A Guide to Listing your App on XERO Marketplace.

Having worked on a number of XERO Integrations, including helping apps getting published within the XERO Marketplace, I’ll be sharing within this post what I believe is the best approach to get your App published on the XERO Marketplace.

Whilst I’ll try to be as methodological as possible, some steps can occur concurrently, and things may change as processes evolve. I will, however, do my best to continually update and ensure that this post is up to date based on the latest that we hear from XERO.

The First Step in your XERO Partner Listing Process.

In most cases, we recommend getting started with the development of your product’s XERO Integration. This is because to get vetted and listed you still need to have a working integration.

In some instances, such as for any Financial Services integration, we do not recommend getting started. This is due to the fact that certain commercial details and approval with XERO would need to be agreed for your integration to get the green light.

Hence it would make no sense to get started; make a significant investment and then get it goes to waste because an agreement could not be done or it takes too long.

In these instances, the first step would be to register to become a XERO app partner. Once registered the team from XERO will contact you to move through the next steps. If you choose to work with us for this integration work; we’ll also be able to reach out to XERO through our channels to speed things up.

In other instances, registration and integration can happen in parallel. Or sometimes we can even register as the integration is being wrapped up.

Integrating with the XERO API

1. The Different types of XERO Integrations, and the one you should use.

XERO provides three separate integration methods, Private, Public and Partner. The difference essentially lies in how they can be used, Private applications are meant for internal use and not being used across multiple clients. Public applications can be used publically, however, require user’s authorisation every 30 minutes. Partner integrations effectively work the same way as public ones; however, they provide longer-term access. This means that your app could be able to listen in on changes effected by your client in XERO and take actions upon that data in the background.

In essence, if you want to get listed on the XERO Marketplace your only choice is effectively the partner integration. Meaning you need to make sure that your developers take that into consideration and do not plan on using the private integrations.

PS. other than the initial connection mechanism; whatever code is done on the private integration is able to be migrated on the public and partner integrations.

2. Work on the actual integration

Once we’ve identified the type of integration required, the next step is to actually work on the integration.

Generally, we see two approaches to XERO Integrations for existing Apps.

The core product development team integrates this within their software. Making it a core element. A middleware integration through an API; here the integration can be outsourced, essentially with the XERO Integration becoming like a third-party application which uses your data.

The best approach will vary on your business model and how you see clients using the integration. In most instances using an API-first model will give you certain advantages; particularly that your XERO Integration is not part of your core product. Hence should any changes be required quickly and your team is out of bandwidth, someone else could hop on without exposing any proprietary information around your platform.

This also ensures more modularity, especially in today’s world where most things are built on microservices.

For details of what you can and cannot do with the XERO Integrations feel free to head down to our XERO Integration FAQ.

3. Time for the XERO Demo

Once you’ve got your integration built, the next step is to set up a time to demo this to XERO. Generally, we first prepare a full-flow video of how the integration works, and what it does. This ensures that the team at XERO know exactly what they need to look out for and test when given demo/test credentials to your product.

In some instances an appointment would be set for a 1-1 demo; however, if their team is confident with the integration your app may get the green light from an operational standpoint.

4. The Formal Review

Your app has made it out the first step, the next one is a more formal review of the app. Up till this point, any application has to use the Public API, at this point the integration gets upgraded to a Partner API. Before starting the formal review, it is also important that any feedback given at the Demo stage has been acted upon and implemented.

The formal review will look at the finer details of the integration, how it’s been made and if it was built correctly as to XERO’s expectations. Here XERO would expect to receive application credentials to see how the flow of data is happening and can test for potential issues and security concerns that your Application’s XERO Integration may have.

5. Your XERO Integration Pilot

Once the formal review is over; comes the Pilot, this is where you will onboard actual customers to use the XERO Integration. At this point, the integration is likely in a Beta stage, where you’re looking to get the clients’ seal of approval and XERO to be happy that the integration is working properly not only within their test but also with the customer base you’ve put on the XERO Integration.

Warning: by the time the whole approval process finishes you should have no more than 20 organisations connected with the XERO Integration. If you think you’d exceed this within the pilot, the amounts will need to be managed and ensure that discussions are on-going with the XERO team.

Whilst the pilot is going on; we recommend that you start working on the next step

6. The XERO Landing Page

To get listed within the XERO Portal, you need to have built a Landing Page which exclusively showcases your product in light of its new XERO Integration. This page has to adhere to XERO’s strict policy, to ensure that your use of XERO’s brand is correct and that this page will also help new clients understand how your product can help them within their XERO journey. This landing page should generally be different to your existing homepage, and it cannot be marketed until XERO’s seal of approval on both the pilot and the landing page itself are confirmed.

7. It’s time to get published on the XERO Marketplace

Once all that’s approved you just have a few final details to send over to the XERO team, logos, and some text that goes alongside your marketplace listing.

This includes:

1. A copy of your logo to appear in the Xero app marketplace. Ideally in vector format so that’s .svg, .ai or .eps.
2. The logo is shown in white on a solid colour background of your choosing, so you’ve got to send them the hex colour code
3. And finally, Description text: maximum length of 180 characters including spaces.

Once your listing is up you’re free to use the XERO Connected App branding across your marketing collateral. It may not be an easy or fast journey but with XERO topping up over 1 million businesses worldwide, surely there’s a slice for you too.

If you’re still thinking about integrating your App with XERO and not quite sure how to go about it, speak to us. We’ve worked on a number of web and mobile apps that integrate with XERO. Hence I’m confident that we can help you get there faster; book your free strategy call today.