Xero
Xero cash flow forecasting, grounded in your actuals
Most cash flow tools project your Xero history forward, so the accounting data is the model.bluprnts works the other way round: you model the drivers of the business, and Xero is an optional input that grounds that model against what actually happened. You can build a full forecast without connecting anything.
Not built yet — NEEDS A CAPTURE THAT DOES NOT EXIST YET. The only honest shot for this page is the Xero connection screen or Plan vs Actual with actuals loaded, and neither is in public/app/. Deliberately left empty rather than filled with an unrelated screen: this page's whole argument is that Xero is one optional input, and illustrating it with the Overview would be showing something else. Capture both themes at 1600x1000 per the screenshot conventions.
How does the Xero integration work?
You connect your Xero organisation once, through Xero's own authorisation screen, andbluprnts is granted read access to it. From then on you can ask for a read whenever you want one, and the last twelve months of your reports come across to sit alongside the forecast.
There is no background sync and no schedule. That is a deliberate choice rather than a missing feature: books do not change often enough to be worth polling, and a figure that moves on its own, from a source you had forgotten was connected, is the harder one to trust when somebody questions it.
Disconnecting revokes the token with Xero, so bluprnts can no longer read anything. Your forecast is unaffected, because the model was never built out of the accounting data in the first place. The actuals simply stop updating.
What does bluprnts pull from Xero?
Report-level data, and only report-level data:
- Organisation settings, so the figures are read on your own accounting basis
- Profit and loss
- Balance sheet
- Trial balance
- Aged receivables and payables
Not your individual invoices, bills, contacts or bank transactions. The forecast compares against your reported position, so the reports are what it needs, and asking for less is the safer default.
The connection is read-only. The permissions requested are read permissions.bluprnts cannot create, change or delete anything in your Xero account, and it never posts back to your books.
Do you need Xero to use bluprnts?
No. This is the difference between bluprnts and the tools built on top of an accounting ledger, and it is worth being unambiguous about: you can build a complete forecast with no accounting data connected at all.
The model is made of drivers you set. Products and prices, sales, people, costs, financing. Those exist whether or not the business has filed anything, which is why three common situations work here and do not work in a tool that needs a ledger to start:
- Pre-revenue. Nothing has been sold, so there is nothing to project forward.
- A new venture. No books exist yet, and a forecast is usually the reason.
- A new product, market or site. Your books describe the business you have, not the one you are considering.
Xero earns its place once you are trading, as a way of checking the plan against reality. It is an input that grounds the model. It is not the engine.
How is this different from forecasting inside Xero?
Forecasting from Xero, whether in Xero's own analytics or in one of the tools built around it, works by taking what your accounts have recorded and projecting it forward. The accounting data is the model. Change the shape of the business and the projection has nothing to go on until the change has already shown up in the books.
bluprnts runs the other way. The model is the set of operational decisions, and the accounting is the output. So the question "what happens if we open a second site next spring" is something you can enter, rather than something you have to wait for the ledger to tell you about afterwards.
Both approaches are legitimate and they answer different questions. If what you want is a short-horizon view of your current trading grounded in your actual bank feed, an accounting-connected tool does that well and does it with less setup. If what you want is to model a decision before you take it, the accounting data cannot get you there on its own.
Who it's for
Businesses already on Xero
If your books are in Xero and you want a forward-looking model rather than a longer view of the same history, the integration lets you keep the bookkeeping where it is and build the plan somewhere it can actually be planned.
Accountants and advisors
Advisors running forecasts for clients get the actuals without a data-gathering round trip, and a model the client can follow. The read-only, revocable connection is also an easier conversation to have with a client than full ledger access.More for advisors.
Businesses not on Xero at all
Worth stating, because this is the group most often excluded: a business on QuickBooks, on another system, or on no system can still build the full forecast. Only the automatic import of actuals is unavailable.
Proof
The clearest demonstration is the one that needs no connection at all. The live demo opens on a fully modelled company, five years of statements, runway and reports included, with no accounting system attached to it. That is the claim on this page made concrete: the forecast does not come from a ledger.
Questions about the Xero integration
- Is the Xero connection read-only?
- Yes. bluprnts asks Xero only for read permissions — your organisation settings and your profit and loss, balance sheet, trial balance and aged reports. It cannot create, change or delete anything in your Xero account, and it never posts back to your books.
- How often does it sync?
- It does not sync on a schedule. You ask for a read when you want one, and bluprnts pulls the last twelve months of reports. That is deliberate: books do not change often enough to be worth polling, and a figure that moves on its own — from a source you had forgotten was connected — is the harder one to trust.
- Can I disconnect Xero later?
- Yes. Disconnecting revokes the token with Xero, so bluprnts can no longer read anything. Your forecast is unaffected, because the model is built from your own drivers rather than from the accounting data — the actuals simply stop updating.
- Do I need Xero to use bluprnts?
- No, and this is the main difference between bluprnts and the tools built on top of an accounting ledger. The forecast is derived from the drivers you set — products, sales, people, costs and financing — so you can build a complete model with no accounting data at all. Xero is an optional input that grounds the model against what actually happened.
- Does bluprnts work with QuickBooks?
- Not yet. Xero is the only accounting integration available today. Because a forecast in bluprnts is built from your drivers rather than from your ledger, you can model your business fully on QuickBooks — or on no accounting system at all — you just will not be able to pull your actuals in automatically.
Model the business. The statements follow.
Free to start. No accounting data required.
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