Job management software that works with Xero: what syncs

Short answer

All five of the main trade job apps connect to Xero, and all of them send invoices across and bring payments back. The differences are in timing, timesheets and tracking categories.

ServiceM8 has the most complete two-way sync for a small business: contacts, items and payments update about every 30 minutes, with add-ons for tracking categories and payroll timesheets. Tradify and Fergus handle invoices and payments well but don’t send timesheets to Xero Payroll. Simpro and AroFlo push data when you run their accounting link, and both send timesheets.

If you’re on Xero’s cheapest plan, Ignite, invoices your job app sends count towards its 20-a-month cap. Most job-app users need Grow.

What a good Xero connection does

A job app and Xero split the work. The job app runs quotes, scheduling, job cards and invoices. Xero is your ledger: bank reconciliation, GST, BAS, payroll. The better the connection, the less you type twice. A good one:

• Sends each invoice to Xero when you approve it, with the right account and tax code.
• Brings payments back, so an invoice paid by bank transfer and reconciled in Xero shows as paid in the job app.
• Keeps customers in step, so a new customer created on site ends up in Xero without re-keying.
• Sends supplier bills, so materials you bought for a job land in Xero as bills.
• Sends timesheets to payroll, if you pay wages through Xero Payroll.
• Carries tracking categories, if your bookkeeper uses them to split income by trade, region or crew.

No app does all six without a catch.

The sync table

From each vendor’s own help articles, checked 25 October 2026.

Sources: ServiceM8, ServiceM8 tracking categories, Tradify, Tradify timesheets, Fergus, Simpro, AroFlo. Ratings from the Xero App Store, 25 October 2026.

Xero’s App Store listings show a “shared data” box for each app, and two of them disagree with the vendor’s help. Tradify’s listing shows payments going one way, to Xero, while Tradify’s help says payments reconciled in Xero mark invoices paid. Fergus’s listing shows contacts coming from Xero only, while Fergus says new customers created in Fergus go to Xero with their invoice. Test both during your trial.

App by app

ServiceM8

Job card

ServiceM8

Best for

Small teams doing lots of short jobs

Not ideal for

Project work needing progress claims or Gantt charts; deep stock control

Price from

Free (30 jobs/mo), then A$29–349/mo inc GST

Free trial

14 days, no card, no lock-in

Runs on

iPhone, Android, web. Works offline

Accounting

Xero two-way (contacts, items, payments). MYOB, QuickBooks

Try ServiceM8→

Details checked 25 Oct 2026

ServiceM8 sends an invoice to Xero when you approve it, and re-sends the line items if you change the total later. Payments received in Xero come back within 30 minutes, and the invoice is marked paid once it’s paid in full. Customers and items sync both ways every 30 minutes. A customer you create in ServiceM8 only goes to Xero with their first approved invoice.

Limits:

• Invoices created in Xero don’t come back into ServiceM8.
• Zero-dollar invoices aren’t sent.
• Xero contacts that only have bills against them (your suppliers) aren’t imported.
• Tracking categories need the Xero Tracking Categories add-on. You set the category on the job card, and categories sync once a day.
• The Automated Timesheet Sync add-on sends staff clock-on and clock-off times to Xero Payroll. It doesn’t send time checked in against each job.

Tradify

Job card

Tradify

Best for

Sole traders and crews up to about 20 who want simple

Not ideal for

Crews often out of mobile range; anyone needing an API or Zapier

Price from

A$48 per user/mo ex GST (no GST charged if you're GST-registered)

Free trial

14 days, no card, no lock-in

Runs on

iPhone, Android, web. No offline mode

Accounting

Xero two-way (invoices, payments). MYOB, QuickBooks

Try Tradify→

Details checked 26 Oct 2026

Tradify syncs invoices, payments and credit notes, and sends bills, customers and suppliers to Xero. Payments reconciled in Xero mark the invoice paid in Tradify. You map four accounts when you connect: sales of labour, sales of materials, a bank account and purchases.

Gaps:

• Timesheets. Tradify’s help says they “are not sent to Xero as part of the Xero Integration and must be manually entered into Xero”. You export a CSV each pay run.
• Tracking categories. We couldn’t find a Tradify help article on them.
• More than one Xero organisation at a time.
• Connect to anything else. Tradify has no public API or Zapier, so Xero is the main connection you get.

Two warnings from Tradify’s own help. When Xero asks you to log in again, the refresh can overwrite customer details you only keep in Tradify, like an email or phone number. And if a customer pays several invoices in one lump sum, Xero decides which invoices the payment goes against, so Xero can mark the wrong invoices paid.

Fergus

Job card

Fergus

Best for

Plumbers and electricians running crews of 1–20

Not ideal for

Stock-level inventory; quoting or invoicing offline

Price from

From A$53 per user/mo + GST (Essentials), A$77 (Professional)

Free trial

14 days, no card, no setup fee

Runs on

iPhone, Android, web. Partial offline (time, notes, photos)

Accounting

Xero (invoices out, payments back). MYOB, QuickBooks

Try Fergus→

Details checked 26 Oct 2026

Fergus sends customer invoices to Xero on approval, using separate sales codes for labour and materials, and sends supplier invoices and credits as bills. Payments reconciled in Xero come back and mark invoices paid.

Unlike the others, Fergus pulls your overheads and cost of sales from Xero into its business performance dashboard, so you see job profit and business profit in one place. Fergus suggests a year of clean Xero data before you trust those margin reports.

Gaps: there’s no Xero Payroll timesheet sync (you export a CSV pay summary), and we couldn’t find tracking-category support in Fergus’s Xero help. If you add new account codes in Xero, you have to disconnect and reconnect Fergus to see them.

Simpro

Job card

Simpro

Best for

Established contractors, roughly 5–200+ staff, with office staff

Not ideal for

Sole traders and small crews wanting self-serve signup and monthly pricing

Price from

Quote only (setup fee extra)

Free trial

No free trial; demo only

Runs on

iPhone, Android, web. Field app works offline

Accounting

Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks (data pushed from Simpro)

Try Simpro→

Details checked 25 Oct 2026

Simpro uses an “accounting link” that you run, rather than a live sync. It sends invoices (one line per cost centre), supplier invoices, credits, payments and inventory journals, and payments can go both ways. Timesheets go to Xero Payroll as hours against each earnings rate, but Simpro’s help says “the labour cost in Simpro Premium is not posted across in Xero, only hours”.

Points to plan for:

• Use a dedicated Xero login for the link. Simpro’s help says the connection is revoked if the same Xero login connects another app or changes its settings.
• Customers come from Xero once. After the first import, you create customers in Simpro, and they’re matched to Xero contacts by name. Simpro says this match is case-sensitive, so “Smith Plumbing” and “Smith plumbing” won’t line up.
• Overpayments won’t export. Xero can’t take a payment bigger than the invoice.

AroFlo

Job card

AroFlo

Best for

Teams of 3 to 40+ doing maintenance and compliance work

Not ideal for

Sole traders and 1–2 person businesses

Price from

From A$80 per user/mo, 3-user minimum

Free trial

No free trial advertised

Runs on

iPhone, Android, web. Partial offline

Accounting

Xero (push, payments pulled back). MYOB, QuickBooks

Try AroFlo→

Details checked 25 Oct 2026

AroFlo also works through a link you run. It sends clients, suppliers, invoices, supplier invoices, payments, credit notes and verified timesheets (with approved leave) to Xero, and pulls payments, account codes and tax codes back. Its tracking centres flow through to Xero tracking categories.

AroFlo charges for the accounting connection if it’s not in your setup package: a one-off fee per company file plus an annual maintenance fee, according to its help centre. The amounts aren’t published, so ask. See AroFlo pricing for the rest of the costs.

What you’ll still do by hand

Even with the best connection, these jobs land on you or your bookkeeper. Each one comes from the vendors’ own help articles.

• Duplicate invoice numbers. If someone types an invoice or bill straight into Xero, its number can clash with the job app’s next one. Fergus and Tradify both document the error. Decide which system owns invoice numbering before you start.
• Tax code errors. “INPUT” and “OUTPUT” tax types can’t be used on some account codes. Map every account and tax code during setup and test one invoice of each type.
• Archived accounts. Rename or archive an account in Xero and the job app’s next invoice fails until you fix the mapping.
• Lump-sum payments. When a customer pays three invoices in one transfer, check which ones Xero marked paid.
• Payroll. With Tradify and Fergus you re-key hours into Xero Payroll each pay run. With ServiceM8 you get shift times, not job times. With Simpro you get hours but not labour cost.
• Running the link. With Simpro and AroFlo, somebody has to run the export. Until they do, Xero is behind.

Before you connect: a short checklist

1. Create a separate Xero user for the connection (Simpro recommends it, and it helps with every app).
2. Decide where invoice numbers come from.
3. Map labour and materials to separate sales accounts so your reports show the split.
4. Set up tracking categories in Xero first, if you use them.
5. Decide where customers are created, and stick to it.
6. Run three real jobs through the trial: quote, invoice, a bank-transfer payment reconciled in Xero, and a supplier bill. Check each one landed where it should.

Is Xero Projects enough on its own?

Xero has its own job tracking, Xero Projects. It handles timers, expenses and bills against a project, project quotes, invoices and profitability reports. For a sole trader doing a handful of longer jobs, with a bookkeeper in Xero, that can be enough.

Two things count against it for most tradies:

• It’s only on Xero’s Ultimate plans, from A$143 a month including GST, with 10 project users and A$7 for each extra user. Most trade businesses are on Grow at A$78, so Projects costs A$65 a month more. That’s more than ServiceM8’s Growing plan (A$79) costs for the whole business. See Xero pricing for tradies.
• It’s not built for the field. There’s no schedule or dispatch board, and no job card with forms and certificates for the crew’s phones.

The Ignite catch

If you’re on Xero Ignite (A$37 a month), you can approve and send 20 invoices a month. Xero’s fine print says “transactions initiated by app partners may automatically contribute to your invoice limit”. So your job app’s invoices count, and a sole trader doing more than about five jobs a week will hit the cap. Tradify even has a help article for the error. If you use a job app, plan on Xero Grow.

Which job app to pick if Xero matters most

• You want the least double entry in a small business: ServiceM8. It has the most frequent two-way sync, and add-ons cover tracking categories and payroll shift times.
• You want simple invoice and payment sync and don’t run payroll through Xero: Tradify. It’s well rated on the Xero App Store (4.64 from 187 reviews), but timesheets are manual.
• You want job profit and business profit side by side: Fergus, which pulls your Xero overheads into its reports.
• You run payroll through Xero for a bigger crew and want timesheets to flow: AroFlo, which sends verified timesheets and leave, or Simpro, which sends hours.

All five apps also connect to MYOB and QuickBooks Online, with less detail in their help than for Xero.

In New Zealand

Every app above works with Xero in New Zealand. Two differences: Xero’s NZ prices are shown excluding GST (Grow is NZ$89 a month plus GST from October 2026), and NZ payroll is different. ServiceM8’s timesheet add-on supports Xero in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Check payroll support for your app before you rely on it.

DE

Written by Dan Edwards

Dan sets up job management, call tracking and CRM systems for trade businesses. More about Dan.