When you export timesheets from Urhere to Xero, three things happen in sequence:
Urhere checks that the required earnings rates exist in Xero — and creates any that are missing.
Urhere updates each employee's pay template in Xero with their current hourly rate in Urhere. You can opt out of this at export.
Urhere submits the timesheet to Xero for the selected pay period.
Each step is described below.
Step 1 — Earnings rate check
Xero requires a named earnings rate to exist before a timesheet line can be submitted against it. These are the pay items you see in Xero → Payroll → Pay Items → Earnings.
Urhere creates and manages its own earnings rates in Xero, prefixed with [urh] so they can be identified. For example:
[urh] ffia_l1_ft - Mon-Fri Ordinary (6am-10pm)
[urh] ffia_l2_cas - Saturday
When you click Export, Urhere checks whether all the required rates for your selected employees already exist in Xero.
If all rates exist — export proceeds immediately.
If one or more rates are missing — Urhere pauses and shows you a confirmation dialog listing the rates that will be created, and asks you to choose which Xero expense account they should be assigned to (e.g. Wages Expense).
Once you confirm, the rates are created in Xero and the export continues.
You will only see this dialog the first time a particular award level or day type is exported. After that, the rates are stored and reused.
Step 2 — Pay template update
Once the earnings rates are confirmed, Urhere updates each employee's pay template in Xero. The pay template is where Xero stores the employee's base hourly rate against each earnings rate. Urhere writes the employee's current rate from Urhere into their Xero record so that payslips process with the correct dollar amount.
This update happens automatically as part of every export — you do not need to manually enter rates in Xero.
If the pay template update fails, the export still completes — the timesheet hours are still sent to Xero. However, Urhere will show you a warning after the export explaining which employee was affected and what to do.
The most common cause is a Xero configuration issue on the employee record (see Pay template errors below).
Step 3 — Timesheet submission
Urhere submits a Xero timesheet for the selected pay period, with one line per earnings rate, showing how many hours the employee worked on each day of the week.
If a timesheet for that employee and period already exists in Xero (e.g. from a previous export), Urhere detects this and updates the existing timesheet rather than creating a duplicate.
The timesheet appears in Xero under Payroll → Timesheets, ready to be included in the next pay run.
Export modes
Urhere supports two export modes for Xero:
Timesheets Submits per-day timesheet hours to Xero. Allowances are not included — they must be added separately via a Pay Run export.
Pay Run Creates or updates a draft pay run in Xero with earnings lines (total hours, not per-day). Allowances are included.
Pay template errors
Occasionally, the pay template update in step 2 will fail with a message such as:
"This employee has opening balance leave lines in Xero that don't match their pay template."
This means there is a configuration mismatch in the employee's Xero record — their opening balances reference leave types that aren't set up in their pay template.
The timesheet is still exported successfully. The hours in Xero are correct. However, the employee's hourly rate in Xero may not reflect the current rate until this is resolved.
To fix it:
Open Xero and go to Payroll → Employees → [Employee name].
Select the Pay Template tab.
Under Leave, add the leave types that correspond to the employee's opening balances (e.g. Annual Leave, Personal/Carer's Leave).
Save the employee record.
Re-export from Urhere — the pay template will update successfully.
Employee matching
Urhere matches employees to their Xero counterpart using a Xero Employee ID stored on the employee's profile in Urhere. This is set up when you first connect your Xero account and link employees.
If an employee is not linked, they won't be shown when exporting. You can link employees in Settings → Payroll → Employees.
What gets logged
Every export is recorded in Urhere's export history, accessible from Reports → Export History. Each entry shows:
The export date and period
Which employees were included
Total hours and wages exported
Any warnings that occurred