Connect Xero Payroll UK

Connect Xero Payroll UK

1. Sign in to HollyHR as a System Admin, open Integrations and choose Xero Payroll UK.
2. Complete fresh verification and select Connect and enable leave sync.
3. Sign in to Xero as a Payroll Admin, select the intended UK organisation and review the requested permissions before consenting.
4. Confirm HollyHR shows the selected Xero organisation and a connected status before matching any records.

Data flow

Match and send approved leave

1. Review and confirm suggested exact staff-number matches together, or choose the exact Xero employee manually when their payroll reference differs. Your HollyHR staff IDs are not overwritten.
2. Choose the active Xero leave type for each HollyHR leave category you intend to sync.
3. If HollyHR says the employee has no assigned leave policy, assign that leave type to the employee in Xero and refresh. HollyHR does not choose accrual rules for you.
4. If the policy has not been checked yet, choose Check and send. HollyHR checks that employee's policy before sending anything; a failed check does not send leave.
5. If recorded daily hours are missing or inconsistent, HollyHR disables sending and links to the person's existing time-off page. Review the absence calculation or use the manual payroll handoff. Refresh after fixing it; saved employee and leave-type matches remain in place.
6. A working-pattern warning compares the schedule recorded for this absence with Xero's effective schedule. Review known differences in the person's HollyHR record and Xero Payroll > Employees. Unavailable evidence is not a confirmed mismatch. These advisory checks do not change the recorded absence hours sent to Xero.
7. Send only an approved HollyHR absence. HollyHR limits short retries and checks retained Xero records. If a delivery cannot be confirmed safely, it needs reconciliation rather than another send.
8. To stop sending each future approval individually, enable automatic sync once setup is complete. Earlier approved absences stay manual. Pausing stops new automatic work, but an operation already underway may finish. Resuming keeps earlier managed leave covered for cancellation without automatically sending approvals from the paused period.
9. For leave covered by automatic sync, cancelling in HollyHR checks and removes its saved Xero record in the background. Changed or uncertain records need review. Remove from Xero remains available for manual reconciliation and uses only the retained identifier.

Permissions and privacy

The initial connection uses offline access and read access to payroll settings. Enabling approved-leave sync adds Xero's broad payroll employees permission because Xero groups employee matching and employee leave under that permission.

HollyHR limits its own connector to the narrower data flow above. Raw Xero employee responses are projected in memory to the permitted matching fields and are not persisted or returned to the browser.

Frequently asked questions

When does HollyHR send leave? A System Admin can send an approved absence manually or enable automatic sync for future approvals and their cancellations after matching people and leave categories. Enabling means authorising HollyHR to manage its own Xero leave records, including removing them after cancellation. Existing approved history stays manual. Changed or uncertain records need review, and Remove from Xero remains available as a manual fallback. HollyHR does not run an automatic employee sync.

Why is the payroll employees permission broad? Xero places employee matching and employee leave writes under one permission. HollyHR restricts its own connector to the matching fields and exact leave operations described above.

What if an employee, leave type or employee leave policy is missing? HollyHR does not send that absence until a System Admin makes an explicit valid match and Xero confirms the leave type is assigned to that employee.

Does HollyHR run payroll or change pay? No. HollyHR does not calculate payroll, submit to HMRC, pay anyone or read or change tax, salary, wage, bank, payment-method, pay-run or payslip data.

How do I disconnect? Use Disconnect in HollyHR after fresh administrator verification. If Xero does not confirm revocation, also remove HollyHR from Xero Connected Apps.

Check, reconnect or disconnect

• Use Check connection when HollyHR shows that the integration needs attention.
• Reconnect only after HollyHR confirms that Xero rejected or revoked the grant. Temporary provider or network errors preserve the existing connection.
• Disconnect requires fresh administrator verification. HollyHR attempts Xero revocation and always clears the exact local credential generation, even if Xero is temporarily unavailable.
• If Xero does not confirm revocation, remove HollyHR from Connected Apps in Xero before deleting the HollyHR organisation.