Xero is undoubtedly one of the best accounting platforms on the market. It keeps your bookkeepers happy, your bank feeds reconciled, and your year-end taxes organised. But as any growing contractor knows, Xero is an accounting tool, not a construction project management tool.
If your finance team lives in Xero while your project managers live in disconnected Excel spreadsheets, you are operating with a massive blind spot. This disconnect leads to double-data entry, missed costs, and project managers having no idea what their actual job profitability is until the project is already finished.
To scale your construction business efficiently, you need a dedicated app that bridges the gap between the site and the office. Here are the top 9 must-have features to look for in a Xero construction integration.
1. True 2-Way Construction Integration
Why it matters: Many software tools claim to integrate with Xero, but they only do so on a surface level. If you have to manually export CSV files from your project management tool and import them into Xero, it’s not a real integration—it’s just an extra step.
The Planyard Advantage: You need an integration that does the heavy lifting for you. When you approve an invoice in Planyard, it automatically transfers to Xero with the correct quantities, prices, and the original PDF attached, while budget lines map directly to your Xero chart of accounts.
"All of the financial data and invoices are sent automatically to Xero and emailed to my bookkeeper, who then has all the information she needs to record it correctly in our accounts. It’s sort of job done, as simple as that."
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Learn more: Xero Construction Integration
2. Live Job Costing & Financial Tracking
Why it matters: Your accounting software tells you what has been paid, but it rarely tells you what has been committed. Project managers need to know exactly how much budget is left right now, not three weeks from now when the bookkeeper finalizes the monthly accounts.
The Planyard Advantage: Real-time job costing allows PMs to track costs against the budget instantly. With automated POs and invoice approvals feeding directly into the system, project profitability stays current without requiring manual reconciliation with Xero.
"Planyard has been one of the easiest systems to implement. Honestly, I don't find it difficult at all to onboard new users or projects onto the system."
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Learn more: Xero Job Costing Software
3. Automated Approval Workflows
Chasing site managers via email or WhatsApp to approve invoices delays subcontractor payments and keeps Xero’s data permanently out of date. It also leads to duplicate invoice payments.
A specialised Xero app will capture invoices, auto-link them to their respective purchase orders and delivery receipts, and route them through project-configured approval chains. Only fully approved, verified bills are posted to Xero—meaning no drafts and no duplicates.
"There was a disconnect between our understanding of project costs and that of the project managers. They assumed that if the work was done, it had been invoiced and paid for, whereas we had no way of knowing if we were missing costs."
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Learn more: Xero Approval Workflows for Contractors
4. Smart Construction Estimating
Building estimates in a standalone spreadsheet means that once you win the job, someone has to manually retype all those numbers into your PM system and your accounting system.
Stop rebuilding numbers. Look for a tool that allows you to build accurate estimates using custom templates and a centralised cost library, and then lets you convert that winning estimate into a live project budget and purchase orders with a single click.
Learn more: Xero Estimating Software
5. Built-In CIS & Reverse Charge VAT Compliance
For UK contractors, handling the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) and Reverse Charge VAT manually is an administrative nightmare that risks severe penalties if done incorrectly.
Planyard keeps vendor linkage and coding correct on the project management side. When the approved invoice pushes through, Xero automatically applies the correct tax rules (including reverse charge) on the posted bills. The PDFs and all references travel seamlessly with the bill for audit compliance.
Learn more: CIS & Reverse Charge VAT for Xero
6. Centralised Purchase Orders
If your team is buying materials without raising POs, your Xero accounts will eventually be hit with massive, unexpected supplier bills that ruin your project margins.
Raise POs directly against your project budgets and route them for approval before the money is spent. Planyard allows for 3-way matching (PO to Delivery to Invoice), ensuring that you only sync approved, accurately coded bills into Xero.
"The ordering process now only takes about 10 minutes per purchase order, whereas it used to take us roughly 30 minutes before.
And this is not even counting in the time saved on reconciling."
Learn more: Xero Purchase Order Software
7. Connected Field-to-Office Timesheets
Paper timesheets or standalone time-tracking apps force your payroll team to manually enter hours into Xero while simultaneously trying to allocate those labour costs to the correct project budgets.
Site workers can track their hours by specific project and cost code. Once approved by the site manager, you can export per-project and per-worker summaries directly to Xero—fueling your live variance tracking and Estimate at Completion (EAC) automatically.
Learn more: Xero Timesheets Integration
8. Seamless Work Orders
Tracking minor site works, variations, or maintenance jobs requires a clear paper trail. Without it, you end up with undocumented labour hours and missing materials.
Assign work orders to your team, capture hours, and upload site evidence directly against the budget. You can then export per-project rollups to Xero, updating your final project costs without touching a single spreadsheet.
Learn more: Xero Work Orders Software
9. Professional Bids & Proposals
Winning new work requires professional, branded proposals. If you are copying and pasting lines from an Excel estimate into a Word document, you are wasting time and risking costly typos.
Create beautiful client quotes utilising markups straight from your cost database. Export branded proposal PDFs, and once the client signs off, carry those accepted numbers directly forward into your project delivery phase.
Learn more: Xero Bids & Proposals
Stop Running Your Construction Business in Two Separate Silos
Using Xero is a smart move for your construction business, but forcing your project managers to act as data-entry clerks to keep it updated is not.
By integrating a specialized construction job costing app like Planyard, you eliminate double-data entry, give your PMs the live budget visibility they desperately need, and ensure your Xero accounts are always 100% accurate.
"When you look at your margin without using Planyard, you might think you’re making 21%. But are you really if things have been missed and you can’t see them? Planyard lets you see a true margin all the time."
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Ready to connect your projects directly to your Xero accounts? Book a demo or start your free trial with Planyard today.