Expense Management for Small Businesses Just Got Easier With the Sage Expense Management (formerly Fyle) - Xero Integration

How Does an Expense Management Platform Help Small Businesses using Xero?

While using an accounting software like Xero, a complementary expense management system can make your bookkeeping seamless. Accountants maintain a wide range of records in their accounting software, and it may be difficult to onboard all the employees to this system and train them to use it. Cloud-based expense management software helps small business owners avoid the hassle of keeping track of all their employees’ receipts.

Using an expense management software like Sage Expense Management simplifies this process by giving employees a user-friendly platform and admins a lot of control over employee expenses. By reducing the time and effort it takes for employees to file expenses, the accountant's job becomes easier. They don’t have to run after employees for receipts, run after managers for approvals, and can allow the software to automate compliance, expense categorization, coding, and more.

Sage Expense Management also offers real-time data feeds for existing credit cards, making it easy for accountant to see credit card spend as it happens. Whenever an employee swipes their card, they’re instantly notified via text and submit their receipts by replying to the message. Sage Expense Management automatically matches the receipt to the right transaction, codes expense data, and syncs it to the accounting software.

We also have direct, powerful,2-way integrations with popular accounting software like Xero, QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, and Sage Intacct. With Sage Expense Management, small business owners can easily track all their expenses, get insights into their spending habits, and make sure they are not missing out on any deductions.

How Does Sage Expense Management Integrate With Xero?

Sage Expense Management has a direct, 2-way integration with Xero. It imports data from Xero for employees to use and exports data from our platform to Xero for accountants to use in their books.

Import Data From Xero to Sage Expense Management

The Sage Expense Management-Xero Integration can import all the accounts set up in your Chart of Accounts and other tracking categories like Projects/Customers, Region, etc. These can be mapped to the expense fields in Sage Expense Management for the employees to select while filing expenses. This ensures that the data you collect in Sage Expense Management is coded to the accounting structure you follow in Xero, and you don’t have to manually update any information between the two systems.

If you have a complex set of accounts set up in your Xero account, you can also choose to do a selective import using the Custom Mapping feature in Sage Expense Management. This would mean that your employees can only see a curated list of categories in Sage Expense Management that are relevant to them.

You can also import the tax codes set up in Xero as tax groups in Sage Expense Management. Your employees can choose these from a dropdown while filing their expenses. The respective tax amount is calculated from the gross total according to the tax option chosen by your employee.

Export Expenses From Sage Expense Management to Xero

The integration also exports all the expenses that are approved in Sage Expense Management to Xero. The integration can export reimbursable or out-of-pocket expenses and corporate credit card expenses. Corporate Credit Card expenses are exported as Bank Transactions in Xero, while reimbursable expenses are exported as Purchase Bills. You can either export the expenses to Xero and process the settlements in Xero or pay out the reimbursements via ACH in Sage Expense Management and update the records in Xero.

You can customize how the expenses in Sage Expense Management should be exported to Xero. For example, you can configure the date of a purchase bill for a reimbursable expense in Sage Expense Management to be the date of spend, the date of approval, etc. You can also configure at which stage in Sage Expense Management an expense should be exported to Xero. Depending on your accounting practice or requirement, you can choose to export expenses when they’re approved and in the payment processing state or when they’ve been marked as Paid in Sage Expense Management.

Customize and Automate Your Workflow

Sage Expense Management

also supports some extensive options like posting expenses to the next open accounting period if the accounting period for the respective expense is closed, auto-creating contacts in Xero for an employee whose record is not found, etc.

You can also automate the export of expenses from Sage Expense Management to Xero at regular intervals by setting up a frequency. This would mean that you can just set up the integration, and the integration will take care of the exports on its own.

Stay Up to Date With the Data in Both Sage Expense Management and Xero

You can easily view the data exported from Sage Expense Management to Xero using the export log in the integration. This contains all the key details of a transaction along with a link to an expense’s respective transaction in Sage Expense Management and in Xero. The integration makes tracking a transaction’s relationship easier by sending the Sage Expense Management expense/report ID to the reference field in Xero.

Easily Troubleshoot Export Errors

Sometimes, the integration or Xero might throw some errors when the data is not syncing or when there’s not enough permission for Sage Expense Management to post some information on Xero. These show up on the integration dashboard with details, and you can easily resolve them from the dashboard.

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No-code, Self-serve Setup

See how easy it is to configure and set up the Sage Expense Management-Xero integration. Just map all your field once, and watch us take care of the rest.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Sage Expense Management-Xero Integration

Why Do I Need to Use Sage Expense Management While Already Using Xero as My Accounting Software?

Xero is an accounting platform designed primarily for accountants, whereas Sage Expense Management is an expense management software designed to make the pre-accounting process a breeze for accounting teams. The functionalities offered by Sage Expense Management are easy to learn and adapt for users who are not accounting experts. Sage Expense Management's integration with everyday apps like text messaging, Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc., will ensure that receipt tracking is a breeze. Expenses that are tracked in Sage Expense Management can be directly sent to Xero, simplifying the bookkeeping process. Accountants don’t have to manually code expense related data to Xero, or reconcile credit card transactions using bank statements.

Is My Data Secure With Sage Expense Management?

Sage Expense Management

is committed to securing and encrypting all your account, expenses, card, and employee information. You have complete ownership of your data at all times. We are GDPR compliant and SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 certified. Not satisfied? Read more here.

Will I Get Any Customer Support From Sage Expense Management?

Sage Expense Management's customer success team is available 24x7 and has a  first response time of under 30 minutes. Our support team helps you with onboarding, implementation and an unmatched support experience, from the time you start using Sage Expense Management till you’re with us. Check what our customers say about us here.

How Easy Is It for Employees to Use Sage Expense Management?

Sage Expense Management has an easy to use webapp and mobile app (for both android and iOS users), which can be used to file expenses, submit reports, receive reminders, etc. Apart from this, Sage Expense Management also integrates with simple everyday apps that your employees are already accustomed to. In other words, anybody who’s comfortable using a smartphone or a computer can easily use Sage Expense Management.

Will Sage Expense Management Create Duplicate Transactions in My Xero Account?

You will notice duplicate entries if you are importing expenses to your Xero account from a bank feed while also exporting purchase bills and bank transactions for the same from Sage Expense Management. However, Xero automatically suggests matching transactions that you can easily accept to reconcile. This is similar to any other reconciliation that you’d follow in your accounting process.

Do I Have to Pay Extra for the Sage Expense Management-Xero Integration?

No, the Sage Expense Management-Xero Integration and all its functionalities are a part of all our plans. Check our pricing for more details.