Connect Xero to FlexiLay and any unpaid invoice can become a payment plan: your customer opens a secure link, picks a deposit and schedule, and FlexiLay collects the instalments automatically into your Stripe account — with the plan link written onto the invoice, and each instalment recorded against it, if you want.
Register at my.flexilay.com/auth/register (the Xero integration is available on standalone FlexiLay accounts). Once your account is approved, complete onboarding from the dashboard: accept the merchant terms and connect your Stripe account — payments settle directly to your Stripe; FlexiLay never holds funds.
In the FlexiLay dashboard, open the user menu and choose Accounting. Pick the Xero tile and press Connect Xero — you'll sign in to Xero and approve access (standard Xero consent screen), then land back on the Accounting page showing Connected. A Xero tab appears in your dashboard from then on.
The Accounting page always shows the live state of the connection. If it ever expires, the page says Needs reconnecting — reconnecting takes a few seconds and never touches your existing plans.
Open the Xero tab — it lists your unpaid invoices. Choose Create Plan on one and FlexiLay makes a secure setup link where your customer picks their deposit and instalment schedule and pays the deposit by card (Apple Pay / Google Pay supported). Send the link however suits: Copy Setup Link and share it yourself, open the plan and press Resend Setup Link to have FlexiLay email it, or use Add Link to Invoice so it sits on the invoice itself. Nothing is charged until the deposit is paid; from there instalments, retries, overdue reminders and receipts are all automatic.
If the invoice's due date is still in the future, the Create Plan dialog offers a checkbox: require the plan to be fully paid by the invoice due date. Tick it and your customer's schedule options are limited so every instalment falls on or before that date — if the date is too close for instalments, they pay in full at setup. It's a per-invoice choice, unticked by default, and invoices that are already overdue never show the option (instalment plans routinely run past a due date, so nothing changes unless you ask for it).
Turn on “Write the plan link onto the invoice” (on the Accounting page, the Xero tab, or in Settings — it's off by default) and FlexiLay goes further than annotation: every new unpaid invoice automatically gets a FlexiLay payment-plan link written onto it, so customers can start a plan straight from the invoice you already send. Only invoices raised AFTER you turn this on are annotated — your existing invoices are never touched. These automatic links stay quietly in the background — nothing appears in your plans ledger and nobody is emailed until a customer actually opens one and builds their schedule.
And the two systems never disagree: if an invoice is paid or voided in Xero before its plan was funded, FlexiLay cancels the unfunded plan automatically.
In Settings, turn on “Record each successful payment against the Xero invoice” and choose a Xero account. Every instalment FlexiLay collects is then booked as a Payment on the invoice, so its outstanding balance falls in step with the plan — and the invoice closes when the plan completes.
Use a clearing account. We recommend a dedicated account (e.g. “FlexiLay Clearing” with enable payments to this account ticked) rather than your real bank account — Stripe payouts arrive net of fees and on their own timetable, so booking payments to the bank account would fight your bank feed.