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

From the moment you sign up to FYI, your Clients, Jobs, Tax Returns and Team are instantly imported from Xero Practice Manager and continuously synchronised with FYI. Any change in Xero Practice Manager is reflected in FYI.

Additionally, certain changes that are made in FYI will update Xero Practice Manager and these are are synced immediately. For example, when Time entries are entered in FYI, when changes are made to the State, Manager or Partner in Jobs, these are synchronised to Xero Practice Manager.

This ensures that Xero Practice Manager continues to be your single source of truth for client information.

Note: There have been changes to the way Xero Practice Manager does synchronisation.
If you are having problems with the sync, especially with Custom Fields, please contact the FYI Support Team at support@fyidocs.com.
Where possible make changes in FYI, for example, make changes to Job States in FYI.

This article contains the following sections:

• Automatic Sync
• Manual Sync
• Summary of Synchronisation
• Running a Manual Sync with Xero Practice Manager
• Option to Maintain Jobs in FYI
• Running a Sync from the Clients or Jobs List
• Additional Notes on Syncing
  • Clients
  • Archived Clients
  • Client Contacts
  • Client Custom Fields
  • Users (Staff)
  • Jobs
  • Job Category
  • Jobs States
  • Tasks for the Jobs
  • Time
  • Tax Returns
• Verifying your Initial Integration

The Sync occurs in the following ways:

Automatic Sync

The following are automatic syncs:

• A sync from Xero Practice Manager to FYI occurs automatically overnight.
• Changes made in FYI that update Xero Practice Manager are synced to Xero Practice Manger immediately.

Manual Sync

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

• An FYI Administrator can run this for Clients, Jobs, Users (Staff) and Tax Returns from the Automation dashboard. Refer below to Running a Manual Sync with Xero Practice Manager.
• All users can run this for Clients using the Sync button on the Clients list.
• Providing the Maintain Jobs in FYI is set as "Off" in the Xero Practice Manager app, all users can run a sync for Jobs using the Sync button on the Jobs list or Client - Jobs tab in the Client workspace.
• Refer below to Running a Sync from the Clients or Jobs List.

Important Note: With its move to the new oAuth, Xero has introduced restrictions on the synchronisation with FYI. This means that, in certain scenarios, it may take more than 24 hours to sync data from Xero Practice Manager to FYI.

Our engineers are aware of this, and working urgently to develop a better solution.

Summary of Synchronisation

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

See also Additional Notes on Syncing below for additional information.

Note: Leads that are set up in Xero Practice Manager sync through to FYI as a Client.

Running a Manual Sync with Xero Practice Manager

A manual sync can be performed by an FYI administrator if a Client, Job, User or Tax Return has been added or changed in Xero Practice Manager and needs to be available in FYI straight away.

1. From FYI, click the Automation menu option.
2. Go to the Apps tab.
3. In Xero Practice Manager, click the cog icon to edit this process.
   
   
   
   
4. Click on Sync.
   
   
   The XPM Integration pop-up displays.
   
   
5. Click on the Sync Clients, Sync Staff, Sync Jobs or Sync Tax Returns button to select what data you wish to manually sync from Xero Practice Manager.
   
   

Note: In the Xero Practice Manager app, if the Sync has paused because the request quota associated with your XPM connection has been exhausted, this displays "Sync Paused until". This shows the date and time that the quota will refresh and when the Sync will resume.

Option to Maintain Jobs in FYI

In the Xero Practice Manager app, an FYI administrator can set the option Maintain Jobs in FYI as "On". Setting this "On" disables the Sync button in the Jobs list and in Client - Jobs tab in Client workspace. This ensures that any changes mades to Jobs in FYI, such as the Job State, are not updated back to the original state in Xero Practice Manager if a manual Job Sync is requested before the change in FYI has been updated to Xero Practice Manager.

Running a Sync from the Clients or Jobs List

Sync Clients
There is a Sync button on the Clients list which any user can use at any time to manually synchronise only the clients. Refer to Sync in Clients List.

Sync Jobs
Providing the option Maintain Jobs in FYI is set as "Off" in the Xero Practice Manager app, there is also a Sync button on the Jobs and in the Client - Jobs tab in the Client workspace which any user can use at any time to manually synchronise only the jobs. Refer to Sync in Using the Jobs List and Client Jobs.

Where Maintain Jobs in FYI is set as "On" in the Xero Practice Manager app, he Sync button is not available in the Jobs list and in the Client - Jobs tab in the Client workspace. This ensures that any changes made to Jobs in FYI, such as the Job State, are not updated back to the original state in Xero Practice Manager if a manual Job Sync is requested before the change in FYI has been updated to Xero Practice Manager.

Sync Custom Fields

In the Client - Custom Fields and Job - Custom Fields, you can use the Sync from PM button at the bottom of the Custom fields to sync the values for Custom Fields selected for a Client and Job from Xero Practice Manager to FYI. Refer to Client Custom Fields and Job Workspace.

Note: This does not sync any changes to the Custom Field definitions and these are only synced overnight from Xero Practice Manager.

Additional Notes on Syncing

Clients

Every 15 minutes an incremental synchronisation is run and any new and changed client data in Xero Practice Manager is automatically synchronised with FYI. This syncs changes to client details such as name, email address, address, and phone number. These details are displayed in FYI on the Client Summary tab. Client Custom Fields are also synced from Xero Practice Manager and these display in FYI on the Client Custom Fields tab.

Additionally, every 24 hours overnight, there is a full automatic synchronisation of clients in Xero Practice Manager with FYI.

Leads that are set up in Xero Practice Manager sync through to FYI as a Client.

Archived Clients

For information on Archived clients and about archiving a client that is part of a Client Group, refer to Archived Clients.

Client Contacts

Clients' Contacts are also synced when the Client sync is run. This syncs the details for the primary contact, including details such as Salulation and Addressee that are commonly used by Merge Fields in templates. The sync also updates the Client's Mobile Number from the Primary Contact details.

Any additional Contacts for the client are also synced from Xero Practice Manager and these display in FYI on the Client Contacts tab.

Client Custom Fields

As well as syncing changes to custom fields from Xero Practice Manager, you can use Update Client in an Automation Custom Process to update custom fields in clients in FYI (refer to Update Client in Process Step Details and Examples). Changes are immediately synced to Xero Practice Manager.

Users (Staff)

• When new users in Xero Practice Manager are synced to FYI automatically they are imported as active users in FYI and are assigned to the user group "Standard User". An FYI administrator needs to check the settings of any new users and change any settings as relevant. Refer to Managing Users.
• Changes to the user's name or email address can only be done in Xero Practice Manager and these changes are then synced to FYI.
• Making a user inactive in Xero Practice Manager, will not make the user Inactive in FYI.
• Deleting a user in Xero Practice Manager, will not make the user Inactive in FYI. The user needs to be changed to "Inactive" directly by an FYI administrator. Refer to Managing Users.
• An FYI administrator can also add a user directly to FYI. This can be used if you have a user such as financial planners that you do not want to add and pay for as users in Xero Practice Manager, but you want them to have access to information in FYI. Refer to Managing Users.

Jobs

At the time of your FYI trial creation, FYI will bring in only your active Xero Practice Manager jobs.

After the initial migration of data, any jobs that are completed/closed in Xero Practice Manager, will be picked up by FYI and marked as closed in FYI.

If the "State Type" of a job is changed in Xero Practice Manager to "On Hold", "Completed" or "Cancelled", the job stops being synced in FYI. If you make any changes in Xero Practice Manager, such as to the Job Name or the due date, and the job is not current in Xero Practice Manager (that is where the "State Type" is not "Standard"), this update will not be changed in FYI. If any such changes are needed to a completed job, change the state in Xero Practice Manager so it is not completed and make the change, sync it to FYI then set it back to completed. 

An FYI administrator, or a user in a User Group that has Permissions enabled for Edit Jobs, can update the Partner and Manager for the Job.

You can use Create Job in an Automation Custom Process to create a Job in FYI and Update Job in an Automation Custom Process to update the Status, Manager or Partner, or to update date Custom Field (refer to Update Job in Process Step Details and Examples). You can use Bulk Update to update the Status, Manager or Partner of a Job (refer to Jobs Bulk Update). These changes are immediately synced to Xero Practice Manager.

For any jobs added in FYI with the Create Job function, these are synchronised with Xero Practice Manager. These are queued and can take up to 15 minutes to sync.

Note: Updates to Jobs in FYI and Jobs created in FYI are queued and can take up to 15 minutes to sync Xero Practice Manager.

Job Category

If any changes are made to the options for Job Category in Xero Practice Manager, FYI can only sync with those that have been applied to Jobs in Xero Practice Manager. If a Job Category option has been deleted in Xero Practice Manager, FYI can not determine this.

Jobs States

If the Job State for a Job is changed in FYI, this is synchronised with Xero Practice Manager immediately (with a delay of up to 15 minutes).

If the Job State is changed for any jobs in Xero Practice Manager, these are synced with FYI overnight, or if Jobs are manually synced.

Tasks for the Jobs

Any XPM Tasks created or changed for jobs in Xero Practice Manager are synchronised as part of the Jobs sync.

Time

When Time entries are entered or bulk created in FYI and set with the Status as "Submit", these are synchronised to Xero Practice Manager. Time entries are queued and can take up to 15 minutes to sync. Refer to Adding Time.

Tax Returns

Any tax returns created in Xero Tax will be imported into FYI. The document in FYI includes a link to the return, the return status and notice of assessment. By default, the Xero - Tax Return process is "Off". Refer to Xero Tax Return AutoFile (Australia Only).

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.