Sending your takings to Xero (and other accounting software)

AesthetiClinic can hand your takings to your bookkeeping without anyone retyping payments. Positive successful payments recorded in AesthetiClinic can be exported in Xero's sales-invoice CSV format. With the direct Xero connection enabled and mapped, eligible documents can be sent automatically. The accounts CSV includes positive successful payments imported into AesthetiClinic, but excludes refunds and entries held only in the previous-system archive. Both live under Settings and both are for clinic owners.

Exporting your invoices

1. Go to Settings → Accounts.
2. Pick a date range (it defaults to the last full month) and click Download CSV.
3. You get one row per successful payment: patient, treatment, the amount you actually collected, and the VAT treatment. Refunds are not included.

Importing into Xero

1. In Xero go to Business → Invoices → Import and upload the file.
2. When asked, choose Tax Inclusive: the amounts are what was collected.
3. The invoices arrive as drafts for you or your accountant to review and approve. Nothing posts to your accounts automatically, so a mistake costs a click, not a corrected VAT return.

VAT is pre-classified for you

Treatments marked medical in your treatment settings export as Exempt Income; cosmetic treatments export as 20% (VAT on Income). If your clinic is not VAT-registered, everything exports as No VAT. Your accountant can adjust any line before approving. The matching summary figures are in Reports → VAT split.

One thing to watch: the CSV treats every row as a sale, so gift voucher and account top-up purchases come through as standard-rated sales rather than as stored value, and a treatment paid from that credit appears as a sale again. If you sell vouchers or take top-ups, have your accountant adjust those lines, or use the direct Xero connection below, which handles them properly. See Gift vouchers and VAT.

Other accounting software

Sage, QuickBooks and FreeAgent all accept invoice CSV imports too; this file uses Xero's import columns, so ask your accountant to check or map them for the software you use. If you use something unusual, send them a sample file; it is plain CSV.

The direct Xero connection

Prefer no monthly export at all? If Connect Xero is available, you can authorise the connection and enable syncing:

1. Go to Settings → Integrations and find the Xero card under Accounting.
2. Click Connect Xero. You are taken to Xero to sign in (if you are not already) and shown a consent screen listing what AesthetiClinic can do: create invoices, credit notes and payments, and read and create contacts. It cannot see your bank feeds or change your settings.
3. Complete Xero's authorisation for the organisation you want to connect. Check that the card shows Connected to the correct organisation before enabling sync.
4. Map your account codes (see below), set the Gift voucher & credit liability account if you sell vouchers or take top-ups, tick the sync checkbox on the Xero card. The default label is Create draft invoices from paid booking reservation fees, although the sync handles other eligible documents too; press Save to enable syncing. Syncing starts from that moment.

A few things worth knowing, in the order your bookkeeper will ask about them:

• Nothing historical is pushed when you first switch it on. Syncing starts from payments taken after that, so connecting can never dump months of old takings into your books. If you later switch it off and on again, payments taken in between are sent.
• Account codes are yours to map. One Sales account code works fine; if your bookkeeper prefers separate codes for Medical revenue, Cosmetic revenue and Retail, set them and each payment lands on the right one.
• Gift vouchers and top-ups need a liability account, set before you enable the sync. Money paid for a voucher isn't revenue yet: it becomes revenue when the voucher is spent. With the Gift voucher & credit liability account set, the sync books it correctly at both ends. While it is blank, voucher and top-up payments are skipped (shown in the sync status) rather than counted twice, and eligible payments skipped for a missing liability account are retried after you fill it in. Linked payments and refunds waiting for their original document are also retried when that document can be sent.
• Drafts by default. Under Create documents as, documents arrive as Draft for your bookkeeper to approve. If they trust the mapping, switch to Authorised and documents post ready-made, with payments applied too for any payment method you've mapped to a Xero account (Card via Stripe, Cash, Card terminal, Bank transfer; a clearing account for card takings makes payout reconciliation one click).
• Refunds arrive as credit notes, so money out never means editing money in. In Authorised mode with the payment method mapped, the credit note also carries a cash refund from the mapped account, so your bank figure in Xero stays right to the penny.
• Check Xero's invoice reminders. If your Xero organisation has invoice reminders switched on, Xero may email patients about any synced document that is awaiting payment. Turn reminders off in Xero (Business → Invoices → Invoice Reminders), or map every payment method so documents arrive already settled.
• Document numbers match. Receipt number 00042 in AesthetiClinic arrives in Xero as AC-00042, so the two systems describe every payment with the same reference. A payment against an invoice uses the invoice's own INV number.
• "Sync now" on the integrations page pushes anything pending immediately; otherwise the sync runs on its own through the day. The last-sync status underneath tells you what went, what was skipped and why; "uncategorised" means a payment with no VAT category, an entry to check with your accountant. Updating the treatment only affects future payments. An uncategorised skip is not automatically re-sent.