Moving from Xero

If your books live in Xero, you can bring your bank account history into Pennyweight. You export Xero's Account Transactions report, your AI reads it and sends the rows to Pennyweight, one account at a time. New to importing? Start with how importing works.

Export from Xero

These steps are per Xero's help center, and its menus can change.

• Run the report. In the Reporting menu, select All reports, then find and open the Account Transactions report. Under Accounts, select the bank accounts you want, choose a Date range, then click Update.
• Or use the bank format. In the panel on the left of the report, select Bank transactions by date. It lists the transactions going in and out of your organization, grouped by bank account, with the related account each one was categorized to.
• Keep the Debit, Credit and Related account columns. The Related account is the other side of the ledger, the account each transaction was categorized to. Your AI uses it as the category.
• Show the opening balance. Under More, you can show opening and closing balances for asset accounts. That gives you each bank account's balance at the start of the period.
• Export it. With the report open, click Export and choose Excel, Google Sheets or PDF.
• Multicurrency. If you use multicurrency, the report shows foreign currency transactions in both the foreign and the base currency. Xero recommends including the FX columns when you export.

Export before you cancel. Per Xero's help center, a paid subscription has a one-month notice period, Xero has no read-only plan, and after the notice period the organisation's data is archived. Only the subscriber can cancel.

How to do it

1. Share the Account Transactions export with your AI.
2. Tell it which Pennyweight account each Xero bank account goes into. Ask it to use the Related account column as the category.
3. Ask your AI to sign each row from your bank's side: money into the account is positive, money out is negative.
4. If an account doesn't exist in Pennyweight yet, ask your AI to add it. A new manual account needs an opening balance before its first import: the balance just before the first row. For a credit card, give what you owed as a positive number. See add a manual account.
5. Your AI shows a preview for each account: new rows, likely duplicates and rows that need a look. Nothing is saved yet. Check that deposits show as money in. See reading an import preview.
6. Say yes to import, then check the result with after you import.

What you'll see

For the first prompt, your AI converts the dates to YYYY-MM-DD and reads the Debit column as money in and the Credit column as money out. The preview for Studio Checking shows 14 new transactions, with categories such as Groceries and Transit from the Related account column. After you say yes, it reports the 14 rows saved.

For the second, your AI lists 3 rows of money in, totaling $2,164.34, and 11 rows of money out, totaling $399.82. Nothing is saved.

What carries over

Each row brings its date, amount, payee, category text, currency and notes. Invoices, bills, contacts, inventory, fixed assets, payroll and tracking categories stay in Xero. See the full list of what doesn't move.

Good to know

• Your AI does the reading. Pennyweight has no Xero importer. Uploading a file straight to Pennyweight works for CSV only, so an Excel or Google Sheets export always goes through your AI.
• Don't upload the report straight to Pennyweight. Direct upload reads a Debit column as money out. Xero's report is written from the ledger's side, so a direct upload would flip your bank rows. Let your AI convert the file.
• Signs come from the account's side. Pennyweight stores money out as negative and money in as positive. Your AI states which way the batch moves the balance, and the preview shows the new balance, so a flipped batch is easy to spot before you say yes.
• One account per import. Each import goes into a single account. If the report covers several bank accounts, your AI sends one batch for each.
• Totals and blank lines are left out. Every row needs a date, an amount and a payee. A total line with no date would stop the whole batch, so your AI drops those lines first.
• Foreign currency accounts. Import the amount in the account's own currency. If the account isn't in your main currency, give it that currency when your AI adds it. Pennyweight stores each amount as it is and never converts it on import. Totals that span your ledgers, such as your net worth, are converted to your display currency. See multi-currency.
• Transfers appear twice. A transfer between two bank accounts shows up in both, and its Related account is the other bank account. Import each side into its own account, then ask your AI to find the pair and link it. See link transfers.
• Categories and rules. Imported rows keep their Xero categories unless one of your active Pennyweight rules matches. Rules run when the import is saved, and a matching rule's category replaces the one from the file. To keep every Xero category, ask your AI to import with rules turned off. Pennyweight doesn't import rules files, so ask your AI to recreate the bank rules you rely on. Rules you recreate before importing categorize the rows as they're saved. See rebuild your rules after moving.