Let Claude Draft Your Xero Quotes and Invoices

Make sure everyone is connected to the right books before anything changes.

1. Connected before 21 October 2026? Reconnect once: in Customize, Connectors, open OfficeDesk for Xero, choose Connect, sign in with Xero and pick Demo Company.
2. In your accounting Project, ask Claude: Which Xero organisation are you connected to? It should say Demo Company.
3. Check your approvals: the Write/delete tools group must stay on Needs approval. It holds Confirm a change and the tools that change quotes and invoices. Lookups can stay on Always allow.
4. Ask Claude: Draft an invoice to Ridgeway University for $100. Claude says read-only mode is on, changes nothing, and gives you a link.
5. Open the link and choose Sign in with Xero to allow changes. Sign in with the same Xero login you connected with. The link works once, within 15 minutes; if it expires, ask again for a new one.
6. Back in Claude, ask for the draft again. This time it appears in Xero.

What changes now: drafts happen straight away, with no preview: creating or changing a draft quote or invoice, and adding a contact. Claude may still ask first (Shall I make this change?): reply yes. Anything that marks a quote sent or accepted, invoices a quote, approves, sends, voids or deletes shows you a preview first and waits for your OK.

Start where the work starts: with a quote. There are two ways in.

From one sentence. Ask the way you would ask a colleague:

Quote Ridgeway University for 3 hours of consulting at $150 an hour, valid 30 days.

Claude finds the customer, the account and the tax rate, and drafts the quote in Xero.

From a proposal. If you write full proposals, drop the PDF into the chat and ask for the quote. Before drafting, Claude shows you how it maps the proposal:

• who it is prepared for becomes the customer;
• the proposal number becomes the reference;
• the title and the short summary become the title and summary (not the whole proposal);
• the priced items become the lines;
• the payment terms become the terms.

Check the mapping, then reply yes or say what to change. Open the quote in Xero (Sales › Quotes) and check it there. Use Xero's subtotal, tax and total, not an estimate in the chat.

A draft quote changes nothing the customer sees. If a matching quote already exists, Claude asks before making another. Xero doesn't email the quote from here, so send your quote or proposal yourself.

A quote moves through three steps. Claude shows a preview before each one, and nothing changes until you reply yes.

1. Mark as sent, after you send your proposal yourself. Xero doesn't email it; it only records that you did.
2. Mark as accepted, when the customer says yes. The quote can now be invoiced.
3. Invoice it, in full or in parts, such as a deposit. Each part becomes a draft invoice.

For a deposit, ask: Invoice the 50% deposit on QU-0019, dated today, due in 14 days. The quote stays Accepted until it is fully invoiced. Later, ask Claude to invoice the rest as the last part. The quote then moves to Invoiced.

Claude won't bill the deposit twice. After a deposit, a request to invoice the quote in full is refused, and Claude offers to invoice the rest instead.

Each invoice gets the quote's reference, or the quote number if there is none. Xero does the same when you invoice a quote by hand. The invoices are drafts: you check, approve and send them in lesson 7.

Not every job starts with a quote. For quick work, ask for the invoice the way you would ask a colleague:

Invoice Ridgeway University for 3 hours of consulting at $150 an hour, due in 14 days.

Claude will:

• find the customer in Xero, or offer to create the contact if it is new;
• pick the sales account and tax rate from your chart of accounts;
• create the invoice as a draft and show you the number, lines and total.

Open Xero, find the draft, and check it line by line. A draft is not sent and does not count as money owed until it is approved.

Drafts are safe to change. Ask Claude to change a line, a quantity, the reference or the due date, then check the draft again in Xero. Claude may ask before changing a draft (Shall I make this change?): reply yes.

• Changing works on drafts only. For an approved invoice, edit it in Xero yourself (on a paid invoice, you'll need to remove the payment to change some fields), or void it and draft a new one.
• Deleting also works on drafts only, and asks for your confirmation because it can't be undone.

Every line on an invoice goes to an account in your chart of accounts. The account decides where the money shows up in your reports. Claude can explain your accounts and suggest one for each line. You decide.

1. Know your accounts. Ask: Explain my income accounts in plain words.
2. Let Claude flag the unclear lines. Ask for an invoice with a cost you are passing on, such as travel. Claude proposes an account for each line and asks about the one it isn't sure of, before it drafts anything.
3. Ask why. Which account should the travel line go to, and why? Claude gives a recommendation, with reasons taken from your accounts' own descriptions in Xero. It is a suggestion, not a rule.
4. Choose, in full words. For example: 1, with Tax on Consulting. Then check the draft in Xero.
5. When nothing fits. Ask Claude to suggest a new account. It gives a code, name and type. Claude can't create accounts, so you add it in Xero: Accounting › Chart of accounts › Add Account.

Xero's advice: check if your accountant or bookkeeper has a preferred set of codes they want you to use. Ask them which tax rate a new account should have.

Approving makes the invoice count as money the customer owes. Claude can no longer change it after that; you can still edit it in Xero, or void it.

1. Ask Claude to approve the draft, for example Approve INV-0035. Claude asks to use Authorise a sales invoice: choose Allow once. This only prepares a preview.
2. Read the preview: the invoice, the reference, the total and the effect. Nothing has changed in Xero yet, and the preview expires in 10 minutes.
3. If it is right, reply Yes, approve it. Claude asks to use Confirm a change: choose Allow once. Only then does Xero change. Reply with a clear yes or no: Claude doesn't take retry or continue as a yes, and shows the preview again.
4. Check it in Xero: the invoice is now Awaiting payment.
5. Ask Claude to email the invoice. You get another preview: Xero emails it to the addresses on the customer's contact, and an email can't be recalled.

About sending in class: Xero's Demo Company never sends invoice emails, so Claude will pass on Xero's explanation. The instructor shows a real send on a Xero trial organisation.

Every mistake has a safe way back, depending on how far the invoice has gone:

Voided invoices can't be reinstated or restored. Claude won't void an invoice that has a payment.

Deleting and voiding show a preview and wait for your OK. Changing a draft happens straight away.

Before you approve any invoice Claude prepared, check five things:

1. The right customer
2. The right dates: invoice date and due date
3. The right account on every line
4. The right tax rate on every line
5. The total matches the quote, or what you expected

Before you leave, ask Claude to turn read-only mode back on, then ask it to draft an invoice and check that it refuses.