Sharesight’s beautiful Xero integration

A lot of Sharesight clients ask if we’re owned by or somehow part of Xero. We’re not. But the misunderstanding makes sense. We’re both disruptive cloud companies based in Wellington and spend a lot of time out on the road together. The fact that our integration is so seamless might be the real source of the confusion. In a nutshell, the Sharesight + Xero connection means you can do proper investment accounting, automatically.

We’re a “Five Star” Xero Add-On Partner, which means your Sharesight portfolios can be synchronised with Xero. Whether you’re using Xero Cashbook or any sized Xero business plan, all of your investment data will flow through to Xero’s accounting app “automagically.” It’s super easy to connect the two. Just go to Xero Settings within Sharesight and connect by entering your Xero username and password.

Once the accounts are synced, just tell Xero if you’d like to use bank transactions or invoices. Now you’re ready to map your Sharesight investment transactions and income with your personalised chart of accounts in Xero. This means you can track your realised gains, losses, dividends reinvested (DRPs), interest income, franking credits, and much more. The point is, you can tailor your chart of accounts for each type of client and setup the corresponding Xero reports accordingly.

Using Xero Report Packs takes this one step further. Report Packs allow for reusable, special purpose templates. These are especially handy for those with self managed super funds (SMSFs), professional traders, and even the buy and hold long term investor.

From this point on when you (or your clients) make a trade or when you receive a dividend payout, this data will go from the broker to Sharesight to Xero in about two minutes. Sharesight will even show you when the data has been sent through successfully. Just watch the little Xero icon appear and go from grey to blue. It’s satisfying, trust us.

If you’re like a lot of our clients, a good chunk of your day is spent in front of Xero. After all, it’s the engine that underpins your business. Since our sync works even when you’re not logged into Sharesight, you can still see investment activities as they flow through. Have a client who invested in the new OzForex float? Clients that stand to benefit from Westpac’s special dividend? How about a client who turned a quick profit on the Twitter IPO? No problem, we’ve got you covered. We’re not talking about a one line, cryptically coded entry either. Sharesight pushes through all of the execution details. And if you want to investigate a bit more, we’ve added a handy link within each Xero transaction record.

Before the Sharesight and Xero hook-up, investors (and especially accountants) had to play catch up at tax time. Each time an accurate snapshot of capital gains or dividend income was needed, they were forced to wind back the clock and recreate client portfolios. No more. Since Sharesight records trades, corporate actions, and dividends as they happen over the course of a tax year, generating a performance report, capital gains tax report, cash summary, or profit & loss statement is just a couple of clicks away.

Sharesight and Xero gives time back to accountants, financial advisers, and investors. This is time freed up from rote, admin tasks like manually entering portfolio data or tracking down a dividend payment. These precious billable hours can now be applied to forward-looking, discussions like tax planning, estate planning, anything to reassure clients you’re thinking about them strategically.

FURTHER READING

• Blog -- Sharesight is now a Silver Xero Partner & Certified Advisor!
• Help -- Connecting your portfolio to Xero
• Help -- Tracking cash investments using Xero