Xero Integrates BP Fuel Card eInvoices

Small business cloud accounting company Xero has announced BP as its latest – and largest – partner to join Xero Connect.

Scoop reported on Thursday (Sept. 5) that BP will integrate the Xero Connect eInvoicing solution with BP’s fleet card products, BP Plus Fuel Card in Australia and BP Fuelcard in New Zealand.

Small businesses that use these fleet card solutions will see their monthly invoices sent from BP automatically integrated into their Xero accounting platform as a draft bill. Business owners can then review and approve that bill to pay the invoice. The payment will also be automatically entered into Xero for seamless reconciliation.

“BP integrating with Xero Connect enables small business customers to streamline bill payments, taking away the pain of daily admin to give small businesses back something they don’t have enough of – time,” said Xero Platform Growth Director Jared Baker in a statement. “We also know that a key pain point for small businesses is the need for real-time financial transparency.”

The company noted in its announcement that Xero Connect aims to automate the process of integrating external invoices into the Xero platform to save time and reduce the risk of error that comes with manual data entry, reports said.

In June, Xero announced another partnership with Stripe, a collaboration designed to promote small business payments innovation and development. The firms said they would co-develop new solutions to help small businesses accelerate their accounts receivable.

The partnership’s first joint product is a data integration that automatically integrates Stripe transaction data into the Xero platform. The companies also announced auto pay, a feature that allows small businesses to set up and receive recurring payments through Xero.

Last year, Xero introduced another initiative to further promote collaboration, an open banking API designed to establish integrations with clients’ banks.