Shopify to Xero Integration for NZ and AU Stores: Your Options

If you sell on Shopify and keep your books in Xero, you will want the two to talk to each other. Typing sales into Xero by hand does not scale, and a month-end that does not reconcile is a bad way to spend an evening. This guide is for New Zealand and Australian store owners. It covers what needs to move from Shopify to Xero, the main ways to do it, the GST points to watch, and when a custom integration makes sense.

For the books to be right, four things usually need to reach Xero:

• Sales: either each order as its own entry, or a daily summary. Daily summaries keep Xero tidy when you have many small orders.
• Payouts: what the payment provider actually deposits in your bank is not the same as sales. The bank feed shows one deposit; Xero needs to match it to the sales behind it.
• Fees: payment processing and platform fees come out before the deposit. They are an expense and need to be recorded.
• Refunds and GST: refunds reduce sales and GST, and they need to land in the right period, or the books stop reconciling.

Xero lists a Shopify integration on its App Store, published by Xero, which it says "is free on all Xero plans". The listing says: "It syncs sales, payouts, fees and taxes from Shopify into Xero so your books stay up-to-date." It says you can choose a daily summary or separate transactions for each sale. Check the listing for the countries and Shopify plans it supports in your case before you rely on it.

Apps such as A2X and Link My Books are built around the payout. Each describes its approach on its own site:

• A2X says it turns Shopify payout data into "detailed summaries that reconcile seamlessly in Xero", and can account for "taxes, GST, and VAT collected on Shopify". It creates a separate entry for each payment gateway on your store, and its page says you "will just need to account for any fees payment gateways have charged you in Xero".
• Link My Books says that each time you receive a payout from Shopify Payments it generates a summary invoice "breaking down all the sales, refunds, fees and most importantly the taxes", which "matches exactly the deposit you received into the bank".

Both are described here as their own sites describe them. Pricing, supported countries and gateway coverage change, so check each vendor's current pages and trial before you commit.

For a handful of orders a month, exporting from Shopify and importing into Xero can be enough. It stops working when volume grows or when more than one payment method is involved.

See the section below.

• Match the accounting basis: Xero's Australian guide explains that on a cash basis you include GST on sales when you receive payment, and on an accrual basis when you issue an invoice. It says you can switch methods, but it is best done at the start of a new financial year, and to talk to your accountant. Make sure how your integration posts sales fits the basis your GST registration uses.
• Fees are separate from sales: whichever route you choose, confirm where payment fees end up. As A2X's page notes, fees from some gateways may still need to be accounted for in Xero yourself.
• Refunds need their own treatment: a refund should reduce sales and GST in the right period. Test a refund before you go live.
• Multiple payment gateways: a store that takes cards, PayPal and buy-now-pay-later will have several payouts that each need matching.
• The customer's GST invoice is a different job: what you send the buyer must meet the tax invoice rules in your country. See our guides for Australia and New Zealand.

Our own app, NullGlitch Tax Invoices, produces the GST tax invoice for the customer (and credit notes, called adjustment notes in Australia). It generates PDF documents, one per order or a ZIP for a date range, and matches Shopify's own GST figures. It does not replace an accounting sync. As described on its page, it creates documents; getting your sales, payouts and fees into Xero is a separate piece of work, and you would still use one of the routes above for that.

Off-the-shelf options cover most stores. A custom integration starts to make sense when:

• You have an unusual setup, such as several stores feeding one Xero organisation, or an inventory or shipping system that also needs to talk to Xero.
• You need data in Xero that the standard options do not carry, such as custom fields, tracking categories or your own account mapping.
• You want a report or alert that combines Shopify and Xero data, for example unpaid invoices next to recent orders.
• You have tried an off-the-shelf app and the remaining manual work still takes hours each month.

We build custom connectors and integrations against a system's documented API. Each one is scoped in writing before work starts and billed at NZ$120 an hour. Connections are read-only by default, and anything that writes data, such as creating a record in Xero, is scoped separately and needs your sign-off. We confirm what the API allows before we quote, and we will tell you if one of the apps above already does the job.