How do I get help with Xero when I’m stuck?

28 Oct

There’s no shortage of help available for Xero subscribers.

Xero runs a help centre, Xero Central, with articles and guides covering most of the software’s features. It has a support team you can access online or by phone when something goes wrong, and Just Ask Xero (JAX), it’s in-built AI assistant.

There’s an active, unofficial Xero users support community on Facebook where members trade questions and answers, and share their experience and learnings. And if you search Google or YouTube, you’ll find hours of how-to guides and video tutorials on top of all that.

So, when you get stuck in Xero, finding information is rarely the problem. Finding the right information for your specific issue is much harder.

Some problems have the same solution that applies to every business using Xero. Others depend on the way your account was set up, what’s happened in it since and how your business works.

No general help guide or article can account for that.

This blog runs through the places you can turn when Xero has you stumped, what each one is good for and how to tell when it’s time to bring in a Xero expert who knows the software inside out.

Start with Xero Central

If you’re having problems with Xero, its online resources are the best place to look first. For a lot of issues, they’ll get you to a solution quickly.

Xero Central is great for finding answers to ‘how do I…?’ questions, such as how to create a repeating invoice, add a new bank account, set up Xero Payroll or change an invoice template. Most of these questions have a simple solution, and Xero’s user guides walk you through them step by step.

Xero’s support team can help with problems or technical glitches in the software, like a bank feed that’s stopped updating or trouble logging in.

However, these resources struggle with ‘why…?’ questions, like ‘why is my VAT return showing a figure I don’t recognise?’ or ‘why has my balance sheet stopped adding up?’.

While Xero’s support team can explain how a feature works, they don’t give accounting advice, and none of its online guides can see the settings, rules and history in your account.

So, when the answer depends on how your Xero is set-up, you need someone who can look at that.

Xero has also added its own AI agent, JAX, which you’ll find in the navigation bar inside Xero. You can ask it questions, such as how much income you brought in over a set period or how your gross profit has changed, and it will answer using your Xero data. It can also help with your bigger-picture questions, offering ideas for improving your cash flow or comparing your business against others in your market. It can take on some of your admin, too, such as turning a quote into an invoice, and it draws on Xero’s help content to answer how-to questions. It follows your user permissions, so it can see only what you can.

Ask your accountant or bookkeeper

If you have an accountant or bookkeeper, they’re the best people to ask about your accounts and what they mean for your business. They’re there to help you understand whether a purchase counts as an expense or an asset, which VAT scheme you’re on or how you should record a director’s loan.

Questions about how your Xero is set up call for a different, more specialist kind of help.

Some accountants, like Scott, our in-house Xero expert, spend their whole working day in Xero. Others work across several different accounting platforms and log into each client’s Xero mainly to prepare the year-end accounts.

So, it’s worth asking your accountant how familiar they are with Xero, and whether they can sit down and fix a problem with you or send over instructions for you to follow.

Some Xero problems take only a few minutes to fix once you know where to look. Others need an expert eye. Here are a few signs you’ve reached the point where it’s worth calling in a Xero specialist:

You’ve spent more than an afternoon on the same problem, and you’re no further forward.
You’ve tried a fix you found online, and it either didn’t work or created a new problem.
The issue keeps coming back, even after you’ve corrected it.
It affects your VAT, payroll or anything else that gets submitted to HMRC.
You can’t tell whether the problem lies in your settings or your transactions.
The fix involves something that’s hard to undo, like deleting transactions, voiding invoices or changing a lock date.

A problem that keeps recurring usually points to an issue with your settings. Correcting the transaction deals with the symptom. Finding and fixing the underlying cause will stop it coming back.

Why work with a Xero specialist?

When you choose Progression Accountancy for your Xero support, Scott will work inside your live Xero account, looking at your transactions, settings, bank rules and history together. He can usually trace a problem back to where it started.

While an online help article can explain how Xero calculates VAT, Scott can open your tax return, drill into the transactions behind it and spot any suppliers with the wrong tax rate. He can then correct the problem, fix the affected bills and show you how to check for it yourself in future.

Scott has worked in Xero for well over a decade and has helped hundreds of UK businesses with their accounts, in industries ranging from construction and hospitality to retail and professional services. He’s a Xero Gold Partner, certified in Xero Payroll, Migration, Tax and Cash Flow, so the problems that might feel unique to your business are often ones he’s seen and fixed before. That makes the work quicker, with less time spent investigating and more spent putting things right.

He’ll also explain what he’s doing and why as he goes along, in plain English. The aim is to leave you more confident running Xero yourself, so when something similar crops up again, you’ll know what to look for.

How our support sessions work

We can build our Xero support sessions around whatever’s got you stuck. You bring the problem, and Scott will work through it with you until it’s fixed. Here’s how it works:

Tell us what’s going wrong

Start by getting in touch and giving us a short outline of the problem, what you were trying to do, what Xero did instead and how long it’s been going on. This will give us a sense of what you’re dealing with, so we can recommend the right type of support for you.

Choose online or in person

Our online Power Hour sessions suit anyone who needs a quick, focused fix and doesn’t want to give up a full working day to get it. They run for between one and two hours via video call.

If your issues run deeper or you’ve been using Xero for a while without any support, Scott can come to you for a day visit. These typically run from 10am to 3pm with a break in the middle, giving you time to work through everything properly. We’re based in Chesterfield, but we work with businesses right across the UK. If you’re torn between the two, our blog ‘Is in-person Xero training better than online?’ looks at both options in more detail.

Work through your Xero together

During your session, we’ll both be looking at your live Xero account. You’ll show Scott where the problem appears, and he’ll start tracing it back to its cause. You can ask questions at any point, and if there are any other niggles you’ve been meaning to sort out, you can raise those too.

Fix it and understand why

Scott will fix your problems there and then, explaining each step and showing you where to find the settings involved. By the end of your session, your problems will be fixed and you’ll understand what caused them and how to spot them if they happen again.

Get follow-up support if you need it

Questions often crop up once you’re back at your desk and working on your own. If they do, we offer follow-up support by video call, email, phone, or in person if you’re nearby. We’ll log into your Xero together and pick up wherever you need us to. You can simply pay-as-you-go. Some clients use us once. Others come back every few months. That’s your call.

What can you get help with?

Our Xero support sessions can cover any part of Xero that’s giving you trouble. The areas we’re asked about most often include:

Initial set-up, including financial settings and opening balances
Converting to Xero from another system
Bank feeds and bank rules
Sales, invoicing, and payment collection
Bills, expenses, and mileage
Automating processes
Reporting and budgeting
Xero Payroll set-up and processing
Connecting third-party apps to Xero and getting them working properly
Queries with transactions, issues with how to use a function, and anything that looks wrong.

If your problem isn’t on the list, get in touch anyway. We’ve probably come across it before. You’ll find more detail on what we cover on our Xero training page.

Get help with Xero

Most Xero users get stuck at some point, including those who’ve used it for years. The sooner you get the right help, the less time you’ll lose and the less there’ll be to unpick later.

If Xero’s online guides haven’t given you the help you need, a session with Scott will get to the root of your problem and leave you knowing how to handle it next time.

Call us or get in touch to tell us what’s going on, and we’ll recommend the support that suits you best. Online or in person, the aim is always to fix your problem and put you back in control of your accounts.