Xero

Xero is the cloud accounting platform many small and mid-sized shippers run their books on, and its Accounting API behaves the same for every organisation. With the connection on, a delivered load becomes a sales invoice and a purchase invoice in Xero with the right contact, tax rate and tracking categories, and the payment that arrives later closes the load. The finance lead or the outsourced bookkeeper usually switches it on.

What teams use it for

Invoice the delivery before the driver is home

A container of furniture delivers from Felixstowe to a Leeds warehouse. The POD is filed in Documents, the load closes in Finance, and Cargofy writes the sales invoice to Xero with the customer contact, line items, tax rate, and lane and customer tracking categories set, POD attached. The billing clerk sees the Xero invoice number on the load, with no Friday invoice run from a delivery report.

Book the haulier's invoice on the right contact

The haulier's invoice arrives by email. Finance checks it against the rate agreed on the load, the AP clerk approves it, and Cargofy writes it to Xero as a purchase invoice on the haulier's contact, rate confirmation attached. Credit notes for a short delivery follow the same path. Every line in Xero carries the load reference.

Close the receivable when the customer pays

The bookkeeper records the payment in Xero, or a batch payment settles several invoices at once. The invoice webhook fires with the invoice ID, Cargofy reads the full invoice back, and a digital worker marks the load paid in Finance. It drops off the aged receivables report in Reports the same morning, so customer service can see a customer is clear before releasing the next load.

Reconcile freight against the bank

A customer pays three invoices in one transfer, and the transaction appears in the Xero bank feed. On the next scheduled read, Cargofy pulls bank transactions, matches the amount against open sales invoices in Finance and marks all three loads paid. A transfer it cannot match goes to the bookkeeper, who reconciles it in Xero. The controller sees each load in Finance as paid, part-paid or open, and the bank feed stays in Xero where it was set up.

Report margin by lane

At the Monday review, the commercial lead asks what the Felixstowe to Leeds lane earned last quarter. Overnight, Cargofy has read the P&L and aged payables and receivables from Xero into Reports, sliced by the lane and customer tracking categories it sets on every invoice. The finance lead filters by lane, customer and quarter and has the answer on screen during the meeting.

How it fits your stack

Xero remains the ledger and chart of accounts; Load Hub and Finance remain the record for loads and freight costs. Cargofy writes sales invoices, purchase invoices, credit notes, contacts, attachments and tracking categories to Xero, and reads payments, bank transactions and reports back. Setup is OAuth 2.0: the Xero admin signs in from Cargofy settings and picks the organisation. One limit: webhooks cover invoices and contacts only, so bank transactions and reports arrive on a schedule.

Who it is for

Shippers and small forwarders with their books in Xero and carriers paid from it. Billing staff issue invoices from Finance, AP clerks book purchase invoices and match payments, the controller reads aging and P&L in Reports, and the Xero admin or IT owns the connection.