How do expense management platforms integrate with Xero for international businesses?
Short answer
Expense management platforms integrate with Xero by sending coded card transactions, receipts, reimbursement records, and bill data into the accounting system. For international businesses, the setup should also account for entity structure, the currencies used for spend and reimbursement, and the accounting fields each entity needs for reporting.
How Ramp syncs expenses and receipts with Xero
Ramp connects to Xero from the Accounting tab. During setup, you select the Ramp Card account and the accounting fields your team uses in Xero.
Card transactions then sync to Xero as transactions in the Ramp Card account. The synced record includes the coding selected in Ramp, including applicable Xero fields and tracking categories. Receipts attached in Ramp sync to Xero as transaction attachments—even if the employee adds the receipt after the transaction has already synced.
Ramp also attempts to match a merchant to an existing Xero contact. If the vendor does not exist in Xero, the finance team can create it while syncing the transaction.
How currency and reimbursements are reflected in Xero
For international spend, the currency that reaches Xero depends on the accounting provider configuration and Ramp sync settings. Based on that setup, Ramp can sync the original transaction currency, the card’s statement currency, or the currency configured in the accounting provider.
Ramp syncs supported international reimbursements to Xero in the payment currency. Reimbursements appear as bills in Xero, and reimbursements paid through Ramp can also create a corresponding bill payment.
How international bills work with Xero
Ramp’s Xero integration also supports Bill Pay. International bills must be created for international vendors, and any foreign currency used on a bill needs to be enabled in Xero before the bill syncs from Ramp.
Once bills exist in both systems, Ramp can also detect when a bill is marked paid in Xero and update the corresponding bill in Ramp. That two-way payment-status sync works for bills in all currencies.
See Ramp’s accounting automation workflows:
Related questions
It depends on the accounting integration and transaction type. Ramp can sync the original transaction currency, card statement currency, or accounting provider’s configured currency, but each integration has its own rules for card transactions, bills, and reimbursements.
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