SMS Enable Your Xero Accounting System In 7 Easy Steps

This article will show you how to send SMS reminders for your Xero generated invoices using directSMS’ Zappier app. If you’ve used Zapier before, this should be a very easy process. If not, we’ve included some screen grabs to make your life a lot easier.

Once you’ve set up your Zapier and directSMS accounts using the instructions in our earlier post about the new directSMS’ Zappier app going live, you need to follow the following steps to add SMS to Xero.

The example below shows you how to trigger an SMS whenever a new Invoice is created and marked as “authorised” in Xero to mimic a real world use case.

Step 1 – Select trigger and action

So the first step is to click on the button marked “Make Zap”. From there, you need to search for the trigger application. In this case, we’re looking for “Xero”. Once that is found, you want to pick one of the events that this piece of integration will trigger on. In this case, we’re going to trigger whenever a new Invoice is created in Xero.

Likewise, we need to search for the action application. In this case, we’re looking for “directSMS”. Once this is found, we want to pick the “Send SMS” action.

We now have the beginning of a zap (integration) that will run whenever a new Invoice is created in Xero and will send out an SMS as a result.

Step 2 – Add Xero account

Here we add the Xero account credentials. Xero will ask you to enter your username and password and to grant the Zapier platform the required permissions to interact with your Xero account. Click Test Account to ensure the configuration works.

Step 3 – Add directSMS account

Here we select our directSMS account. If you haven’t added one before, the system will require your directSMS username and password. These are the same credentials you use to log onto directSMS’ customer portal.

Please note, you need to have API access enabled on your account. Please see the instructions in this article  if you have any errors when you click Test Account.

Step 4 – Add a filter on the Xero trigger

We now want to add a filter (optional) to ensure only Invoices which have been authorised will trigger this integration.

Step 5 – Configure the outgoing SMS

Now… We need to map the fields from this new Invoice into an outgoing SMS message. The fields on the screen here should be very similar to the Send SMS screen on our Web 2 SMS portal.

We’re going to merge some fields from the Invoice record in Xero into a template message and then we’re going to send the SMS to the Contact phone number behind the invoice

All this depends on the data stored in Xero being accurate and well formatted.

Step 6 – Test your new zap

Do some testing. Zapier will pull back some test data from Xero (if it finds data matching your filter settings). Pick a test case and give it a try… Or not. Remember, someone will be getting an SMS if it works.

Step 7 – Save the zap and activate it

Give the zap a name and activate it. That’s it. You are done.

Now… Go do some testing.

Considerations

Please see Zapier’s documentation for the best way to debug any issues. The vast majority of issues boil down to bad data.You have to remember that all this integration is relying on the data in your Xero instance being present, correct and well formatted. The old saying of garbage in, garbage out applies.