When you import a Xero customer as a client, Forecast now brings the people behind that customer across as contacts, and keeps them up to date as they change in Xero. Import also checks for existing clients first, so importing a customer you already have no longer creates a duplicate.
What's new
- Contacts come across from Xero. A customer's Primary Person and any Additional People become contacts on the Forecast client, so you can see who to speak to, with their email and phone number, without opening Xero or asking finance.
- No more duplicate clients on import. Forecast matches Xero customers to your existing clients by primary contact email. When the match isn't clear, you decide.
What comes across from Xero
A Xero customer can have one Primary Person and any number of Additional People. All of them become contacts on the Forecast client, and the Primary Person is set as the primary contact.
| Xero field | Where it goes in Forecast |
|---|---|
| Primary Person: first name, last name, email | Primary contact: First Name, Last Name, Email |
| Additional People: first name, last name, email | Other contacts on the same client: First Name, Last Name, Email |
| Business phone number (customer level) | Primary contact: Phone Number |
Xero holds one phone number per customer rather than per person, so Additional People are created without a phone number. Job titles aren't synced, and people who aren't linked to the customer you're importing are never brought in.
How the import works
Import as you do today: click Import from Xero and select the customers you want. Forecast then compares each selected customer's Primary Person email (exact match) with the primary contact email of your existing clients. Only primary-to-primary emails are compared, so an Additional Person's email never triggers a match.
| What Forecast finds | What happens |
|---|---|
| No match | A new client is created and linked, as before. |
| One customer matches one client | The customer is linked to the existing client automatically. No duplicate is created. |
| One customer matches several clients | You choose which client to link. |
| Several customers match one client | You choose which customer to link. |
| Several customers match several clients | You see all the candidates and can confirm one or more pairs at once. |
| The only matching client is already linked to a different Xero customer | Nothing happens: no link, no new client, no error. |
Review matching clients
When a match needs your input, the Review matching clients window opens.
- A banner shows how many customers will be linked automatically.
- Import Clients becomes available as soon as at least one match is confirmed, whether automatically or by you. Its count shows confirmed matches only.
- Any group you don't resolve is marked Needs review and skipped.
- If you close the window without confirming, nothing is imported for those customers and nothing is queued. Run the import again to return to it.
A client linked through a match gets the same contact sync as a newly created one. A one-to-one automatic link creates no separate notification or history entry; it only appears in the banner when the review window opens.
Keeping contacts up to date
Changes in Xero reach Forecast automatically, with no manual action. The sync only goes one way, from Xero to Forecast.
- Name or email changed in Xero: the matching Forecast contact is updated. The client is never re-matched or re-linked.
- Business phone number changed in Xero: the primary contact's phone number is updated.
- Person added to a linked Xero customer: a new contact is created on the Forecast client.
- Person removed from a linked Xero customer: their Forecast contact is deleted, but only if it was created by this sync. Contacts you added by hand in Forecast are never deleted.
Good to know
- Xero values overwrite Forecast values. When contacts sync, details from Xero replace what is in Forecast, including contact details someone typed in by hand. This also applies to clients linked through a match.
- Existing Xero-linked clients aren't backfilled. Their contacts come across the next time one of the changes above happens in Xero.
- Skipped customers aren't retried. Customers skipped before this update are not picked up automatically. Import them again.
- The review window is for manual imports only. Background Xero syncs never show it and never link ambiguous matches.
- Where you'll see the difference. Xero-linked clients now show a primary contact with name, email and phone from Xero, plus any Additional People as other contacts.
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