Synchronising Clients, Staff, Jobs, Time, Tax Returns with Xero Practice Manager

If integrated with Xero Practice Manager (XPM), your Clients, Jobs, Tax Returns, Time and Team are instantly imported from XPM and continuously synchronised with FYI.

Any change in Xero Practice Manager is reflected in FYI. Additionally, certain changes that are made in FYI will be synchronised to update Xero Practice Manager. Synchronisations occur both automatically and manually, covered further below.

For practices on the Elite plan where FYI is the Primary Source of client data, the client sync frequency is different to the frequency described in this article. Refer to Synchronising with Xero Practice Manager where FYI is enabled for Primary Source of Client Data

Verifying your Initial Integration

To verify your initial integration with Xero Practice Manager, refer to the Practice Set Up Checklist in your Verifying your Synchronisations with Xero Practice Manager for the First Time.

Synchronisation Frequency

Automatic Sync

There are two types of automatic synchronisations:

• From Xero Practice Manager to FYI, occurring overnight.
• Changes made in FYI that update Xero Practice Manager are synced to Xero Practice Manager immediately.

Automatic syncs that fail will be reported in the Practice Activity with a message to request a manual sync (refer to Practice Activity). A failure could occur if:

• Xero Practice Manager was down overnight
• The authorization token for your practice has expired and you need to reconnect Xero Practice Manager. Refer to Resetting your connection between FYI and Xero Practice Manager.
• The rate limit that is set by Xero Practice Manager has been reached for your practice.

If there is still an issue after a manual sync, data will sync on the next scheduled automatic sync.

Custom Field Synchronisation

When the overnight job sync runs, it will sync through the standard job fields, i.e. state, budget, description, manager etc. Custom fields are synchronised separately after the overnight job sync itself.

When the overnight sync changes the job state to 'Completed', the Job Custom Fields will only be synchronised again if the Job Details have been modified in the last 48 hours. No other synchronisations will occur for that job. 

Manual Sync

A manual sync from Xero Practice Manager to FYI can also be run, as and when needed.

Note: Jobs will be marked with a 'Pending Sync' tag while waiting for the updates to be synced with Xero Practice Manager. This tag is located beside the Job Name in the Job Summary and prevents updates from being overwritten by a user selecting the Sync from PM button. Once the updates have synced to Xero Practice Manager, the tag will be cleared.

When a manual synchronisation is requested, an entry will be displayed in Practice Activity. Refer to Practice Activity.

FYI is enabled as the Primary Source of Client Data

Practices on the Elite plan can create clients directly in FYI if the user is an FYI Admin or belongs to a group with "Edit Clients" permissions toggled on. Refer to Creating Clients in FYI and Managing User Groups.

When upgrading to the Elite plan and selecting FYI as the Practice Management solution, FYI will be automatically enabled as the Primary Source for Client Data. This means that FYI becomes the point of truth for the client details. To reduce the impact on Xero Practice Manager Rate Limits, the synchronisation frequency with Xero Practice Manager will be adjusted. 

• The synchronisation of fields will change. Some fields will continue to synchronise, while others may not sync as often, or not at all.
• Custom Fields will only be synchronised one-way from FYI to Xero Practice Manager, for both Clients and Jobs.
• A manual synchronisation of Clients can only be performed from the Automation Dashboard by an FYI Admin or a user in a User Group that has Permissions enabled for Automations.

Refer to Synchronising with Xero Practice Manager where FYI is enabled for Primary Source of Client Data and Enabling FYI as Primary Source of Client Data.

Important note:  Once enabled, FYI as Primary for Client Maintenance cannot be disabled, to ensure data integrity is kept at one source location.

Synchronisation Details

The following is a summary of when the event and changes in Xero Practice Manager or FYI are synced.

For information on running a Manual Sync and for additional notes on syncing, refer to Running a Manual Sync with Xero Practice Manager and Additional Notes on Syncing.

Clients

Note: Clients that are archived in Xero Practice Manager before your initial connection to FYI will not sync to FYI.

Users

Jobs

Time

Depending on the XPM Staff Allocation method selected in Practice Settings, additional syncs may be performed when submitting time to ensure the user is assigned to the Job or Task. The option selected will impact the risk of exhausting the Xero Practice Manager Rate Limits

Note: Time Entries created in Xero Practice Manager will not be displayed in Home - My Time.

For users on the Elite plan where FYI has been set as the Practice Management Source, time will not be synchronised with Xero Practice Manager. Refer to Synchronising with Xero Practice Manager where FYI is enabled as the PM Source

Tax Returns

Data not synchronised

The following data is not synchronised between FYI and Xero Practice Manager:

• XPM Leads
• Job Template fields - Job Description and Category
• Clients that are archived in Xero Practice Manager before the initial connection to FYI
• Billing Entity
  Note: for practices on the FYI Elite plan, an alternative solution is to create Billing and Workflow Jobs in FYI, as Workflow Jobs may be assigned to any client in the group.

List of Synchronised Fields

The following fields are synchronised when FYI is not enabled as the Client Maintenance primary source. Refer to Enabling FYI as Primary Source of Client Data.

Job Templates

Job Templates are synchronised from Xero Practice Manager, ensuring consistency and efficiency when creating jobs in FYI.

Due to limitations from Xero Practice Manager, only the following data is synchronised:

• Job Name
• Milestones
• Workflow Jobs
• Costs

The Job Description and Category are not synchronised.