1. Configure Your Xero Settings
Set up how AP bills land in Xero when you publish them.
Go to Entity Settings → Integrations → Xero.
Open the Xero configuration panel.
Go to AP Bills, choose your preferred settings, then click Activate to save.
💡 Recommended Settings
Invoice status on publish: choose the status AP bills land in when they are published to Xero: Draft, Awaiting Approval, or Awaiting Payment, depending on your internal process. This is applied at publish, not when the bill is marked Ready.
Allow Tax Amount Override ON: lets you manually adjust tax amounts in tofu.
Self-Prompt ON: for newly added entities, tofie learns from your accounting data and applies your rules automatically.
Note: For existing entities that already have a Xero integration, Self-Prompt won't appear in the Xero configuration panel. To update it, go to Entity Settings → Knowledge Base → Select AP Bills → Click Self-Prompt.
Want tofu to publish for you? Auto-Publish now lives in Document Lifecycle under Entity Settings → Features → Extraction Types. See section 4 below.
2. Upload an AP Bill
AP Bills is turned on by default, so you can start uploading right away. You can upload AP bills manually or automatically via a cloud integration.
Go to Source Documents panel.
Click Upload document.
Select your AP bill file.
Choosing an extraction type during upload
If multiple extraction types are enabled for your entity, you'll be asked to choose an extraction type when uploading. Select AP Bills to ensure the document is processed correctly. Selecting the wrong extraction type may result in incorrect extraction or publishing issues.
💡 Recommended: Connect cloud storage
For a smoother workflow, connect Whatsapp, Google Drive, SharePoint, Dropbox, or Email. Once connected, new files added to your chosen folder will automatically sync into tofu.
3. Review the extracted data and mark Ready
After extraction:
Go to the Extractions panel.
Open the AP bill and review the extracted data, including:
Supplier
Bill number
Bill date
Due date
Line items (description, quantity, amount)
Tax and accounts
Edit any incorrect or missing fields directly in tofu. Once everything looks correct, click Mark Ready.
If a bill has a New contact label, a Duplicate label, or a validation error, it stays in Draft until you resolve it.
💡 Tips:
To show Account Type automatically next to account names:
Go to Entity Settings → Features → Accounting
Enable Account Type
Return to review — Account Type will show automatically.
If this setting is disabled, click the "+" icon in the Account column to view Account Type.
Changed the extraction type after syncing?
Changing the extraction type creates a new transaction. The original transaction may still need cleanup in Xero.
4. Publishing AP Bills to Xero
Once a bill is Ready, you can publish it to Xero in one of these ways:
Click Publish to send the bill to Xero.
On a Draft bill, click Ready & Publish to mark it Ready and publish it in one step. You'll see this button when Auto-Publish is on.
Turn on Auto-Publish to publish Ready bills automatically. Go to Entity Settings → Features → Extraction Types, select AP Bills, and open Document Lifecycle. You can also turn on Auto-Ready and Auto-Done there.
After publishing, a link to the Xero bill appears in tofu, and the bill moves to Published. Click Mark Done once you've confirmed everything looks right, or turn on Auto-Done to skip this step.
💡 For more details, see Understanding Auto-Publish & Import in tofu and Understanding Extraction Lifecycle in tofu.
5. Editing AP Bills and keeping them in sync
If you need to make changes to a Published bill, open it in tofu and click Edit. Since the bill already exists in Xero, tofu first deletes it there, then returns the bill to Draft so you can edit it.
Click Delete & edit to continue.
Make your edits, including bulk edits for line items, and click Save Draft.
Mark the bill Ready and publish it again. This creates a new transaction in Xero, not an update to the old one.
If the bill has a payment attached in Xero, it can't be deleted there. You'll see options to Try again, Skip (updates the status in tofu only and leaves the Xero bill untouched), or Close. Changes you make directly in Xero are not imported back into tofu.
6. Finding your published bills
To see what's been sent to Xero, open the Extractions panel and set the Extraction Status filter to Published. To find bills that didn't publish, use the Error filter and select Publish Error.