Invoicing with Xero

You create invoices from the placement record. Spott sends each invoice to Xero as a draft, ready for your finance team to review, approve and send from Xero. This needs the Xero integration connected and your pay codes synced. Once an invoice is in Xero, its status comes back to the placement, as described under Track invoice status.

Invoice a contingent placement

1. Open the placement and click New invoice under Quick Actions, or + New invoice in the Invoices section.
2. Provider: select Xero.
3. Recipient: Spott selects the placement’s company. Switch to Contact if you bill a person instead.
4. Xero organisation: only shown when more than one organization is connected. Spott preselects the primary organization if the company already has a Xero contact there, otherwise an organization where it has one, otherwise the primary. Settle it before the Xero contact and line items, because changing it clears both. It cannot be changed once the invoice is created.
5. Xero contact: the first time you invoice a company in an organization, pick its matching Xero contact and confirm Link. Spott remembers the link for every future invoice to that company in that organization, so you will not see this step again. The link cannot be undone, so double-check the contact before you confirm.
6. Click Next and check the invoice details:
   • Invoice date and Due date, both required.
   • Currency, taken from the placement. Spott does not convert between currencies.
   • Line items: choose a pay code, from those of the invoice’s Xero organization, and Spott fills in the description. Set Units and Unit cost. For a one-off placement fee, units is usually 1 and unit cost is the placement’s total fee.
7. Click Create. The invoice appears in the placement’s Invoices table with status Draft and provider Xero.

While an invoice is a draft, you can edit it from the ⋮ menu on its row, except for its Xero organization. Your changes sync to the draft in Xero. The invoice history is kept in Xero, not in Spott.

Invoice a retained search

Retained searches are invoiced per milestone, so you can bill each stage as it is reached. The milestones come from the fee structure on the job, set up as described under retained placements.

1. Open the retained search and click New invoice.
2. Under What would you like to invoice?, tick the milestones to include, for example only Shortlist for the first payment. Each shows its percentage and amount.
3. Click Next and continue with provider, recipient, Xero organization, Xero contact and line items, as for a contingent placement.
4. Click Create. The draft appears under the search’s Invoices.

Invoice a contract placement from timesheets

For contract placements, you invoice the time actually worked. Each placement needs a rate card, and you invoice its approved timesheets. Setting up rate cards and logging, submitting and approving timesheets is covered in Timesheets, since none of it depends on Xero.

1. Click New invoice on the placement. Under What would you like to invoice?, choose Specific timesheets and tick the ones to bill. Only Approved timesheets can be ticked; the others say “Only approved timesheets can be invoiced.” To bill a single timesheet, you can also click + New invoice in the Invoice column of its row.
2. Confirm provider, recipient, Xero organization and Xero contact, as for any other invoice.
3. Spott fills in the line items from the timesheets: pay code, description, units worked and unit cost. Lines are split by rate, so standard and overtime hours appear separately.
4. Click Create. Each timesheet on the invoice now links to the new draft.

Several timesheets can go on one invoice, so a month of weekly timesheets can be billed together.

Invoice the placement as a whole

Choose Placement instead of Specific timesheets and Spott suggests a single line for the whole placement: the charge rate times the estimated units, worked out from the working schedule and the start and end dates, or 1 unit when the placement has no end date. It does not look at the hours actually logged, so check the line and edit it before you click Create.

Track invoice status

Once an invoice is pushed to Xero, Spott keeps its invoice number and status in sync. Each invoice’s status in Spott follows its progress in Xero. Updates can take a minute or two to appear and may need a page refresh. Once an invoice leaves Draft, finance handles it in Xero. Changes made there, such as a corrected tax rate or amount, do not sync back to Spott yet. Only the status and invoice number do.

Frequently asked

• Can I record a payment in Spott? No. Record payments in Xero, and Spott updates the invoice to Paid.
• The Xero contact I need is not in the list. Create the contact in Xero first, then open the invoice again. Creating Xero contacts from Spott is not available yet.
• A pay code is missing. Ask an admin to click Sync pay codes under Settings → Templates → Rate Card Templates → Pay Codes. If it is still missing, check that the item exists in Xero.
• Can I link more than one Xero organization? Yes. An admin can connect up to 10, for example one per legal entity, with Connect another organisation on the Xero integration page. Each invoice goes to the organization you pick in the New invoice dialog. See Connect your Xero organizations.