Care Billing in Xero: What Syncs, Which Direction the Money Moves, and What Support at Home Changed
ShiftCare’s Xero integration moves four things between a roster and an accounting file. It invoices out to Xero, approved timesheets into a draft pay run, and approved leave into that same pay run. For Support at Home, the supplier’s cost-in, as a draft bill. The last one exists because Support at Home made providers buyers as well as sellers. Xero AU, Australian accounts.
Most Software Only Knows One Direction
Ask what an accounting integration does for a care provider and the answer is always the same shape. Care is delivered, an invoice is raised, the invoice lands in Xero, the money comes in. Every vendor in this sector describes that, and every vendor can do it.
It stopped being the whole picture on 1 November 2025.
Support at Home replaced the Home Care Packages Program, and it put the provider in the middle of the transaction rather than at the end of it. The Support at Home Program Manual is explicit that a registered provider may bring in someone else to do the work:
“A provider may engage a third party to deliver a service on behalf of the provider.”
— Support at Home Program Manual, version 4.2, Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, December 2025
The registered provider still claims. The registered provider still carries the compliance. And the registered provider is the one who receives the third party’s bill.
So a single garden maintenance visit for one participant now produces three separate movements of money, in two directions:
| What happens | Which way | |
|---|---|---|
| The supplier’s cost | The contractor invoices you for the work | Money out — a payable |
| The claim | You claim from Services Australia after the service is delivered | Money in |
| The contribution | You collect the participant’s share directly from them | Money in |
Two of those three are the ordinary receivable that every integration handles. The first one is the payable, and it is the one that gets typed into Xero by hand at the end of the month.
NDIS does not work this way, which is why the gap is easy to miss. Under the NDIS a provider claims the approved cost of a support and there is no participant co-contribution to collect. One direction, one ledger. A provider running both programmes is running two different money shapes through the same office, and only one of them has ever been served by software.
The Numbers a Support at Home Provider Is Actually Working With
Participant contributions are set by service type and by the participant’s means. They are not a single percentage and they are not something a provider can waive.
| Participant category | Clinical care | Independence | Everyday living |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full pensioner | 0% | 5% | 17.5% |
| Part pensioner / CSHC holder | 0% | 5–50% (income and asset tested) | 17.5–80% (income and asset tested) |
| Self-funded retiree | 0% | 50% | 80% |
| “No worse off” transitional | 0% | capped at 25% for self-funded retirees | capped at 25% for self-funded retirees |
Three more mechanics that decide what the accounting has to look like:
| Mechanic | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Budget cycle | Ongoing service budgets are allocated quarterly | Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, How the Support at Home program works, accessed 2 September 2026 |
| Carry-over | Unspent funds carry to the next quarter up to $1,000 or 10%, whichever is greater | As above |
| Care management | 10% is deducted from each participant’s quarterly budget to fund care management | As above |
| Claim order | “Providers must deliver a service before making a claim to Services Australia” | Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Support at Home provider payment arrangements, accessed 2 September 2026 |
| Who collects the contribution | “Providers are responsible for establishing and managing processes for collecting contributions” | Support at Home Program — Frequently asked questions for providers, October 2025 |
That last line is the one that costs an office its month-end. Services Australia works out the contribution and subtracts it before paying the balance. However, collecting it from the participant is the provider’s job, and it has to reconcile against a claim that was paid net.
What Moves Between ShiftCare and Xero
| Flow | Direction | What moves | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Invoices | ShiftCare → Xero | Sales invoices, with tracking categories applied | When you export, from Account → Integrations → Xero |
| Timesheets | ShiftCare → Xero | A draft timesheet in Xero Payroll — units against the mapped earnings rate; Xero calculates the dollars from its own rates | When you export, approved timesheets only |
| Approved leave | ShiftCare → Xero | A leave application in the draft pay run | Automatically, on approval |
| Support at Home supplier costs | ShiftCare → Xero | A draft bill for the supplier’s cost | Automatically, on save |
| Payments | Xero → ShiftCare | The payment itself — amount, date and reference — against the invoice | Automatically, once Xero reports the invoice as paid in full |
Invoices and timesheets are exported when you decide to send them. Leave, Support at Home bills and payments move on their own.
Leave Stops Being a Second Job
Approve leave in ShiftCare and it goes into the Xero draft pay run in the background. Nothing is posted. Payroll is still run by a person in Xero, with the leave already sitting in it.
Two setup steps, both one-time: reconnect Xero once so the connection carries the leave permission, then map each ShiftCare leave category to a Xero leave type. Turning it on runs an initial sync of leave that is currently approved and still active or in the future.
Each push is keyed to Xero’s own leave application ID, so a re-sync never creates a duplicate. Where something can’t go across, Leave Sync History says which record and why. The leave type isn’t assigned to that employee in Xero, the category isn’t mapped, or the pay run for that period has already been posted.
A daily background check runs behind all of this, catching anything a missed event dropped and re-syncing it.
Approving leave also changes the roster, not just the pay run. The staff member’s availability is blocked out on the scheduler, and the Leave Dashboard shows a Shift Conflicts count — how many shifts already on the roster overlap the leave being requested. A coordinator can see, before approving, exactly how many shifts they are about to leave uncovered.
Xero AU only. Not available on Xero UK. Leave moves one way: ShiftCare is where leave is requested, approved and recorded, and Xero is where it is paid.
The Supplier’s Cost Goes the Other Way
When a Support at Home expense is saved with Invoice to client ticked, ShiftCare creates a matching draft bill in Xero. Four things have to be true: the transaction is an expense, Invoice to client is ticked, Support at Home sync is switched on for your organisation, and your account has the feature enabled.
What crosses: the supplier, the supplier’s cost, the account code and GST, the dates, the reference, and the file if one was uploaded. The supplier is matched in Xero by name, and created as a supplier contact if there isn’t one.
What does not cross is the margin. The marked-up amount the participant is charged, the funding drawdown and the contribution all stay in ShiftCare. Xero receives the payable; ShiftCare keeps the receivable and the arithmetic between them.
The bill lands as a draft, so finance approves it in Xero before anything is paid. Each bill is keyed to the transaction, so a retry never creates a second one, and the transaction row shows whether it synced, failed with the exact Xero error and a retry, or synced with the file attachment still to come.
Xero AU only. Switched on per organisation, and off by default — see Setting it up.
Invoices and Timesheets
Invoices export from Account → Integrations → Xero → Export Invoices, filtered by client and date range. Timesheets export the same way. That’s it. One answer from Product, one sentence in the article, blocker cleared. Approved timesheets export by default, with a toggle to include the rest if you need them. What Xero receives on a timesheet is units against the mapped earnings rate. Xero applies its own configured rates to work out the dollars, which is why the pay item mapping matters more than it looks.
Tracking categories are mapped once and then applied automatically: client, pricebook, shift type, facility and location can each map to a Xero tracking category. Xero allows two categories per invoice line and one per timesheet line, which is a Xero limit rather than a ShiftCare one.
Payments Come Back on Their Own
Reconcile an invoice in Xero and ShiftCare is told. What comes back is the payment, not just a flag: the amount, the date and the reference are recorded against the invoice, so the invoice history shows what was paid and when rather than only that it landed.
Payments arrive once Xero reports the invoice as paid in full. If a client paid in two instalments, both appear at that point, together. Xero notifies ShiftCare as it happens, and a scheduled job re-checks unpaid invoices behind that notification, so a single dropped message doesn’t leave an invoice sitting as unpaid indefinitely.
What the Shift Costs Before You Roster It
On Australian Premium accounts with shift costing switched on, cost, revenue and margin appear on the shift itself — the scheduler tile, the drawer’s Financials tab, and the Shift Details Report. Cost is drawn from your Xero AU pay items and pay groups, using each employee’s own pay-template rate rather than an organisation-wide default, and it includes superannuation at 12%. It is the loaded cost of that person on that shift, not an average.
Financials are estimated, and only finalised once the shift has been completed. Dollar values are role-gated: the account owner sees full figures, a user with the Shift Financials and Margin permission sees only whether a shift is profitable, low margin or loss-making, and everyone else sees nothing. That holds in the CSV export too, so a coordinator can make a cost-aware call without ever seeing what a colleague is paid.
See It Against Your Own Xero File
Book a walkthrough. Bring your own Xero organisation and your real chart of accounts, and go through what would map to what.
Or start a free trial. Set up the connection and export a week of timesheets.
What This Doesn’t Do
Straight answers, because these are the questions that decide a purchase.
Nothing about a payment reaches ShiftCare until the invoice is paid in full. A part payment reconciled in Xero doesn’t appear — the invoice stays open and unchanged until the balance arrives, at which point every payment against it lands together. If a part payment needs to be visible in ShiftCare before then, it has to be entered there by hand.
Leave moves one way. Leave is requested, approved and recorded in ShiftCare, and pushed to Xero to be paid. Leave entered directly in Xero does not appear in ShiftCare, and Xero leave balances and accruals are not shown in ShiftCare — leave balances live in ShiftCare HR.
Services Australia and NDIS remittances aren’t reconciled for you. Matching a Support at Home payment from the department against a month of client invoices is still a manual reconciliation.
Leave has three hard edges. Leave already completed at the time you switch the feature on is never back-filled. Leave that falls in a pay run you have already posted can’t be pushed — you’d create an unscheduled pay run in Xero and sync again. And Xero has no way to delete a leave application through its API, so a deletion in ShiftCare has to be tidied up in Xero.
Support at Home bills don’t carry tracking categories. The first version sends the account code and the supplier cost. Tracking categories apply to invoices and timesheets, not to these bills.
Xero UK is a narrower integration. Staff import and timesheet export. Client import, invoice export, leave sync, shift costing and Support at Home bills are Xero AU only. There is no Xero integration for the United States or Canada.
Shift costing runs on a schedule, not on the keystroke. Costs are calculated by a background job roughly every two hours; there is no “calculate now”. Changing a pay rate in Xero, changing an award assignment or remapping a pay item does not re-cost shifts that already exist — the shift has to be saved again before it picks up the new rate. A large backlog can take a day or more to work through.
Shift costing is one path or the other. Xero AU and PayCat Connect both calculate shift cost, and an account uses one of them. If both are connected PayCat is used and the Xero path is skipped, without an error.
Shift costing has to be switched on for you. There’s no self-serve path; support enables it.
Two-factor authentication is required on the ShiftCare login used to connect Xero. Without it the connection can’t be made and nothing exports.
Matching is by email for staff and by name for clients. A staff member whose Xero email differs from their ShiftCare email won’t link. A client whose name doesn’t match a Xero contact exactly can produce a second contact rather than matching the first.
How to Set Up Xero on ShiftCare
- Turn on two-factor authentication for the ShiftCare login that will connect Xero
- Connect from Account → Integrations → Xero, and choose the right Xero organisation — a business that has moved to a new Xero file needs to reconnect to it
- Map pay items: Pay Items → Pay Groups → Actions → Sync Xero Pay Item, and map every award and allowance in use. Re-run it whenever you add a pay item in Xero
- Import staff, and check each person’s Xero email matches their ShiftCare email
- Map tracking categories if you use them, remembering Xero’s two-per-invoice-line limit
- For leave: reconnect once to grant the leave permission, map every leave category to a Xero leave type, then switch Leave Sync on
- For Support at Home: set your default expense account, then switch Support at Home sync on. Bills are created as drafts so finance approves them in Xero before paying
- For shift costing: link each staff member to their Xero employee, then ask support to enable it
Availability: Xero AU on Australian accounts. Leave Sync and Support at Home transaction sync are Xero AU only and are switched on per organisation. Shift costing is Australian Premium accounts, enabled by support.
Connect Your Xero File and See Both Directions in One Place
Book a walkthrough with your own Xero organisation and chart of accounts. We will go through what maps to what, and where the Support at Home flows sit in your existing ledger.
Or start a free trial, connect your Xero file, and export a week of timesheets. Included from the Essentials plan at $8 per user per month, no minimum contract
Frequently Asked Questions
Does ShiftCare integrate with Xero?
Yes. On Australian accounts ShiftCare connects to Xero AU to export invoices, export approved timesheets into a draft pay run, push approved leave into that pay run, and — for Support at Home — create a draft bill for a supplier’s cost. Staff and clients can also be imported from Xero. Xero UK is a narrower integration covering staff import and timesheet export.
How do I export invoices from ShiftCare to Xero?
Go to Account → Integrations → Xero → Export Invoices, filter by client and date range, and export. Tracking categories you have mapped are applied automatically. Xero allows two tracking categories per invoice line. If an invoice appears to export but can’t be found, check that the ShiftCare account is connected to the Xero organisation you expect rather than an older one.
How do I export timesheets to Xero?
Go to Account → Integrations → Xero → Export Timesheets and choose a date range. Approved timesheets export by default; a toggle includes unapproved ones if you need them. What Xero receives is units against the mapped earnings rate — Xero then applies its own configured rates to calculate the dollars. Each staff member needs a Xero pay frequency, an ordinary earnings rate, and pay items mapped in ShiftCare before this works.
If I reconcile a payment in Xero, does ShiftCare mark the invoice as paid?
Yes, once Xero reports the invoice as paid in full. The payment comes back with its amount, date and reference recorded against the invoice rather than just a paid flag, so the invoice history shows what was paid and when. A scheduled job re-checks unpaid invoices behind the live notification, so a dropped message doesn’t leave an invoice showing as unpaid indefinitely.
What happens if a client pays part of an invoice?
A part payment reconciled in Xero doesn’t appear in ShiftCare on its own. The invoice stays open and unchanged until the balance is paid, and at that point every payment against it comes across together — so a two-instalment invoice shows both payments once it is settled. To see a part payment before then, enter it in ShiftCare manually.
Does ShiftCare import the payment amount or just the status?
The amount, along with the payment date and reference, recorded against the invoice. That is what lets the invoice history in ShiftCare match what happened in Xero rather than the two systems merely agreeing that something was paid.
Why are only some of my staff timesheets syncing to Xero?
Almost always a per-employee setup difference rather than a connection problem. Check that the staff member is linked to a Xero employee, that their Xero email matches their ShiftCare email, that they have a pay frequency and an ordinary earnings rate in Xero, and that every pay item used on their shifts is mapped. One unmapped earnings rate stops that person’s timesheet, not everybody’s.
Why won’t a staff member link to Xero when the email is the same?
Linking matches on email exactly, so a trailing space, a different domain or a second Xero employee record for the same person will all block it. Check the employee isn’t terminated or archived in Xero, and that you’re connected to the Xero organisation that holds their record. If the person exists twice in Xero, resolve that in Xero first.
If I disconnect Xero, will I lose the staff I imported?
The staff records stay in ShiftCare. What is reset is the connection between each ShiftCare staff member and their Xero employee record, so those links have to be made again when you reconnect. Pay item mappings and leave mappings should be checked after any reconnect before the next export.
How do I disconnect from one Xero organisation and connect to a new one?
Disconnect from the Xero integration in Account → Integrations → Xero, then connect again and select the new organisation. This is the usual path after a business restructure or a new Xero file. Expect to re-link staff to their Xero employee records and to re-check pay item and leave mappings before exporting.
Do I need two-factor authentication to connect Xero?
Yes. Two-factor authentication has to be enabled on the ShiftCare login used to connect Xero. Without it the connection can’t be established and no export — invoices, timesheets, leave or Support at Home bills — will run. This is a Xero platform requirement rather than a ShiftCare setting.
Can I set up automatic invoice export to Xero?
Invoice export is run by a person: filter and export from Account → Integrations → Xero. Leave and Support at Home supplier costs are the two flows that move automatically — leave when it is approved, a supplier bill when the transaction is saved. Invoices and timesheets are exported when you choose to send them.
What are Xero tracking categories and how do I use them with ShiftCare?
Tracking categories are Xero’s own way of tagging transactions so you can report by programme, site or team. In ShiftCare you map client, pricebook, shift type, facility or location to a Xero tracking category once, and it is then applied on export. Xero allows two categories per invoice line and one per timesheet line.
How do I sync pay items from Xero to ShiftCare?
Go to Pay Items → Pay Groups → Actions → Sync Xero Pay Item, and map each ShiftCare award or allowance to the matching Xero pay item. Run it again whenever you add or rename a pay item in Xero — a renamed or recreated earnings rate breaks the existing mapping, and the timesheet export then fails for any shift using it.
Why does a shift still show as ordinary hours after I mapped the allowance?
The allowance has to be both mapped to a Xero pay item and actually attached to the shift. A mapping on its own doesn’t change how a shift is paid. Check the allowance is attached to the shift or to the staff member’s award, then re-save the shift so the export picks up the correct pay item.
Can ShiftCare push approved leave into Xero payroll?
Yes, on Xero AU. When leave is approved in ShiftCare it is pushed in the background into the Xero draft pay run. Nothing is posted — payroll is still run in Xero, with the leave already in it. Setup is a one-time Xero reconnect to grant the leave permission, plus mapping each ShiftCare leave category to a Xero leave type.
Which leave gets synced when I turn Leave Sync on?
Leave that is currently approved and either active or in the future. Leave that has already been completed at the moment you switch it on is not back-filled. From then on, each approval is pushed as it happens, and each push is keyed to Xero’s leave application ID so a re-sync never creates a duplicate.
What if a leave push to Xero fails?
Leave Sync History records what didn’t go across and why — the leave type isn’t assigned to that employee in Xero, the category isn’t mapped, or the pay run for that period is already posted. A daily background check also runs to catch anything a missed event dropped and re-syncs it, so a one-off failure doesn’t quietly stay broken until payroll.
What happens if approved leave falls in a pay run I’ve already posted?
It can’t be pushed into a posted pay run, and Leave Sync History records it with that reason rather than failing silently. The usual fix is to create an unscheduled pay run in Xero for that period and sync again. Leave that is still in a draft pay run updates normally when it is edited in ShiftCare.
Does leave in Xero show up in ShiftCare, and does it include leave balances?
Leave moves one way. Leave is requested, approved and recorded in ShiftCare and pushed to Xero to be paid, so leave entered directly in Xero does not appear in ShiftCare, and Xero leave balances and accruals are not displayed in ShiftCare. Leave balances are held in ShiftCare HR, and approving leave in ShiftCare deducts against the accrual in your payroll.
Does approved leave show up on the roster?
Yes. Approving leave blocks that staff member’s availability on the scheduler, and the Leave Dashboard shows a Shift Conflicts count — the number of shifts already rostered that overlap the requested leave. A coordinator can see how many shifts will be left uncovered before approving, rather than finding out on the day.
Can I delete leave in ShiftCare and have it removed from Xero?
No. Xero has no way to delete a leave application through its API, so a deletion in ShiftCare can’t remove the Xero record. ShiftCare warns you at the point of deletion. If the leave isn’t in a processed pay run you can delete or decline it directly in Xero; if it has already been processed, it has to be reversed in Xero.
How does Support at Home billing work with Xero?
Support at Home puts the provider in the middle: you engage the supplier, receive their bill, claim from Services Australia after the service is delivered, and collect the participant’s contribution yourself. In ShiftCare, saving a Support at Home expense with “Invoice to client” ticked creates a matching draft bill in Xero for the supplier’s cost, so the payable side stops being manual data entry.
Can I invoice Support at Home participants through Xero?
Client invoices raised in ShiftCare export to Xero the same way as any other invoice. What is specific to Support at Home is the other direction — the supplier cost arriving in Xero as a draft bill — and the fact that Services Australia subtracts the participant contribution before paying you, while collecting that contribution from the participant remains the provider’s responsibility.
Does ShiftCare send the margin on a Support at Home transaction to Xero?
No. Only the supplier’s cost, account code, GST, dates, reference and any attached file cross to Xero. The marked-up amount charged to the participant, the funding drawdown and the contribution stay in ShiftCare. Xero holds the payable; ShiftCare holds the receivable and the arithmetic between them.
What is a Support at Home participant contribution and who collects it?
It is the participant’s share of a service cost, set by service type and by their means — 0% on clinical care for everyone, and up to 50% on independence services and 80% on everyday living for a self-funded retiree. Services Australia subtracts it before paying the provider, and providers are responsible for collecting it from the participant.
Is the Support at Home Xero sync switched on automatically?
No. It is enabled per organisation and is off by default. An administrator turns on Support at Home sync on the Xero integration page and sets a default expense account, which is used as the bill’s account code and can be overridden per transaction. Bills are created as drafts so finance approves them in Xero before anything is paid.
Does the Xero integration work for aged care as well as NDIS?
Yes. The connection is the same for NDIS, aged care, Home Care Packages and Support at Home providers on Australian accounts — invoices, timesheets, leave and imports all behave the same way. The Support at Home supplier bill sync is the one flow specific to a programme, because it exists for the intermediary arrangement Support at Home created.
Does the Xero integration work outside Australia?
Xero UK covers staff import and timesheet export. Client import, invoice export, leave sync, shift costing and Support at Home bills are Xero AU only. There is no Xero integration for the United States or Canada — those regions use different accounting and payroll connections.
Can I see what a shift costs using my Xero pay rates?
On Australian Premium accounts with shift costing enabled, cost, revenue and margin appear on the scheduler tile, in the shift drawer’s Financials tab and in the Shift Details Report, drawn from your Xero AU pay items — using each employee’s own pay-template rate and including superannuation at 12%. Figures are estimated and only finalised once the shift has been completed. Support enables this; there is no self-serve switch.
Does shift costing update when I change a pay rate in Xero?
Not on existing shifts. Changing a rate in Xero, changing an award assignment or remapping a pay item does not re-cost shifts that are already saved — the shift has to be saved again to pick up the new rate. New shifts use the current rates. Costs are calculated by a background job roughly every two hours rather than instantly.
Do I need PayCat Connect as well as Xero?
No. Xero AU and PayCat Connect are two ways to cost a shift and an account uses one of them. If both are connected, PayCat is used and the Xero costing path is skipped. The Xero integration itself — invoices, timesheets, leave, imports, Support at Home bills — does not depend on PayCat at all.
Does the Xero integration cost extra?
No, the Xero integration is included from the Essentials plan, starting at $8 per user per month with no minimum contract.
