Xero Integration for Tradies: Automate Your Invoicing

Why Xero?

Xero is the most popular accounting platform for small businesses in Australia, with over 4 million subscribers. Most trade businesses either use Xero already or their accountant has recommended it.

The platform handles GST tracking, BAS preparation, bank reconciliation, and financial reporting. What it doesn't do well is project management, quoting, or job costing — which is exactly where a purpose-built trade platform fills the gap.

The double entry problem

Without integration, your workflow looks like this:

1. Create a quote in your project management tool
2. Win the job, do the work
3. Manually create an invoice in Xero, re-entering all the line items
4. Manually match the Xero contact to your client records
5. Chase payment through Xero
6. Manually update your project as paid

Every manual step is a chance for errors, delays, and lost time. Most tradies spend 2-3 hours per week on this kind of duplicate data entry.

What integration looks like

With a proper Xero integration, the flow becomes:

1. Create a quote in your project management tool
2. Win the job, do the work
3. Click "Create Invoice" — line items, client details, and GST sync to Xero automatically
4. Payment status syncs back to your project management tool

No re-keying. No mismatched records. No chasing your bookkeeper to check if someone paid.

Setting up the integration

Connecting 33 Trade to Xero takes about five minutes:

1. Navigate to Settings > Integrations > Xero
2. Click "Connect to Xero" and authorise access
3. Map your 33 Trade revenue accounts to Xero chart of accounts
4. Choose your default tax rate (usually GST on Income)

Once connected, your client contacts sync automatically and invoices can be pushed to Xero from any completed project.

Getting the most from it

Sync contacts both ways — When you add a new client in 33 Trade, they appear in Xero. When your bookkeeper adds a supplier in Xero, they're available in 33 Trade.

Use project codes — Link Xero tracking categories to 33 Trade projects for detailed job-level profitability reporting in your accounting software.

Automate payment reminders — Let Xero handle payment chasing with automated reminder emails, freeing you to focus on the tools.

Review the dashboard — 33 Trade's profitability reports combine quoted amounts, actual costs, and Xero payment data to show true job profitability — not just revenue.