Import Invoices

Article Contents

1. Overview
2. Mandatory Fields
3. Default Branch and Department
4. Line Description
5. Project Captain
6. Billing Entity Name
7. Duplicate Invoices
8. What Happens With Xero When Importing?
9. Why Do I Need to Import Invoices If Hiro Is Connected to Xero?

Overview

Hiro supports importing invoice data from other platforms to get you up and running quickly. Importing your invoice data enables you to have accurate starting balances on your projects.

To import your existing invoices into Hiro:

1. Before you commence importing invoices, we suggest first importing:
   
   users - more info here
   contacts - more info here
   projects - more info here
   
   This ensures your invoice information can be matched up accurately to other data points in Hiro. For example, one of the data types you will need to import for invoices is "Billing Entity Name", which must correlate to an existing contact in Hiro's Address Book.
   
   
2. Export your invoice information from your other software platform in either Excel spreadsheet (*.xlsx) or CSV format. The order of your spreadsheet columns does not matter, but just make sure that the first row contains headings to explain what each column of data represents, and your invoice data begins on row 2.
   
   
3. Within the Settings module in Hiro, navigate to Import Invoices (you will need to be a Hiro Global Administrator to be able to access this page).
   
   
4. Select your spreadsheet file, then click the "Upload and Analyse" button.
   
   
5. Hiro will read your spreadsheet file to extract out the heading row values. These heading column values will be listed on the left. Hiro will try its best to work out what it thinks that type of data is, but you can amend if you need by using the adjacent dropdown menus.
   
   For example, in the below screenshot, Hiro has interpreted that in column "D" of the uploaded spreadsheet, which has a value of "Date Issued" in the heading cell, the invoice data in column "D" corresponds to Hiro's "Issue Date" invoice field.
   
   Corresponding values from the first row of data (i.e., row 2 in your spreadsheet) are displayed to the right of each dropdown to further assist you matching your spreadsheet headings to Hiro's invoice data types.
   
   
   
   
6. Once you've matched up your spreadsheet headings to the invoice data types, click the "Import Invoices" button at the bottom of the page.

Mandatory Fields

The following fields must be selected for importing from your spreadsheet:

• Job Number
  All invoices in Hiro must be attached to a job. Invoices cannot be attached to enquiries, given that type of project has not yet been given authority to commence billing with your client. Refer here for more info about the difference between enquiries and jobs in Hiro.
  
  The job number in your spreadsheet must match a job that already exists in Hiro. You can use the Import Projects page to upload your historical project information in one go.
  
  Job numbers are integers that automatically increment each time you lodge a new job. You cannot have letters or other non-numeric characters within job numbers.
  
  
• Invoice Number
  Can be any string containing letters and numbers, but must be unique per invoice.
  
  
• Issue Date
  The issue date represents the date that the invoice was first sent to your client.
  
  
• Billing Entity Name
  The billing entity is the name of the company or individual who your invoice is addressed to. The billing entity in your spreadsheet must exist in Hiro's Address Book. You can use the Import Contacts page to upload your existing client information before importing invoices.
  
  
• Total Amount (excl. tax)
• Total Amount (incl. tax)
• Total Amount Received/Paid

All other fields available in the data type dropdowns are optional, and will be left blank on your newly created users if you do not match those data types to headings in your spreadsheet (except for branch and department, refer to next section).

Default Branch and Department

Hiro will ask you to select a default branch and department. Each line item on invoices must have a department and branch assigned.

If you do not assign one of your spreadsheet headings to the department or branch data type dropdown, the default value is used for your newly created invoices. Similarly, if you do select a spreadsheet heading for branch/department, but the value for an invoice in your import spreadsheet is left blank, the corresponding default value is used.

If you specify a department or branch value in your import spreadsheet that is not already setup in Hiro, new branches/departments will be created for that value. You can update the details of these newly created branches and departments in the Settings module - within Branches and Departments.

Line Description

When you create a new invoice on the Invoices page in Hiro, you can add as many line items as you need. Typically, your line items will be auto-populated based on the Work Schedule that you have setup on the job that you are raising the invoice for. Learn more about how work schedules are populated onto new invoices in this article.

Imported invoices are limited to a single line item, which will not be aligned to any work schedule that may exist on a job. You can optionally set the text description that appears within that line item by enabling the "Line Description" data type in the data dropdowns.

Project Captain

Project captains are the people in your organisation who are assigned responsibility for managing and delivering projects. You can learn more about what project captains are in Hiro in this article.

Each invoice you import must have a valid project captain, which corresponds to the name of a user who already exists in Hiro. The user account associated with that person does not need to be active. For example, you could import historical project information including the name of the person who ran that project but has since left your organisation. A valid user account for that person will need to be created but can be marked as inactive. Inactive accounts do not attract subscription charges.

We suggest using the Import Users page before importing invoices to import your staff directory into Hiro, which will enable you to import users with their status already marked as inactive by way of setting their termination date.

Billing Entity Name

A valid billing entity must be assigned to every invoice in Hiro. When you raise a new invoice on the Invoices page, the billing entity will be automatically populated based on the billing information already attached to the job you will have selected.

Billing entities are created by adding a new contact to the Address Book.

By default, you will be blocked from importing invoices where the name of the billing entity in your spreadsheet is not found in the Address Book. You can disable this block by setting the "Billing entities" option to "Create blank contacts".

⚠️ However, we suggest that you import your billing entity information before you import your invoice using the Import Contacts feature. This ensures that your contacts are brought into Hiro along with all of their associated data like address, telephone number and email address/es.

If you proceed with the "Create blank contacts" option, all data fields for contacts created will be blank other than contact name, and you will need to manually update the information for those newly created contacts in the Address Book.

Duplicate Invoices

If duplicate rows are found in your upload spreadsheet (i.e., there are multiple rows with the same invoice number), then all rows other than the first occurrence will be ignored. Similarly, if an invoice already exists in Hiro with an invoice number corresponding to the invoice number field in your spreadsheet, that row will also be ignored.

Importing invoices will not update the details of any existing invoices, but is instead used for importing invoices that do not yet exist in Hiro.

What Happens With Xero When Importing?

The Import Invoices feature in Hiro is specifically designed for bringing invoices into Hiro that were created outside of Hiro, such as in other platforms or legacy systems.

If you have Xero integration enabled in Hiro (more info available here), it's important to note that:

• Hiro does not pull existing invoices from Xero. The integration does not retrieve or import invoices already in Xero.
  
  
• The import process does not affect Xero records. Importing invoices into Hiro is a standalone process and does not create or modify any data in Xero.
  
  
• Changes in Hiro are pushed to Xero. Once an invoice is imported into Hiro, any changes made to that invoice in Hiro’s Invoices page will be immediately pushed to the corresponding record in Xero.

Why Do I Need to Import Invoices If Hiro Is Connected to Xero?

Even with Xero connected, importing invoices into Hiro is necessary for invoice records that do not already exist in Hiro. Hiro does not automatically retrieve historical invoices from Xero.

To ensure your invoices are up to date in both systems:

1. Import invoices into Hiro: Use the Import Invoices tool to upload invoices created in other systems or before the Xero integration was set up.
   
   
2. Push updates to Xero: If you make changes to an invoice in Hiro, those changes are automatically and immediately pushed to Xero when you save the invoice. To do this:
   1. Navigate to the Invoices page in Hiro.
   2. Locate the invoice you want to update and click the edit (pencil) icon.
   3. With or without making changes, click Save.

Saving an invoice in Hiro when connected to Xero will automatically create or update the corresponding invoice in Xero.