Connecting your Financial Management System in RAVE to Xero, and syncing your Cost Centres is easy. Firstly let's look at connecting your RAVE FMS set-up to Xero.



Connecting RAVE to Xero


To connect RAVE to Xero:

  1. Click on your Profile Dropdown to access the menu options 


  2. Select Xero - this will open RAVE's Xero Account Setting page


  3. Then click on the Connect to Xero button - this will take you to your Xero log-in page.  

    Note: You can only connect RAVE to Xero if you have Xero permissions within your business (we cannot help with this part).  Xero will step you through the process of connecting your Xero account to RAVE.  If you have more than one Xero account, you will need to select the specific Xero account from the drop-down menu.


Once RAVE is connected with Xero you will have the option to activate (slide on or off) different tabs.

  • The Purchase Orders option is generally turned OFF - as there is no need to send your Purchase Orders to Xero, as you will complete all reconciliation within Rave
  • The Invoices and Bills options are turned ON - as you will want RAVE to send both Bills and Invoices to Xero
  • By default we have Append Job Number turned on but there is the ability to turn this off if you do not wish to have the Job Number/Reference display on your Xero documents.

 


RAVE Project + Xero Tracking Categories


With RAVE Project + Xero Tracking Categories enabled, RAVE will track your invoices and bills within Rave and Xero via your RAVE project's Job Number - for full details on how to set this up, check out this RAVE Help - RAVE Project + Xero Tracking Categories article here.



Copying your Cost Centres from Xero to RAVE


You now need to copy over your Cost Centres from Xero to RAVE:

  • We do this by clicking on the 'Pull Cost Centres from Xero' Button - this will load ALL of your active Cost Centres/Chart of Account codes into RAVE. 



Setting up your Default Cost Centres in RAVE


Next, we set up your Default Cost Centres - these will be applied to any payment, purchase order, bill, and credit notes for client invoices and supplier bills, that do not already have a cost centre loaded.

  1. First up is your Progress Payments Cost Centre - this is where you would ensure the progress payment cost centre in RAVE is matched to your income code in Xero.  A lot of companies automatically use Xero's 200 sales code here.
  2. Purchase Orders and Bills can both be left blank as they are usually selected at the quote stage, however, if you wish to load a default setting, you can do so by selecting these from the Select Cost Centre dropdown menus.
  3. The Rounding option should auto-load with your Xero rounding code - otherwise, you can select this from the Select Cost Centre dropdown menu.
  4. Credit Notes for Client Invoices and Supplier Bills and suppliers can both be left blank, though you can again select a default for each type via the Select Cost Centre dropdown menus.
  5. When a cost center is updated (name or type changed) in Xero, it updates details in Rave
  6. When a cost center is deleted in Xero, its not dropped from line items in Rave. It shows as cost center(deleted) on line items



Tax Configuration in RAVE


There is no need for you to pull down any GST rates or settings from Xero, as RAVE's tax is automatically set for GST inclusive, GST Exclusive, or no GST.   



Finalising your Cost Centre list in RAVE


Now that the Cost Centres (chart of accounts) are in Rave you can go through them and hide the ones you don’t want to show.


To manage your Cost Centres in RAVE:

  1. Click on your Profile Dropdown to access the menu options 
  2. Select Cost Centres - this will open your Cost Centre List page, displaying a table with ALL of your Xero cost centres.
  3. Going down the list you can mark specific cost centre codes as hidden

    TIP:  You can quickly select and hide multiple Cost Centre's by adding a Cost Centre type filter (Term Liability, Equity, Current Liability etc), selecting the check box to the top left hand side of the page, UNCHECKING all of the codes you want to KEEP, before clicking MARK AS HIDDEN once done.

    NOTE:  Hidden cost centres, are not available via RAVE's FMS workflows - these won't show up in your Cost Centre dropdowns.  These will be noted with the 'Hide' tag in the Visibility column of your Cost Centre List page.  Anything not relating to building materials, suppliers/trades etc can be hidden.