Forthsource works with Xero

Direct answer: Forthsource sends your verified supplier contracts to Xero, where incoming bills are checked against agreed terms. Overcharges and quantity mismatches get flagged before you pay.

Paying suppliers shouldn't require detective work. You negotiate payment terms, minimum order quantities, and volume pricing with your vendors, but when bills arrive in Xero, there's no automatic way to verify they match what you agreed to. Most merchants spot-check invoices or rely on memory, which means overcharges slip through.

This integration connects your supplier terms in Forthsource directly to your accounting. When a bill comes in, Xero validates it against your contract. Wrong price tier? Flagged. Charged for 50 units when you ordered 30? Flagged. Payment terms suddenly changed from Net 30 to Net 15? Flagged before you approve payment.

How it works

1. Forthsource captures supplier contract terms including minimum order quantities, tiered pricing structures, payment terms, and any negotiated discounts or special conditions.
2. The integration passes these verified terms to Xero and links them to the corresponding supplier records in your accounting system.
3. When a bill arrives in Xero from a supplier with connected terms, the system compares line items, quantities, unit prices, and payment terms against what Forthsource sent over.
4. Discrepancies trigger automatic flags that appear in Xero before payment approval, showing exactly what doesn't match and what the contract says it should be.

Why merchants use Forthsource with Xero

• Stop paying incorrect invoices. Suppliers make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes favor them. When your contract says you get $4.20 per unit at 500+ quantity but the invoice shows $4.50, you'll know before approving payment instead of discovering it three months later during reconciliation.
• Eliminate manual invoice checking. Comparing each line item on supplier bills to spreadsheets or old emails wastes hours every week. The integration does this comparison automatically using the contract terms you've already verified, so your team approves accurate invoices and investigates flagged ones.
• Enforce minimum order quantities without guesswork. You agreed to MOQs for a reason, usually to secure better pricing. When a supplier ships below the minimum and still charges the volume rate, the discrepancy shows up immediately rather than eating into your margins unnoticed.
• Catch payment term changes before they affect cash flow. A supplier switching your payment terms from Net 60 to Net 30 without notice can disrupt your cash flow planning. Automated validation alerts you to these changes when the bill arrives, giving you time to address them with the supplier or adjust your payment schedule.

Frequently asked questions

What's involved in setting up the integration?

You'll connect your Xero account to Forthsource through a standard OAuth authorization process that takes about two minutes. After that, you select which suppliers in Forthsource should have their terms synced to Xero. The integration maps your Forthsource suppliers to your existing Xero supplier records, so there's no need to recreate your vendor list. Terms sync automatically once the connection is active.

How often does Forthsource sync contract terms to Xero?

Changes to supplier terms in Forthsource sync to Xero within minutes. If you renegotiate pricing with a vendor or update payment terms, those changes appear in Xero before the next bill arrives. When a new bill enters Xero, it's validated against whatever terms were current at the time, so even recent updates are applied to invoice checking.

What happens if the integration gets disconnected?

Bills continue to flow into Xero normally, but they won't be validated against your supplier contracts until you reconnect. You'll receive a notification if the connection drops, and reconnecting uses the same authorization process as initial setup. No historical data is lost, and once reconnected, validation resumes for new bills.

Does this work with all Xero subscription levels?

The integration works with Xero Standard, Premium, and Ultimate plans. You need bill entry capability in Xero for validation to function, which is available on all these tiers. The integration doesn't require any specific Xero add-ons, just an active subscription and the appropriate user permissions to authorize the connection.

What happens when a supplier offers volume pricing with multiple tiers?

Forthsource stores each pricing tier with its quantity threshold, and the integration passes all tiers to Xero. When a bill arrives, the system checks which tier should apply based on the quantity ordered and validates the unit price against that specific tier. If you ordered 750 units qualifying for tier 3 pricing but got charged tier 2 rates, that discrepancy gets flagged with the exact pricing difference.