Reconcile via the API
Be able to reconcile bank statement lines via the API.

Hi everyone,
Firstly, apologies – it’s obvious from the continuing comments that we declined this request too hastily and without the explanation it deserved.
We know that reconciling would be a valuable API feature, but reconciling requires fine grained access to bank statement data and unfortunately we’re not able to share that data via the API for commercial reasons.
At Xero we’re passionate about having an open API and providing small businesses with open access to their data. Unfortunately, many of the partners we rely on for statement data don’t share the same ideals.
Hopefully change is coming in the form of open banking. However, it will be a long time before we can openly share statement data via the API and provide a decent reconciliation experience to third-party apps. For that reason we will unfortunately leave this request as ‘declined’.
For the immediate future, we’re busy doing some really cool stuff to improve the in-product experience and automating bank rec as much as we can. We already have bank rules, auto-match, suggestions and cash coding but there’s lots more coming this year.
Again, we apologies for our lack of transparency on this thread. We do value the feedback on UserVoice and have shipped features with over 3000 votes in the last 12 months. We definitely dropped the ball on this one though.
Cheers,
Adam
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Anonymous commented
At SMTAX (www.smtax.co.za). We have a workaround solution to this problem.
The process works similar to the below:
1. Provide us with accountant access to Xero (We are a Gold Xero Partner)
2. Send us the CSV file - you can automate this process.
3. We will reconcile all the payments
4. Notification is sent to you once allocation is completeRegards
SMTAX -
Vangelis Mihalopoulos commented
Try out the Xero Reconcile Robot:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xero-reconcile-robot/omchihoemeblabnbpbamimnopopfllfi
At https://www.yodeck.com we are using Stripe combined with SilverSiphon for automatically importing Stripe transactions into Xero. We get hundreds of transactions each day. With the Xero Reconcile Robot we have made it as easy as it can get to automatically reconcile matching transactions.
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Webbb commented
I think the xero designers may be confused on this request. From the comments, I don't see people wanting to reconcile the bank statment, I think it's the individual payments. Yes, the bank statement should always be done by a human.
I think this request more clearly defines what is needed: https://xero.uservoice.com/forums/5528-xero-accounting-api/suggestions/35787817-reconcile-individual-payments-not-bank-statement
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Anonymous commented
<reconciling requires fine grained access to bank statement data> This is 100% incorrect. All that is needed is the date, amount, and who it's from (contactID), plus the ability to match it with one or many charges. The charges are available in the API already.
Can you please expand your thinking on this? It doesn't make sense and is frustrating the executives in our company as they're continually having to monitor this frustrating manual process. I convinced them to switch to your software and now I look like a complete idiot since you closed this. Ugh!
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Anonymous commented
We have a SAAS product line and Stripe sends a single payout through every day with dozens of payments attached to it. This is increasing for us every month.
Please *PLEASE* reconsider adding this to the API, or at least give me some way to programmatically do this. I cannot fathom paying a team of bookkeepers to sit and match hundreds of payments every single day.
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Vangelis Mihalopoulos commented
At https://www.yodeck.com we are using Stripe and Silversiphon for importing Stripe transactions to our Xero account, so we have tons of transactions that match perfectly. So, we created the "Xero Reconcile Robot" that automatically reconciles a) transactions matching bank rules and b) transactions that perfectly match reference codes with the payment/invoice.
It works perfectly. We will soon publish it on Chrome Web Store for others to use.
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Anonymous commented
+ 1
This was the main reason we were looking to move to Xero so we can reconcile the payments received from Stripe automatically... -
Anonymous commented
Are you serious?!?!
Shopify integration means you get batch payments and the only way to do reconciliation is manually by hand look up what invoices were paid on a certain payout and then manually search for them plus the fees adjustment and perform reconciliation. Thats a ton of effort.Can you explain the "long time before we can openly share statement data via the API" ?
There are records within Xero of bank transactions, ie Shopify payout Sept 1 $2,004.31 and that is all that is needed (with an ID) to then match that to what Shopify states are the related invoices in that payout.For clarity:
- Banks are not permitting you to provide access to our bank records that you're able to import?
- Is this limited to certain banks? I'm with Bank of Melbourne, who do I need to change my bank to so my banking information is my banking information?
- Alternatively, can Xero create the ability to import the Shopify Payouts CSV and do the matching for us?
Regards,
Mark Terrill @ Smartfire BBQ -
Nick Artman commented
Is there not a way to just give like FITID, Memo, and Description, and allow one to even add notes to the transaction?
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Bradley Higgs commented
Bank txn parsing in AU has been a nightmare for decades, I have no idea how other countries do it but the amount of frivolous "busy work" considered "normal" by the industry is ridiculous, not only the monopolising of data but even their in-house data practices, not even providing unique hashing for txn rows, plain text EFT logs, short field date formats in wild configurations mm/dd/yy for example, 6 digit passwords. plain text csv retention for 2 years only.... it's archaic, the equivalent of telegram in the digital age. Took me 6 months of harassing CBA in 2008 to find out that they even HAD a deprecated product for a business to gain access to their own statement data via automation, $1000/m, their own datasec staff suggesting i just scrape Netbank "it's how I do it, it works." bUsInEsS cOnTiNuItY.... May cryptos blow all these gatekeepers to dust.
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Anonymous commented
I would require this feature to move to Xero. As it stands we will end our migration from Sage and sty where we are. Will look into some of the systems mentioned in comments thanks.
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Priyan Rajapaksa commented
If you dropped the ball - time to pick it up
Reconciling is the task that takes time and is so easy to automate
Mybe you do not realise it
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Anonymous commented
For bank uploads I have created a script that simulates a browser window, logs in to Xero, navigates to the right pages and puts the right file in the upload box. Then it logs out.
I guess now I need to make another script that logs in, opens all the "reconcile" pages and clicks the buttons as needed.
Thanks!
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Simon Lampen commented
Thanks for the update Adam, ironically I think you will find that the data in the bank statement is not your partner's to but is actually the user's data. This data ownership issue should be even more evident now with recent GDPR changes etc. So if this is the main reason for not proceeding with this feature, I'd encourage you to fight harder for user's rights. Cheers.
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Chris Dawes commented
Who even reads this forum, or listens to customers in the dev team?
Seems only accountants matter now, even the stripe implementation was a dogs breakfast. and still doesn't reflect the dual rate stripe charge. (1.75% or 2.9%)... #sigh
This makes NO SENSE when accountants have this functionality in the form of a billion checkboxes to bulk reconcile, but forget the end user, they don't matter
We have over a million transactions a year, so we currently had to rewite a lot of Xero into our own app so we can reconcile EXTERNALLY.
You guys are a joke for not implementing this.
We have the option of HACKING the ajax calls to implement this ourselves, or moving to MYOB, who have this, as do sassu.
seems your product manage spends too much time smoking pot and not WORKING.
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Alexey Novikov commented
+1
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Anonymous commented
wow, this is one of the top ideas to implement and you just ignoring it?
great customer support ;) -
Stephen Mount (stemount) commented
The ability to reconcile transactions with the API is essential for Xero, it is one of the features that is most useful I imagine for a lot of companies.
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Simon Lampen commented
I think you should re-consider allowing reconciliation via the API. I'm sure your reticence would be around allowing regular users to not have to interact with the UI, however with so many integrations that use payment gateway (stripe, payment express, chargify....) you get a many to one relationship where 1 payment needs to be reconciled against many invoices and this is a major productivity block. Xero claims to support over 1000 invoices per month, I don't want my staff manually reconciling 50+ invoices per business day when the data to reconcile them is already available else where. Please reconsider allowing reconciliation via the API for use-cases like this.
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Anonymous commented
We would definitely use this feature. Xero developers, please re-consider this.