Billing integrations (Xero & FreeAgent)

What this unlocks

The single biggest source of leaked revenue for independent consultants isn't bad rates — it's hours that never get invoiced and invoices that never get chased. Connecting your accounting tool gives the assistant eyes on both ends.

With Xero or FreeAgent connected, you can ask the assistant to:

• Check invoice status — "Has Acme paid me for May yet?", "What's outstanding from Globex?", "Show me everything overdue."
• Surface uninvoiced work — FreeAgent only. "What time and expenses haven't I billed yet?"
• Draft invoices on demand — "Draft an invoice to Acme for May's hours, three line items by scope." The draft lands in your accounting tool for you to review before sending.
• Send invoices once you've reviewed — "Approve and email the Acme invoice."
• Check bank balances and unreconciled transactions — "What's my current cash position?", "What's sitting unreconciled?"
• Reconcile transactions — FreeAgent only. "That £4,500 deposit was the Acme invoice from April."
• Pull P&L and VAT figures — FreeAgent only. "What's the P&L for Q1?"

Connect Xero

1. On the Integrations page in Really Focus, find the Xero card and click Connect Xero.

2. Sign into Xero and pick the organisation you want to connect. The assistant requests permissions for invoices, contacts, bank summary reports, and bank transactions.

3. You'll land back on the Integrations page with the Xero card showing as connected. The connection is tied to the specific Xero organisation you chose — if you have multiple, connect them one at a time (or just the one you bill from).

Connect FreeAgent

1. On the Integrations page, find the FreeAgent card and click Connect FreeAgent.

2. Approve the OAuth request in FreeAgent. There's no organisation picker — the connection ties to the FreeAgent account you sign in with.

3. Done. The card flips to connected.

How the assistant uses your accounting data

Everything the assistant does with Xero or FreeAgent is on demand, not on a background sync. When you ask a question — or when a custom schedule fires — the assistant reaches out to the accounting tool live and works with the answer.

A few worked examples:

"Has Acme paid me?"

The assistant calls check invoice status against your accounting tool, filtered to the Acme contact. It reports back with each open invoice, amount, age, and status (sent / overdue / partially paid).

"What hours haven't I invoiced for Acme this month?" (FreeAgent)

The assistant pulls uninvoiced time slips from FreeAgent for May, filtered to Acme. It tells you the total hours, the value at your standard rate, and the date range.

"Draft an invoice from those hours"

The assistant creates a draft invoice in FreeAgent (or Xero, with you supplying the line items if it's Xero — see below). It shows you the draft details and gives you the link to open it in your accounting tool.

"Send it"

On Xero, the assistant first approves the draft (status moves to AUTHORISED), then emails it via Xero's standard branding template using the contact's email on file.

On FreeAgent, the assistant marks it as sent and FreeAgent handles delivery directly.

Time entries flow into FreeAgent automatically

Here's the one piece of background sync we do: approved time entries in Really Focus push to FreeAgent as time slips. As soon as you approve an entry (either manually or via the calendar suggestion flow — see Time tracking), it lands in FreeAgent attached to the matching contact and project.

This means you can log time in Really Focus and invoice from FreeAgent without ever opening FreeAgent's time tracker. The time slip waits there for you to invoice it.

Xero doesn't have an equivalent — Xero's time-tracking model is thin, so the assistant doesn't push time to Xero. If you're a Xero shop, log time in Really Focus and have the assistant draft invoices from those entries directly.

Xero vs FreeAgent: which one for what

Most people are already on one or the other for tax reasons — keep what you've got. But if you're choosing fresh, here's how they compare in Really Focus terms:

Xero

• Strength: invoicing and bank reconciliation. The send-invoice flow is two steps (authorise, then email) and uses your Xero branding template.
• Best for: consultants who already invoice from Xero and want the assistant to handle status checks, drafts, and overdue chasing.
• Reach: invoices, contacts, bank balances, unreconciled transactions, supplier bills.

FreeAgent

• Strength: end-to-end project + time + invoice + expenses. Deeper integration with how Really Focus thinks (projects map to scopes; time slips map to time entries).
• Best for: UK-based independent consultants — VAT returns, MTD compliance, and the time-slip auto-sync make it the closer fit.
• Reach: everything Xero does plus uninvoiced work surfacing, time-slip writes, project/task management, estimates, expenses, P&L, VAT returns, and direct transaction reconciliation.

Use schedules to catch what you'd otherwise miss

The accounting integrations get a lot more powerful when you pair them with custom schedules that ask the right questions on a cadence. A few that pull their weight:

Friday "what's owed" check

When: every friday 4pm · Channel: Email · Instructions: "Pull every overdue invoice from FreeAgent. Tell me who, how much, and how late. Then tell me what to chase first."

End-of-month invoicing prep

When: monthly 1st · Channel: Dashboard · Instructions: "List every active client with uninvoiced time from last month. Total hours and value at the standard rate. Suggest which to draft first."

Cash position snapshot

When: every monday 9am · Channel: Telegram · Instructions: "What's the current bank balance? What's sitting unreconciled? Anything I should look at?"

What's not happening

Worth being explicit about, so you know what to expect:

• No automatic overdue nudges yet. The assistant won't proactively warn you about overdue invoices in your morning briefing — you have to ask, or set up a schedule that asks. (This is on the roadmap.)
• No automatic contact mapping. Contacts aren't pulled into Really Focus accounts on connect. The assistant matches them on the fly when you ask about a specific client.
• No invoice ingestion into Really Focus. Invoices live in your accounting tool; the assistant reads them on demand rather than mirroring them locally.

Tips

• Match account names. The assistant matches Really Focus accounts to Xero/FreeAgent contacts by name. Keep them aligned ("Acme Corp" in both, not "Acme" in one and "Acme Corporation Ltd" in the other) and the matching is friction-free.
• Default rates matter. Set per-account rates in Really Focus so when the assistant drafts an invoice from time entries, it uses the right number.
• Ask before sending. The assistant will draft, then ask before sending. You can always say "draft only" if you want a longer review window.
• Use the chase nudges. A weekly "what's overdue and what should I do about it" schedule, delivered to your phone, is the cheapest cash-flow improvement you can make.

What's next

• Time tracking — the time you log here is what becomes invoice line items there.
• Schedules — turn one-off invoice questions into a weekly cash-flow rhythm.
• Back to Getting started