---
title: "Claude Skills for Xero: how to connect and what it can do"
description: "Three ways to connect Claude to Xero, what Xero's hosted and local MCP servers can and cannot do, and the receivables work a skill can run once the ledger is readable. Includes the limits nobody mentions: no send, per-contact aging, and 60 calls a minute."
url: https://www.paidnice.com/blog/claude-skills-for-xero
---

# Claude Skills for Xero: how to connect, and what it can do once it is there

Written by

Denym Bird
Personally tested

Co-founder & CEO of Paidnice

Denym walked through his receivables skill on the Xero Demo Company across three connection routes, covering why Xero's connector and MCP server leave every chase email as a draft.

Reviewed by Ashley Schroder

Co-founder of Paidnice

Updated Oct 19, 2026 · 10 min

## Summary

There are three ways to connect Xero to Claude: the official Xero connector (read-only, free, one organization at a time), the Xero MCP server (read and write, hosted by Xero on a Core developer plan or run locally with a paid Custom Connection), and a CSV export (no connection at all). Once connected, a skill can produce aged receivables, DSO, late fee schedules, statements and chase drafts.

- **The routes:** The Xero connector is free on any Xero business plan and reads one organization; the MCP server, hosted by Xero or run locally, writes back; a CSV export works across every client.
- **The hard limit:** Neither the connector nor the MCP server has a send tool, so every chase email and statement is a draft a person sends.
- **The cost:** Xero's hosted Remote MCP server is included on the Core developer plan and above, and free for accountants and bookkeepers under Xero's API fee exemption. The local server needs a Custom Connection at 5 US dollars, 5 pounds, or 10 Australian or New Zealand dollars a month per organization.

This page is the connection detail. For the wider picture of what [AI for accountants](https://www.paidnice.com/ai-for-bookkeeping/what-ai-does-in-a-practice) can and cannot do once it is connected, read that first.

Free and open source

Denymbird / accounts-receivable-skills

Our receivables skill for Xero, in the open. It reads all three routes below: the Xero connector, the MCP server, or a plain CSV export. Aged receivables, DSO, late fee schedules, statements and chase briefs, every figure computed by a bundled script rather than by the model.

- MIT license
- Python, nothing to install
- 59 tests
- Works on the Xero Demo Company

Get the skill on GitHub

Works in Claude, Claude Code, Codex and Cursor. Setup for each route is in the repository.

Free: Payment reminder email templatesCopy the reminder emails for before, on and after the due date.

## How do you connect Xero to Claude?

Xero connects to Claude by one of three routes: a CSV export from the Xero invoice screen, the free read-only Xero connector, or the Xero MCP server, which reads and writes. Xero hosts one version itself; the open source version runs locally through a paid Custom Connection.

| Route | Read | Write | Cost | Best for |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CSV export | Yes | No | Free | Anyone, any country, many clients |
| Xero connector | Yes | No | Free | One organization, fastest setup |
| Xero MCP server | Yes | Yes | Hosted: Core developer plan or above. Local: Custom Connection, per organization | Raising fee invoices and credit notes |

### Route A: CSV export, five minutes, no setup

Start with the CSV export if you are unsure. It needs no developer account, no subscription and no permissions conversation with a client.

1. In Xero, go to Business, then Invoices, then the Awaiting Payment tab.
2. Select all, then Export. Xero writes an Invoices.csv file.
3. Repeat on the Paid tab if you want payment history as well, which the skill uses for average days to pay.
4. Put both files in a folder and point the skill at them.

The Accounting, Reports, Aged Receivables Detail report exports the same way if you prefer the report format.

The CSV route is the only one that handles many organizations in a single run. Every connector holds one company at a time, so a bookkeeper exports once per client into one folder each and processes the lot. It also keeps the data scope to one receivables file rather than the whole ledger.

### Route B: the Xero connector, read-only

The Xero connector for Claude went live on 12 May 2026. It is free on any Xero business plan: open the Connector Directory in Claude, choose Xero, sign in, pick the organization, and start asking questions.

The connector is read-only and exposes 19 tools: receivables and payables, profit and loss, cash position, invoices and top customers. Xero Central states Claude "can't make changes to your Xero organisation".

The constraint to plan around is that the connector holds one organization at a time. To look at a different company you disconnect and reconnect.

Xero also ships a Small Business plugin for Claude, a bundle of its own skills that needs a Claude Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise plan. One of them, Invoice chase, drafts reminders for overdue invoices "for you to review and send", which confirms the limit that runs through this whole page: the drafting is automated, the sending is not.

### Route C: the Xero MCP server, read and write

This is the route you need if you want the AI to create a late fee invoice or a credit note rather than just tell you about one. Xero offers it two ways.

**Hosted by Xero.** Xero's [Remote MCP server](https://developer.xero.com/faq/remote-mcp) runs at https://api.xero.com/mcp/v1 and works with any client that supports remote MCP servers, including Claude Desktop and Claude Code. It signs in through Xero's OAuth 2.0 flow with PKCE, so there is no client secret to paste into a config file. You need your own app in the Xero Developer Portal: the Remote MCP is included on the Core plan and above, and a Starter app can use it only with the demo organization. Accountants and bookkeepers building for their practice or a client get it under Xero's API fee exemption. Custom Connections are not eligible. A user can authorize several organizations for the same app, and each tool call runs against one of them. The tools write to Xero without asking the user to confirm, so have the agent confirm before every change.

**Run locally.** The open source [Xero MCP server](https://github.com/XeroAPI/xero-mcp-server) runs on your own machine, with tools including create-invoice and create-credit-note. Authentication is the friction. A [Xero Custom Connection](https://developer.xero.com/custom-development) costs 5 US dollars, 5 pounds, or 10 Australian or New Zealand dollars a month per organization, and Xero sells it only to organizations in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The alternative is your own OAuth bearer token, which means managing token refresh yourself. A Custom Connection is free against the Xero Demo Company, so you can test the whole workflow before paying for anything.

## What can Claude not do with Xero?

Claude connected to Xero cannot send an email, cannot pull whole-book aging in one call, cannot filter the invoice list, and is capped at 60 API calls a minute. None of the four is a dealbreaker, but designing around them beats discovering them.

**There is no email tool.** Xero's API can email an invoice, but the local MCP server does not expose it, Xero's Remote MCP FAQ describes no send tool, and the connector is read-only. Every chase email and statement is a draft that a person sends.

**Aging is per contact.** The aged receivables tool requires a contact ID, so there is no single call that returns the whole book. A skill either loops every contact or, more sensibly, pulls the invoice list once and calculates the aging itself.

**The invoice list is not filterable.** It returns ten records a page and takes no status or due-date filter, so you page through everything and filter locally.

**The rate limit is real.** Xero's API limits are 60 calls a minute, 5 in progress at once, and 5,000 a day per organization (1,000 a day for apps on the free Starter tier). A five hundred invoice ledger is fifty calls just to read it. Pull once into a local snapshot and work from that file rather than re-querying for every question.

**Do not let the model add up your ledger**

Whichever route you choose, the arithmetic must happen in code. Language models are unreliable at totaling a hundred numbers and the failure is silent: the figure looks right and is out by a few hundred pounds. A skill worth using runs a script for every total, aging bucket and fee, and shows the workings so you can check them.

## What mistakes cost you time and money when you connect Claude to Xero?

Each mistake below comes from a limit or a price stated on this page.

- **Re-reading the ledger for every question.** The invoice list returns ten records a page, so a 500 invoice ledger is 50 calls. Xero allows 60 calls a minute, so three questions that each re-read it are 150 calls, at least 2.5 minutes of waiting.*Fix: pull once into a local snapshot.*
- **Buying a Custom Connection for each client.** It costs 5 US dollars a month per organization, so 20 clients cost 100 US dollars a month, or 1,200 US dollars a year. The CSV export reads the same open invoices for free.*Fix: use the CSV export for read-only work across a book of clients.*
- **Chasing only when someone asks.** On the day an overdue reminder goes out, about 12% of those invoices get paid. With no reminder, only about 4% do.Source: our analysis of invoice data from over 1,000 Paidnice customers. See [our reminder data](https://www.paidnice.com/blog/how-many-payment-reminders#reminder-day).*Fix: automate the send on the due date.*

## What can a Claude skill do with Xero data?

A Claude skill with a readable Xero ledger can run the recurring receivables jobs: the debtor review, DSO, late fee schedules, customer statements, chase drafts and a call priority list, with every figure computed by a script.

- **Debtor review.** Aged receivables by customer, the buckets, the movement since the last run, and the accounts that deteriorated.
- **DSO and payment behavior.** Days sales outstanding, average days to pay, and which customers are dragging the average out.
- **Late fee schedules.** Which invoices have passed terms, what your contract allows on each, and the calculation behind every line.
- **Statements.** Xero does not expose statements through its API, so a good skill builds the statement itself from open invoices and payments.
- **Chase drafts.** One email per customer at the right escalation level, with the amounts copied from the ledger rather than recalled.
- **Call priority.** Who to ring today, ranked by amount, age and how that customer has paid historically.

Our own skill for this is open source and MIT licensed: [accounts-receivable-skills](https://github.com/Denymbird/accounts-receivable-skills) on GitHub. It supports all three routes above, computes every figure in a bundled Python script with nothing to install, and ships 59 tests against a fixture ledger so you can verify the arithmetic yourself. The [wider guide to Claude Skills for accountants](https://www.paidnice.com/blog/claude-skills-for-accountants) covers what skills are and how they differ from MCP servers.

## Can Claude add a late fee to a Xero invoice?

Claude cannot add a late fee to an approved Xero invoice, because Xero does not let anyone add lines to an approved invoice. A late fee on Xero is raised as its own invoice, which the MCP server can create.

Raise the fee as its own invoice instead. That is the correct mechanic on Xero, and it is also better practice: the customer can query, pay or have the fee credited without anyone touching the invoice underneath it.

Late fees are leverage. An invoice that grows moves up the payment run, and the reminder that a fee applies does more work than the fee itself, provided you apply it consistently. The rate has to be in the contract to be enforceable, so check your terms of trade before you quote a figure.

## Can Claude chase Xero invoices automatically?

Claude cannot chase Xero invoices automatically, which is the job [AI credit control](https://www.paidnice.com/credit-control-ai) tools are built for. Every route above runs only when a person asks: no Xero connection can trigger on an overdue invoice, so nothing happens unless someone opens the ledger and starts a session. Xero's own assistant is covered in [Xero JAX and overdue invoices](https://www.paidnice.com/blog/xero-jax-overdue-invoices).

A weekly review is always somewhere between one and seven days late. The invoice that went past terms on Saturday sits there until Monday, and the fee your contract allows is not applied because nobody was in the room.

**💡 Paidnice insight**

We publish an AI skill and we still run the chasing through automation, because they solve different halves of the problem. The skill answers the question when you ask it. Automation applies the same policy to every invoice on the day it lapses, which is where the result actually comes from. Customers see half as many late invoices in the first 30 days, and none of that depends on remembering to run a report.

If you want the policy to run itself on your Xero ledger, that is what [Paidnice for Xero](https://www.paidnice.com/xero) does. Paidnice is [accounts receivable AI](https://www.paidnice.com/ai-accounts-receivable) for Xero, with tailored AI for your collections that reads every reply. It sends reminders on schedule, applies late fees under your own rules, sends statements without a trigger, and escalates whether or not anyone looked that morning.

Paidnice also runs its own [MCP server](https://www.paidnice.com/mcp), so you can add it to Claude next to the ledger connection. The assistant can then read your customers' replies, check an invoice in Paidnice and update a customer's contact people.

## Common questions

### Is there a Claude connector for Xero?

Yes. Xero's official read-only connector for Claude went live on 12 May 2026 and is free on any Xero business plan; you enable it from the Connector Directory in Claude. For write access you need the Xero MCP server instead: hosted by Xero on a Core developer plan, or run locally with a Custom Connection.

### Does the Xero MCP server cost money?

Xero's hosted Remote MCP server is included on the Core developer plan and above, and free for accountants and bookkeepers under Xero's API fee exemption. The local server is free and open source. The Custom Connection it usually authenticates with is a paid Xero add-on at 5 US dollars, 5 pounds, or 10 Australian or New Zealand dollars a month per organization, sold only in those four countries. It is free against the Xero Demo Company.

### Can Claude send invoice reminders from Xero?

No. There is no email tool in either the connector or the MCP server, so reminders and statements are drafts a person sends. Automated sending needs software that connects to Xero directly.

### Can I connect more than one Xero organisation?

Not through the Xero connector, which Xero Central states connects to one organization at a time, and not through a Custom Connection, which is bought per organization. Xero's hosted Remote MCP server lets a user authorize several organizations for one app, but each tool call still runs against one organization. For a book of clients, export a CSV per client and run the skill across the folders.

### Is it safe to give an AI access to my Xero account?

The read-only connector cannot change your data, which removes most of the risk. If you want a tighter scope than that, the CSV route means handing over one receivables export rather than the whole ledger. Whatever route you take, treat anything the AI drafts as a draft, and never let it send or post without review.

## Paidnice features in this article

- [**AI for collections** Uses AI to read replies and draft responses, while a person decides what is sent.](https://www.paidnice.com/credit-control-ai)
- [**AI reply handling** Reads every customer reply and drafts the next step for you to approve.](https://www.paidnice.com/ai-accounts-receivable)

## About the editorial team

Written by Denym Bird Co-founder & CEO of Paidnice

Denym started Paidnice in 2022 after customers paying late left his own business short on payroll. He has led it to $1 billion collected on time across more than 1 million invoices, and writes about credit control, late fees and getting paid on Xero and QuickBooks.

Reviewed by Ashley Schroder Co-founder of Paidnice

Ashley is a co-founder and lead developer of Paidnice and has built accounting software for more than 10 years. He builds the ledger connections that put reminders, late fees and payments into Xero, QuickBooks and ERPs such as NetSuite and Business Central. Before Paidnice he co-founded A2X, ecommerce accounting software for Xero and QuickBooks.

### Try Our Free Accounts Receivable Calculators

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