Support & Documentation

Flow connects your Xero accounting data directly to Excel. Once set up, you'll have live access to trial balances and financial data from all your connected organisations.

To get started, you'll need:

• A Xero account with access to the organisations you want to connect
• Microsoft Excel for Windows (desktop). The template uses a SQL connection that Excel for Mac and Excel Online do not support
• A Xero login — Flow signs you in with Xero, there is no separate Flow password

1. Log in to your Flow dashboard
2. Click Connect Organisation
3. You'll be redirected to Xero to authorise access
4. Select the organisation you want to connect and click Allow access
5. You'll be returned to Flow and your organisation will appear in your list

Repeat these steps for each organisation you want to add. Standard accounts can connect up to 5 organisations; Plus accounts up to 30, and Premium up to 60.

1. From your dashboard, click Download Template and choose which organisations to include
2. Open the downloaded file in Excel for Windows
3. Excel asks you to sign in. Select the Database tab on the left (not Windows), enter the username and password from Show Credentials on your dashboard, and tick Save password
4. Click Data > Refresh All. The first time, Excel asks you to approve each query — click Run

The template uses Power Query to read your data straight from Flow's database. Your credentials are saved in your Windows credential store, not inside the workbook, so a colleague opening the same file enters their own credentials once.

Before opening Excel you can click Connection Details > Test connection on the dashboard: Flow signs in exactly as Excel will and tells you how many rows it can see. Connection Details also lists every view your plan can read, with a copyable query for each.

There are two ways to get updated data:

In Excel

Click Data > Refresh All in the Excel ribbon, or right-click any data table and select Refresh. This pulls the latest data from Flow immediately.

Automatic syncing

Flow automatically syncs your Xero data daily at 2am UK time. When you first connect an organisation, an initial sync runs immediately so your data is ready within minutes.

Daily background sync: Flow automatically syncs your Xero data every day at 2am UK time. This keeps your data fresh without any manual intervention.

Sprint mode (Plus/Premium): every time you refresh the template, Flow opens a three-minute window in which it re-checks Xero every 30 seconds for your organisations — new invoices, credit notes, accounts and the current month's trial balance, plus any earlier month a back-dated entry touched. Refresh again after a minute or two to pick up the changes.

Xero webhooks (all plans): when an invoice changes in Xero, Flow re-syncs that organisation within a few minutes even if nobody is refreshing.

Verified: the dashboard and the LastVerified column in the views show when each month was last checked against Xero. Stale on the dashboard means an organisation has not synced for more than three days — usually the Xero connection needs re-authorising.

Initial sync: When you first connect a Xero organisation, Flow automatically syncs your data straight away so you can start working within minutes.

1. Go to your Flow dashboard
2. Find the organisation you want to remove
3. Click Disconnect
4. Confirm the removal when prompted

Disconnecting an organisation from Flow does not affect your Xero data. You can reconnect at any time.

To upgrade

1. Go to Settings from the sidebar
2. On a trial, choose a plan under Subscription and complete payment
3. On a paid plan, click Manage Billing and change plan from the billing portal

To downgrade or cancel

1. Go to Settings from the sidebar
2. Under Subscription, click Manage Billing
3. Select your subscription and choose to change plan or cancel

Changes take effect at the end of your current billing period. If downgrading to Standard, ensure you have 5 or fewer organisations connected.