Description
Xero has been defined as Master data source for Service and Other purchase invoices.
- Service Purchase Invoices are referring to the utility bills: Internet, Phone, electricity, gas etc.
- Other Purchase Invoices are instead all of those costs that are not referring to a Recurring Supplier.
Both typologies of invoices need to be synchronised from Xero to InforLN; they both generate Purchase Invoices into InforLN but they are assigned to different typologies of Suppliers depending on their nature.
Logic
As mentioned, there are two types of Purchase invoices that need to be Synchronised from Xero to InforLN: Service Purchase Invoice and Other Purchase invoices. Even if there is no difference between Service and Other purchase invoices in term of structure, they need to be assigned to Suppliers in a different way.
- Recurring Suppliers: when the Service or Other Xero Purchase Invoices are created, they mandatorily need to be assigned to a Contact.
Currently, Linea Light UK creates these and assign custom Contact names for example “Federico Rossi Expenses” or “McDonalds”; these custom Suppliers don’t exist in InforLN and they should not be created either, these are falling under the definition of “Other”.
“Service” contacts instead, do exist in InforLN for example “Voipfone”; splitting between Service - Service Purchase Invoices: transferred from Xero to InforLN, these are the invoices mainly (but not necessarily) generated using a third-party software: receipt bank. They refer to utility bills or recurring services and they are created against Recurring Suppliers. If a purchase invoice is created in Xero against a Recurring Supplier, then it is automatically considered as a service invoice.
- Other Purchase Invoices: Similar to the previous ones, these purchase invoices are instead created in Xero to collect occasional lunches, transports, employees’ expenses and similar; basically, all of those costs that are not related to a Recurring Supplier. These will then need to be synchronised back to InforLN by the Connector and need to have specific ledger codes assigned in Xero (see ledger codes below).
Service and Other Purchase Invoices Structure
InforLN SOAP endpoint allows to save Purchase Invoices and related Credit notes. The difference between Service and Other Purchase Invoices is just in the Supplier Business Partner (Supplier Contact) definition.
- Business Partner: as seen, if the business partner exists in InforLN the invoice is considered “Service” invoice, “Other” otherwise. This simple logic is all integrated in the InforLN endpoint.
The only issue to pay attention for is the InforLN incapacity to match a Business Partner by similarity rather than exact name and indeed the invoice itself wants the BP unique id field populated. Where it is not populated, it is considered as a “Other” invoice. For this reason, Stellarise Connector should preserve a copy of all the suppliers contained in InforLN, so to match the correct InforLN one using the information contained in Xero: the Contact Number field or the Contact Name in fuzzy search if the first does not exist. - Invoice Names: The original Invoice Name taken from Xero
- Invoice Lines: almost all the fields are taken from Xero as they are. The fields that don’t follow this rule are listed as follows:
- Item Code: no item code is used. If specified, it is then ignored during the import in InforLN.
- Ledger Code: Ledger code are mapped one to one with the InforLN ones, exploiting the User Interface mapping. If there is no mapping, then the default fallback can be used.
- Tax Amounts: amount calculated by Xero. The Tax Codes needs to be passed as well. These are mapped one to one with the InforLN ones, exploiting the User Interface mapping. If there is no mapping, then the default fallback can be used.
- Invoice Lines Amounts: InforLN always considers unit and line amounts as unit prices. This means that depending on whether the Xero invoice is set up as ‘Amounts are Tax Exclusive’ or ‘Amounts are Tax Inclusive’, when transferring the invoice to InforLN, there should always be the split between price and tax; it is not possible to create in InforLN a tax-inclusive amount.
- Invoice Lines ledger codes and Tax Rates: Through the Stellarise UI it is possible to define a custom Map between all the other ledger codes / tax rates between InforLN and Xero. If a Ledger Code / Tax Rate mapping between the two systems exists, then the related ledger code is used, otherwise the default is always correct fallback.
- Credit Notes: InforLN credit notes are basically Invoices with a negative sign; they follow the same logic as per Service and Other Purchase Invoices.
Possible caveats
As previously mentioned, InforLN does not allow to amend a record marked as “Registered”. For this reason, only “Approved” Xero records are synchronised and created.
If, later on, a change is made on an approved Xero Purchase Invoice, the change will not be propagated to InforLN since this last does not support amendments after the “registration” phase.