Tag - Xero

Xero Agent that turned hours of finance back-and-forth into minutes
Agentic-AI
Xero Agent that turned hours of finance back-and-forth into minutes
Lakshya Jain
Mar 17, 2026

A professional services client had a clear idea: finance teams and business stakeholders spend too much time finding answers in Xero instead of acting on them. We took ownership of the solution end-to-end - design, development, security model, and go-to-market - delivering a Finance Agent for Xero that works inside Microsoft Teams and can also be used as an extension point for Microsoft 365 Copilot experiences, so users can ask questions where they already work. The challenge (pain points in real operations) As the client scaled, finance operations didn’t just get “busier”—they got noisier and slower, because many business-critical answers lived behind manual steps and finance-team dependency: Hours lost in coordination: Business users (project managers, sales ops, leadership) needed frequent answers—“Which bills are pending?”, “What’s overdue?”, “Did this invoice go out?”, “What’s the latest P&L?”. The only reliable path was messaging the finance team, waiting for someone to check Xero, clarifying filters, and repeating the loop—often consuming hours end-to-end for what should be a quick question. Manual filtering and inconsistent results: Invoices and bills were searched by multiple criteria (date ranges, contacts, status, amounts, references). Different people used different filter combinations, so results could vary, creating rework and follow-up questions. Draft categorization bottleneck: Draft bills required coding/categorization before review and approval. During peak periods, drafts piled up, approvals slowed down, and finance had to spend time fixing categorization inconsistencies. Reporting delays for stakeholders: Leadership wanted near-instant Profit & Loss visibility and “attainment-style” performance views, but reports still required manual pull, formatting, and explanation—creating delays in meetings and decision cycles. Adoption risk from sign-in friction: Any solution that forces frequent reconnects fails in practice. Xero OAuth also has real constraints (refresh tokens can expire if unused, and refresh responses can include a new refresh token that must be stored), so token handling had to be designed for reliability.?   What we built (tailored solution, delivered end-to-end) We designed the agent around actual finance requests and approval behaviors, not around technical endpoints. 1) Secure tenant connection with uninterrupted access Users connect their Xero tenant with OAuth 2.0, which allows an app to access Xero data via permission scopes after user approval (without needing the user’s password).? Because Xero access tokens expire quickly (30 minutes), we designed the agent to refresh access automatically to keep the Teams/Copilot experience uninterrupted.   2) Natural-language finance operations (self-serve answers) Inside Teams (and surfaced through Copilot extensibility patterns), users can ask in plain language and get results in minutes: Invoices & bills retrieval using conversational filters (who, when, status, amount, references). Profit & Loss on demand using Xero’s reporting endpoints (including Profit & Loss support), so stakeholders can pull the view they need without waiting on finance.? Profit and revenue attainment views based on the organization’s tracking logic—delivering “decision-ready” outputs rather than raw tables.   3) Automated draft categorization with human review To remove the biggest operational choke point while keeping governance intact: When a bill is in Draft, the agent applies predefined categorization logic and proposes the coding. It then posts the recommendation back to chat for approve/reject, so finance retains control while eliminating repetitive preparation work.   Real-world impact (what changed after rollout) From hours to minutes: Before the agent, users often spent hours coordinating with finance to get invoice/bill answers and report snapshots. After rollout, many of those requests were completed in minutes through the agent in Teams—reducing finance dependency and speeding decisions. Efficiency gains across the finance workflow: Finance teams spent less time on repetitive lookups and pre-approval preparation, and more time on review, exceptions, and higher-value analysis. Improved consistency and reduced rework: Standardized categorization recommendations plus the approve/reject step reduced variability in coding and cut down on “fix it later” cleanups. Higher satisfaction and adoption: A consistent “ask in Teams / Copilot, get an answer” experience improved trust and usage, while explicit consent ensured the access model stayed enterprise-friendly.? Value beyond one tenant: Publishing to the Teams Store made these workflow improvements accessible to a broader audience of Xero users facing the same operational friction.

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From Accounting to Analytics: Extending Xero Reporting with Power BI
Business-Intelligence
From Accounting to Analytics: Extending Xero Reporting with Power BI
Riddhi Shah
Mar 13, 2026

Many organizations use Xero as their primary accounting system and rely on its built-in reports for financial review. While these reports are accurate and reliable, they are designed for basic financial visibility, not for deeper analytics or visual exploration.  At MagnusMinds, we worked with a client who wanted to move beyond traditional accounting reports and gain clear, visual, decision-ready insights from their financial data without disrupting existing accounting processes.  The Reporting Limitation We Identified  The client was already using Xero effectively for accounting. However, their reporting workflow revealed a familiar pattern:  Financial reports were reviewed in tabular format  Limited visualization made trend analysis difficult  Comparing performance across periods required manual effort  Insights depended heavily on interpretation rather than visuals  The challenge wasn’t data accuracy it was how that data was being consumed.  Our Approach: Extending, Not Replacing Xero  Rather than extracting raw accounting transactions and recreating financial logic externally, we designed a solution that respected Xero as the system of record.  Our focus was on extending Xero’s reporting, not rebuilding it.  What We Did  1. Leveraged Xero’s Native Reports  We identified Xero’s financial reporting APIs as the most reliable source for analytics-ready data. This allowed us to work with figures that already aligned with Xero’s Profit & Loss and other financial statements.  2. Built a Custom API Integration  We implemented a custom API layer to extract financial report data from Xero automatically. This eliminated the need for manual exports and ensured consistent, repeatable data retrieval.  3. Structured the Data for Analytics  The extracted data was transformed into a clean, structured format suitable for Power BI. We kept the model intentionally lightweight to avoid unnecessary complexity.  4. Enabled Advanced Visualisation in Power BI  With accurate financial data available, we built interactive Power BI dashboards that introduced:  Profit & Loss visualisations with monthly and quarterly trends Revenue and expense breakdowns by account category and reporting period Comparative Profit & Loss views across financial periods Net profit and margin analysis with visual indicators Operating expense analysis aligned to Xero chart of accounts Period-over-period variance analysis for income and expenses Executive summary dashboards reflecting Xero’s financial statements at a glance All without altering the underlying accounting logic.  The Impact of Our Work  The solution delivered immediate and measurable benefits:  Financial reports became visually intuitive and easier to interpret  Manual reporting effort was significantly reduced  Data consistency with Xero was preserved  Leadership gained faster access to actionable insights  Reporting scaled effortlessly as business needs evolved  Most importantly, the client moved from reviewing numbers to understanding performance.  Why This Approach Works  Accounting systems and analytics platforms serve different purposes. By clearly separating responsibilities Xero for accounting and Power BI for analytics we avoided unnecessary risk and complexity.  Our approach ensured:  Accuracy was never compromised  Reporting remained flexible and scalable  Analytics evolved without impacting accounting operations  From Accounting to Analytics  This demonstrates how organisations can unlock greater value from existing accounting systems. With the right integration strategy, basic financial reports can be transformed into powerful analytical assets.  At MagnusMinds, we help organisations bridge the gap from accounting to analytics, turning trusted financial data into meaningful business insight.   

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