You can publish costs and sales items from Dext directly to Xero. Where your items land in Xero and how they appear depends on the publish destination and status you choose. Dext also attaches the original document image or PDF to the item when it publishes to Xero.
Important: You must have an active Xero connection and either an Admin role or permission to publish granted by your account administrator or accountant/bookkeeper.
Costs publishing destinations
Costs items publish to Xero's Purchases section by default. You can change the destination to match how you manage your business expenses.
The 3 available destinations are:
Purchases - for unpaid and paid bills. Items appear in Xero under Purchases > Bills to pay.
Classic Expense Claims - for expenses paid personally by employees that need reimbursement. Items publish as Draft due to Xero API limitations.
Bank Accounts - for expenses already paid from a business bank account. Items publish as Spend Money transactions.
Sales publishing destinations
Sales items publish to Xero's Sales section by default. You can also publish to Bank Accounts for immediately reconciled transactions.
The 2 available destinations are:
Sales - for managing invoices and customer payments. Items appear in Xero under Sales > Invoices.
Bank Accounts - for sales receipts already received into a bank account. Items publish as Spend Money transactions.
Publish statuses
When publishing to Purchases or Sales, you can control how items appear in Xero using the Publish as setting. The available statuses are Draft, Awaiting Approval, Awaiting Payment, and Paid (where possible).
Publishing to Bank Accounts doesn't use a publish status - the destination itself determines how the item is recorded.
Note: On the Xero Simple plan, Xero only allows creating bills as Draft, so you can only publish costs from Dext to Purchases as Draft.
Publishing to Xero on the Simple plan
The Xero Simple plan limits what Dext can publish to Xero, because Xero restricts bills and sales invoices on this plan.
Bills: Xero only allows bills as Draft on Simple, so Dext can only publish costs to Purchases as Draft. You can’t approve these bills in Xero until you upgrade your Xero plan.
Sales invoices: Simple allows 10 sales invoices a month. Transactions created by connected apps like Dext may count towards this limit.
Costs you’ve already paid: If you’ve paid a cost from a business bank account, publish it to Bank Accounts instead. Dext creates a Spend Money transaction, not a bill. Go to Publish to Bank Accounts in this article for the steps.
To publish costs as Draft by default, set Publish costs items to purchases as to Draft in your Xero settings in Dext. Go to Set your default publish destination and status below for the steps.
After you upgrade your Xero plan, go to How to reconnect with Xero to reflect the change.
Set your default publish destination and status
You can set a default destination and status for costs and sales so you don't need to update each item individually.
Important: Only Admin users can access these settings. Accountants and bookkeepers accessing a client account act as Admins by default.
Go to Business settings in the sidebar, then select Connections.
Select Manage next to Xero, then go to Settings.
Under Default 'publish to' destination for costs, select your preferred destination.
Under Publish costs items to purchases as, select your preferred status.
Repeat for sales using Default 'publish to' destination for sales and Publish sales items to sales as.
Publish to Purchases as Paid
To publish a costs or sales item to Purchases as Paid, the payment method assigned to the item must be linked to a Xero bank account. Without a linked bank account, Dext will automatically publish the item as Awaiting Payment instead.
To assign a payment method and publish as Paid:
Open an item from the Costs or Sales workspace.
In the Payment section, toggle Paid to Yes.
Select a payment method from the Payment method dropdown. If the method is linked to a bank account, you'll see a link icon next to it.
Set Publish as to Paid (where possible).
Select Publish.
If the payment method isn't linked to a bank account yet, select Link to bank account beneath the dropdown. See How to link a payment method to a bank account.
Publish to Bank Accounts
Publishing to Bank Accounts is the right choice when an expense has already been paid directly from a business bank account and you want to reconcile it in Xero without creating an invoice.
To publish an item to Bank Accounts:
Open an item from the Costs or Sales workspace.
In the Payment section, toggle Paid to Yes.
Select a payment method that is linked to a Xero bank account from the Payment method dropdown.
Set Publish to to Bank Accounts.
Select Publish.
Dext creates a Spend Money transaction in the Account transactions tab of the linked bank account in Xero.
Note: Publishing to Bank Accounts does not create an invoice in Xero. If you need an invoice and want to reconcile it later, publish to Purchases as Paid (where possible) instead.
Why can I only publish to Bank Accounts ?
If the Publish to field shows Bank Accounts greyed out and you can’t change it, your Xero plan is Cashbook or Ledger. On these plans, Bank Accounts is the only publishing destination available in Dext. Purchases, Classic Expense Claims, and Sales aren’t supported.
This includes unpaid bills. On these plans, Dext can’t publish a bill to Purchases, even as Draft.
Because Bank Accounts is for costs you’ve already paid, Dext asks for a payment method linked to a Xero bank account on every item. The message reads: “Complete the Payment Method field using a Payment Method that has been linked with a bank account.” It appears in the Please resolve these issues panel on the item, and when you hover over the To review status in the Costs inbox.
To get the other destinations back, upgrade your Xero plan and reconnect Xero in Dext:
In Xero, upgrade to a higher Xero plan.
In Dext, reconnect Xero using the steps in How to reconnect with Xero
Open an item and check the Publish to field. The regular destinations now appear.
If you can’t upgrade yet, link a payment method to a Xero bank account and assign it to each item. Go to How to link a payment method to a bank account
Publish to Classic Expense Claims
Classic Expense Claims is for expenses paid personally by an employee that need to be reimbursed. Items published here appear as Draft expense claims in Xero, visible initially only to the employee they belong to.
Note: The employee must be linked to a Xero user account. If not, Dext will show the error: "A valid userID should be identified." See Xero publishing error messages
If you're managing reimbursable expenses across your team, use Expense Claims in Dext instead - this ensures all authorised users can review and process claims in Xero.
Publish credit notes and refunds to Xero
To publish a credit note or refund to Xero with a negative amount, you need to set the correct item type and publish destination before publishing.
Costs credit notes and refunds
To publish a costs credit note or refund, open the item from the Costs workspace and update the following fields in the Item details page:
Set Type to Credit note/refund.
Set Publish to to Purchases.
Select Publish.
Sales credit notes and refunds
To publish a sales credit note or refund, open the item from the Sales workspace and update the following fields in the Item details page:
Set Type to Sales credit note.
Set Publish to to Sales.
Select Publish.
Publish rebillable expenses
You can mark a Costs item as rebillable in Dext to create a billable expense in Xero that you can on-charge to a customer.
Important: The customer must already exist in Xero before you publish.
To mark a Costs item as rebillable:
Open an item from the Costs workspace.
Assign a customer using the Customer field in the item details panel.
Toggle Mark as rebillable to Yes.
Select Publish.
Once published, the item appears in Xero as a billable expense assigned to that customer.
Rebillable expenses in expense claims
If an item in a Dext expense claim has a customer assigned, it's automatically marked as billable when published to Xero.
Mark specific line items as rebillable
If you want to rebill some line items but not others, follow these steps exactly — the order matters:
On the item, toggle Mark as rebillable to Yes. Leave the Customer field at item level empty.
On each line item you want to rebill, assign the relevant customer.
Leave the Customer field empty on any line items that shouldn't be rebilled.
Dext marks only line items with a customer assigned as rebillable. Line items without a customer are published normally.
Note: If an item has more than one rebillable line, each line must differ by at least one of the following: Category, Description, Quantity, Tax rate, or Unit amount. If two lines are identical across all five fields, the customer may not transfer to one of those lines in Xero.
Where to find published items in Xero
Once published, you can find items in Xero based on the destination you chose:
Destination | Location in Xero | Transaction type |
Purchases | Purchases > Bills to pay | Supplier invoice |
Classic Expense Claims | Expense claims | Employee reimbursement |
Bank Accounts | Bank account > Account transactions | Spend Money transaction |
Sales | Sales > Invoices | Sales invoice |
You can also find any published item via the Dext Archive - each item has an Open in Xero button that takes you directly to the corresponding transaction.