then use Xero to send out statements with valid invoice/ticket numbers.

I would put up some money as a one-off toward development of an integration solution.

[Wayne M]

We have evaluated Autotask, Connectwise and CommitCRM CRM and looked at a few other IT centric CRM packages. Our first choice isCommitCRM. But at this stage we will not proceed with CommitCRM as we need live automated connectivity to Xero.

While we can go through the rigmarole of exporting and importing data, something we've been doing for years with our aging filemaker job system. I'm over that.

Xero is taking over from a lot of inhouse accounting packages and the ease of use is the reason. In New Zealand and Australia MYOB is loosing thousands of businesses per year. Xero is streets ahead of any other online accounting system because of the clean and functional interfaces and simplicity while now after several years of maturing offering a solid range of features. The uptake in the US Canada and UK are seeing Xero moving significantly to a major player.

Given the number of people here looking to connect commitcrm to xero, please give it your attention. Or assist a third party developer. And if anyone here may already know of a XERO - CommitCRM connector please post!

Thanks

[stephan]

Also interested in a xero plug in so we can move away from QB.

[craigatkins]

+1 from me - we're on Xero. Ditched Sage the other year and it saves SO much time.

[circuit]

+1 another one keen to see integration with Xero or MYOB!

[hayden]

Ah my 3yr old thread... still no progress :/

[Support Team]

Shouldn't we ask you this :-) I mean... I see above that you considered writing this integration yourself and others were willing to assist...

From our end we haven't done much progress with this XERO integration, while we've received some requests for it (as seen here) it is (still) by far less popular than other items on our list. However, we see how this may help and have it on file. We will review and consider this again. Thanks for asking and in case you will want to proceed with developing it, maybe outsourcing it to someone, we'll be happy to assist.

Hope this helps.

[DynamicIT]

Hi Team,

I've been keeping half an eye on this thread for a while. Partly because no progress has been made, I have been looking at alternatives to CommitCRM.

While CommitCRM is far from perfect, and I was keen to move to a Cloud solution, I am not really inspired by some of the alternatives I have looked at recently. So I now I find myself ready to talk to a developer about creating a bridge between CommitCRM and Xero.

If anyone would like to contribute to the development process by assisting with thoughts on the workflow process or other specifications as to how you would picture it working for you, now is the time.

You are also welcome to leave your thoughts on how much you might like to contribute to a development fund (split into milestone payments) to move the development along faster and receive in return a long term license, or how much you would be prepared to pay for an annual license.

Feel free to contact me directly on mike at dynamicit dot co dot nz (actually I would encourage this in order to gain faster feedback about design/workflow).

Cheers
Mike

[DynamicIT]

My 'tame' developer just emailed me back and says he's just working on his second Xero integration project now, finishing in a couple of weeks. Not bad timing...

[lpopejoy]

If you do this, I would talk to Commit to make sure that you can mark a charge as "billed" AND set it's invoice # (like they do with Quickbooks) AND that when you do those items, it won't throw the ticket into the inbox since it was touched by the API.

[DynamicIT]

Thank you Luke that is a valuable suggestion.

Team, could you please consider subscribing to this thread if you have not done so already. This will give you email notification of updates. Look for "Thread Tools" near the top right hand corner (just above the very first post in the thread).

[highpointIT]

Very interested in this as well.
DynamicIT what sort of timings are you hoping for?

paul

[sudogreg]

im gaining interest here as well -

[NZCOMMS]

We are prepared to put money up for a working plugin.
We are going to have to look at an alternative CRM if i cant get to XERO so happy to talk to anybody who is serious about putting up and moving it forward

[DynamicIT]

Hi Team,

I assumed everyone was ignoring me after subscribing to this thread resulted in no new posting notifications. Upon review, I ticked the wrong box and was just not getting notified. I've fixed that now.

My developer has just given me a demo of his first draft, and he's done pretty well with minimal instructions. Bulk selection of multiple items for multiple clients within a date range (where you can also select/deselect individual items) now generates a Draft invoice in Xero.

He has followed the Xero 'run from anywhere' theme and has built it using HTML and IIS (no database required, Win7/8 can be used as the server). Before we get too far down the track, can I have some thoughts on this vs a desktop application? I was expecting a desktop application, but of course a non-technical Accounts person should be following a standard billing procedure and not actually have to look at CommitCRM itself so a web app should be fine.

I'm currently compiling a couple of scenarios for him to allow for. These (the strategies we use) are:
- All unbilled billable charges within a date range for all clients (should we be able to filter by labour/parts/expenses?) - Xero generates Invoice Number.
- Same but for only 1 selected client
- Specific ticket number to bill. (Do we put in a tickbox to have the CommitCRM Ticket as the invoice number in Xero?)

What other billing scenarios should we allow for?
- All COMPLETED tickets with unbilled charges? This would generate one Xero invoice per ticket with the CommitCRM ticket number as the invoice number?

I'll post some screenshots and/or a video in the next 2-3 weeks so you can have a look.

Our web site is linked in my forum profile. You are welcome to email me directly if you like.

Cheers
Mike

[hayden]

The way we manually do it now is:

Ticket number in reference field.

Item charges with notes as each line item.

It's pretty straight forward.

Would need some error handling around account names as they are not the same in some instances, or maybe mapping of accounts.

[Julesrulez]

Another vote for Xero.

Isn't customer service and selling your product all about offering your client options?
I am using Reckon/QB, because of CommitCRM, not through my own choosing. A great percentage of your clients use Reckon because quite simply that's all that is offered without huge drama!

We love using CommitCRM, but seriously Reckon is not the best out there. They have many small niggling issues that quite simply could be fixed easily, but they just cant be bothered. Xero is quite simply of a more professional standard.

Commit, if there was a CRM out there up to your standard for IT we would have changed for this one simple reason! Don't hold back for too long or there may be competition that beat you to it!

Rant over :) x

[Support Team]

Thanks for your feedback, it has been noted and we will add your vote to this feature request. We definitely understand what you're saying. Thanks!

[DynamicIT]

Hi Team

I got off track on this development, but have restarted the project earlier this week. I am meeting with my developer this afternoon to look at a few changes and will post an update. From there I'll keep you up to date weekly on changes. I plan to be using it in-house before the end of August.

Cheers
Mike

[DynamicIT]

Just had a Skype session with my semi-tame developer, and I'm impressed with the result. He's going to tweak a few things and I get version 0.5 installed to our live system tomorrow so we can start to have a play with it.

If you happen to want to look at some screenshots I took, email me - mike@ <my forum profile name> .co.nz

[DynamicIT]

I have a first draft running on our server. System requirements were IIS and .Net 4.5 which were already on the Server 2012 Essentials machine.

In the Charges area (i.e. billing charges within a date range), we can see the list of Accounts in Commit, we can search for changes within a date range for one client or all clients that are billable but unbilled. Getting these into Xero is not currently working as expected. Response time is slow, though without putting a stopwatch on it this may not be any slower than compiling similar reports within Commit itself. I have asked for some sort of progress indicator so I am not left wondering whether or not something is happening.

In the Tickets area, we can search for a ticket number and with one click successfully turn this into a Draft Invoice in Xero, and optionally with that same click we can mark the Commit charges as billed and download a draft invoice pdf for review. The first ticket is currently taking 30 seconds to display, but the next ticket is taking only 2-3 seconds.

At present the Xero invoice is only having the Item line entered. We'll add the Description of the item a little further down the track.

Cheers
Mike

[DynamicIT]

I had an email from my developer overnight advising I will have a fresh build in 3 days to try.

[DynamicIT]

We are experimenting with caching the CommitCRM data to a temporary database (SQL Express at present) to improve performance, as the delays we were seeing were too great. These delays are probably on a par with what you would see when running your own reports within CommitCRM.

We are not running our own CommitCRM on "CommitCRM SQL Database Server", which I understand responds better than the standard database and I don't plan to use the CommitCRM SQL Database Server any time soon.

[Support Team]

It shouldn't be slow. Maybe ask the developer to contact us directly explaining what they are trying to do. We may come up with a suggestion on how to make it faster, there are a few tricks that can make a big difference.

[DynamicIT]

Thanks Team. He's away for the rest of the week., but I've passed that on.

[DynamicIT]

I sat down with my Accounts lady yesterday and had a look at the latest build. She pointed out that while it was nice that the description and amount were being put into a Xero Draft Invoice, the Account line is not being populated. This means that she would have to open the draft invoice and enter the account short code on every single line. This is of course not very practical.

For ourselves in CommitCRM we split (for reporting purposes) labour on site, labour by remote control, and labour in our office (workshop time). We have a dozen Parts item categories. in Xero we have only one Parts item.

I'm going to request the ability to map a CommitCRM Item to an Item in Xero, allowing for a many-to-one relationship. It was a dumb omission not to have specified this earlier. I was hoping to be using it internally this end-of-month billing cycle, but that was squished by this omission.

Progress is definitely being made.

[hayden]

It's a problem with CommitCRM since it doesn't have gl codes. It will be hard to map things.

[Support Team]

Thanks for posting all updates.

Linking RangerMSP Items to Xero items is probably the way to go! This is how it successfully works with QuickBooks and then the accounting accounts are automatically being selected for Invoice Lines and no manual work is required.

Keep us posted.

[DynamicIT]

We received an update from the developer a couple of days ago, but I have not had time to test it in depth. A local promo by HP has had us run off our feet. :)

[DynamicIT]

I have just spent a couple of hours testing the latest build. The ability to map CommitCRM Items is working (though I can't currently remove a bad mapping). There are a couple of issues getting the descriptions displaying nicely in Xero, and 'no tax' is currently being set in Xero in the Amounts Are area, so even though the Item being correctly selected is setting the correct Account code (which has a tax rate pre-selected). I have asked for that to be set to Tax Exclusive for the moment. US residents dealing with multiopple Sales Taxes might like to make comment.

[DynamicIT]

Hi Team,

Development is what I would guess at 75% complete, but I am unable to dedicate any more time to this. If anyone would like to take over this project and working with an offshore developer (or pulling the code and developing in-house), let me know.

My profile will give you enough information to make contact.

Cheers
Mike

[Support Team]

A new RangerMSP-Xero Link module will be introduced at the same time our coming new version will! Stay tuned.

[bigtoneloc]

Thanks CommitCRM/Xero integration would be helpful.

[Support Team]

Our coming new version will introduce a new integration module with Xero!
It is already in Beta and should be released in only a few weeks.

Thanks!