Sharesight Help Centre

Xero Synchronisation

Introduction

Xero is a market leading online accounting system. Sharesight has partnered with Xero in order to provide a seamless solution between portfolio management and portfolio accounting. Learn more about Xero at www.xero.com.

The Xero Synchronisation feature allows you to connect your portfolio to your Xero account. This allows you to send details of share purchases, sales, and dividends to Xero as draft invoices, which can then approved for inclusion in your financial accounts and used to reconcile against your bank account.

Before you begin

These instructions assume that you have a Xero subscription. To sign up for Xero, please visit www.xero.com.

In your Xero chart of accounts you need to have an account set up for each of the following items:
-Franked Dividends (Revenue Account)
-Unfranked Dividends (Revenue Account)
-Realised Gains/Losses (Revenue Account)
-Franking Credits (Current Asset Account and contra Revenue Account)
-TFN Withholding Tax (Current Asset Account)
-Non-Resident Withholding Tax (Current Asset Account)
-Share Market Investments (Asset Account)
-Brokerage (Expense Account, Optional: brokerage can be reconciled to your Share market investments asset account if you wish to include brokerage as part of the cost base of the asset)

Setting up Xero synchronisation in Sharesight

1. Click settings, then ‘Xero Synchronisation’ for the portfolio that you wish to connect.

2. Click the ‘Connect to Xero’ button. This will direct you to log into you Xero account and authorise access to Sharesight. You’ll be redirected back to Sharesight when you’re finished.

3. Map the following items to the appropriate account from your Xero organisation’s chart of accounts:
    Franked Dividends => Revenue
    Unfranked Dividends => Revenue
    Realised Gains / Losses => Revenue
    Franking Credits => Current Asset account and contra Revenue account
    TFN Withholding Tax => Current Asset
    Non-Resident Withholding Tax => Current Asset
    Share Market Investments => Asset
    Brokerage => Expense

4. Configure Synchronisation Settings
The following additional settings are available:

Synchronise using Invoices or Bank Transactions
For most customers we recommend synchronising via invoices. Choose Bank Transactions if using ‘Xero Small’ to avoid invoice limits.

Send invoices in ‘draft’ status
Draft invoice require an additional approval step in Xero before they are included in your accounts.

Send invoices in unconverted currency
Sharesight won’t convert foreign currency transactions where the currency is supported by your Xero Organisation (this option is only available if your Xero account supports multi-currency)

Synchronise trades received via Sharesight Connect
Trades received via Sharesight Connect will be automatically Synchronised to Xero.

Synchronise trades received by Contract note emails
Trades created by the broker email import function will be automatically Synchronised to Xero.

Synchronise corporate actions automatically
System generated dividends and Return of Capital payments will be automatically Synchronised to Xero on their paid date.

Synchronising your portfolio with Xero

Once Xero synchronisation is configured, a tick box will appear on the add and edit screens for trades and dividends. To send the trade or dividend record to Xero, simply select the tick box and then click the ‘Save’ button. When you edit a trade or dividend in Sharesight, you’ll see an option to synchronise any modifications to Xero (you can disable this option by unchecking the box if you don’t want to re-synchronise the data). If the transaction has been reconciled in Xero, the option to synchronise to Xero will be disabled as it’s not possible to update a transaction that has been reconciled.

Synchronisation indicator

A synchronisation icon provides live feedback of the synchronisation status:
= Synchronisation in progress

= Synchronisation completed successfully

= Synchronisation failed (hover over the icon to view the error message)