How can I establish a connection between Dext, ApprovalMax and Xero?

How can I establish a connection between Dext, ApprovalMax and Xero?

Integrating Dext with your ApprovalMax "Bill review and approval" workflow enables Dext to push cost items directly to ApprovalMax. ApprovalMax will then run the predefined "Bill review and approval" workflow for such Bills and, after their final approval, push them to Xero in the status "Awaiting Payment". 

Prepare ApprovalMax for the connection to Dext.

For this connection, you must either have an active ApprovalMax subscription or start a new trial Organisation.
You can use your existing Xero Organisation or connect a new Organisation to Xero.

Prepare Dext for the connection to ApprovalMax.

Connect your Dext account to your ApprovalMax Organisation

There are two ways to establish this connection:

Option 1:
In Dext, go to Manage > Connections > Integrations.


Click on the button "Choose software"  , then select "ApprovalMax for Xero":
  

Log into your ApprovalMax account, if required, then click on "Connect to ApprovalMax for Xero":

Select a valid Organisation with an active Xero connection and click on "ALLOW ACCESS":


Option 2, alternatively:
In ApprovalMax, via the left-hand menu under the name of your Organisation, open the "Organisation Settings and connection" page under the "Workflows and settings" section and click on "CONNECT" next to the Dext Prepare logo:


Select "ApprovalMax for Xero":


In the pop-up window, click on "Connect to ApprovalMax for Xero":


Select a valid Organisation with an active Xero connection and click on "ALLOW ACCESS":


In the next screen, click on "Finish":


Once the connection has been established, all relevant Xero information will be synced to your Dext account so that you can select the respective values in the drop-down fields.

Now, configure the default settings for this integration (including tax and publishing preferences):


Please note: we currently only support expenses.
Important note: Please do not use GST on Imports as a default tax rate as it is not supported by Dext and will lead to document pulling errors.

Define additional settings for documents captured with Dext

Go to My Profile > Account Details


Here, you can set your preferred currency and tax extraction preferences.

Set up payment methods for documents to be published as "Paid" or "Awaiting Payment"

Whether documents are pushed to Xero in the status "Awaiting Payment" or "Paid" depends on the payment status of the cost item in Dext. You should specify the available payment methods at this point.

To do so, go to Lists > Payment Methods


Here, you can add a new payment method by providing a name and (optionally) a reference.
Once a payment method has been entered, you can select the required Xero bank account from the drop-down list.


  1. Dext-ApprovalMax-Xero "Awaiting Payment": If you publish a transaction as “Invoice”, the Bill, after its final approval in ApprovalMax, will be created in the connected Xero Organisation as “Awaiting Payment”.

  2. Dext-ApprovalMax-Xero "Paid": If you flag a transaction as "Paid" and add a payment method (which is a reference to a valid bank account in the connected Xero Organisation), it works as follows:
    During this document's approval, it will be highlighted that this request has been published as "Paid". So, after its final approval in ApprovalMax, the Bill in Xero will also be created as “Paid”. (Technically, it gets created as a Bill with the status "Awaiting Payment". However, as the respective payment is created simultaneously, the Bill moves to the “Paid” status.)

  3. Dext-“Spend Money” bank account transaction in Xero: If you select “Bank Account” as the publishing destination, you'll need to specify the payment method (which is a reference to a valid bank account in the connected Xero Organisation). Consequently, the approval workflow in ApprovalMax will be skipped, and the document will get published as a “Spend Money” bank account transaction directly to Xero.
The steps above are the minimal requirement for this setup and a prerequisite for enabling  Dext to publish documents to ApprovalMax.