What the connection does
Connecting Xero lets each of your customers see their own invoices and the money they've paid you, inside your branded portal. They can download a PDF of each invoice, so they stop asking you for copies.
The connection is read-only. PORTALD never creates, edits or deletes anything in Xero.
For what your customers see, and how to set it up, see Invoices from Xero.
How data moves
Your Xero organisation
Contacts, sales invoices and money received stay in Xero.
PORTALD
Reads them when a page is opened. Stores only which customer is which Xero contact.
Your customer's portal
Each customer sees only the invoices and payments for their own Xero contact.
What PORTALD reads from Xero
- Contacts, so you can match each customer in PORTALD to their contact in Xero.
- Sales invoices that are approved or paid: number, dates, total, amount paid, amount due, currency and status. A PDF copy is fetched only when someone opens it. Drafts and voided invoices are never shown.
- Money received from a contact (Receive Money transactions): amount, date, description and reference.
When you connect, Xero asks you to allow these permissions, and no others:
accounting.contacts.read: read contactsaccounting.invoices.read: read invoicesaccounting.banktransactions.read: read money receivedoffline_access: stay connected without you signing in to Xero every time
PORTALD does not read bills, payroll, bank balances, reports or anything else in your Xero organisation.
What PORTALD keeps
- The name and ID of the Xero organisation you connected.
- The connection's access keys, encrypted, so PORTALD can read on your behalf.
- Which customer is matched to which Xero contact: the contact's ID, name and number.
- An activity log of who connected, disconnected or changed a match, and when.
Invoice and payment details are read from Xero when a page is opened and are not saved in PORTALD's database. They are held in memory for up to 30 seconds so a busy page doesn't ask Xero twice.
Who can see what
- Only the workspace owner can connect, switch or disconnect Xero. They need two-step sign-in turned on first, or to have signed in with Xero.
- Owners and admins can match customers to Xero contacts and see invoice totals on Home and Money. Team members with the Member role don't see Xero figures.
- Each customer sees only the invoices and payments for the Xero contact matched to them, and only after signing in to your portal. A customer with no match sees no financial information.
How to disconnect
From PORTALD (owner only):
- 1Go to Settings → Xero.
- 2Choose Disconnect from Xero and confirm.
PORTALD removes its access keys, the customer matches and anything it had cached, and tells Xero to end the connection. Customers stop seeing invoices straight away. If Xero can't be reached at that moment, PORTALD says so and asks you to finish in Xero, below.
From Xero:
- 1In Xero, open Settings and then Connected apps.
- 2Find PORTALD and choose Disconnect.
PORTALD notices the next time it tries to read from Xero. It marks the connection as needing attention and emails the workspace owner.
Good to know
- Each PORTALD workspace connects to one Xero organisation. If your Xero login reaches several, choose one in Settings → Xero. Switching clears the customer matches, because contacts belong to one organisation.
- Invoices show in their own currency.
- PORTALD can show up to 1,000 invoices per customer. A customer with more sees a message instead of a partial list.
- The Xero connection is included in every plan. See Questions and answers for more.
- Xero is a trademark of Xero Limited. PORTALD is independent software operated by IT BOFFINS LTD. PORTALD is not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Xero.