How to import your Cookaborough financial information into Xero

Did you know you can export your Cookaborough’s financial information in a Xero friendly format to make it easy for you to track your Cookaborough transactions? 

To ensure your Cookaborough sales are correctly recorded, for example, the correct amount of GST is applied for all of your meals, voucher credits are recorded and that any refunds are correctly allocated, we encourage you to import your Cookaborough financial information into Xero.

Cookaborough allows you to generate a list of manual journals that you can import directly into Xero. Once your journals are in Xero, you are then able to reconcile and track your Cookaborough transactions.

In this guide we walk through the process of:

1. Creating your Cookaborough chart of accounts in Xero
2. Checking your Xero settings and
3. Posting and reconciling your Cookaborough journals

If you are not using Xero, you can check out our guide on how to import your Cookaborough financial information using other accounting systems here. 

Step 1: Create your Cookaborough Chart of Accounts in Xero

The first step in the process is to create your ‘Cookaborough chart of accounts’ in Xero. It is really important that you add every account listed in the table below and that you also assign the exact ‘code’ number as specified below to each account.

Cookaborough chart of accounts

To add a new account code to Xero go to: 

1. The ‘Accounting’ menu, select ‘Advanced’.
2. Select ‘Chart of accounts’ - this can be found under ‘Advanced settings’.
3. Click ‘Add Account’.
4. Enter the Account type, Code, Name and Tax code as specified above.
5. Click ‘Save’.

TIP: IF AN ACCOUNT CODE IS UNAVAILABLE, ASSIGN YOUR PRE-EXISTING ACCOUNT A NEW ACCOUNT CODE. YOUR COOKABOROUGH ACCOUNTS MUST APPEAR IN XERO EXACTLY AS LISTED IN THE TABLE ABOVE.

If you want to learn more about how to import your Cookaborough chart of accounts into Xero, click here.

Step 2: Check your Xero settings

Once you have added your ‘Cookaborough chart of accounts’ to Xero, next you need to ensure you have the appropriate user role and permissions to import manual journals in Xero. To check your user role and permissions:

1. Select Settings from the ‘Company name’ dropdown at the top of the page.
2. Open ‘Users’ - this can be found under the ‘General’ section.
3. Select your ‘Profile’.
4. Select ‘Change permissions’.

You need to make sure you have been set up as either:

• Advisor user role or
• Standard user role with additional permissions to ‘Reports’.

To learn more about user roles and permissions in Xero, click here.

Step 3: Post and reconcile your Cookaborough journals

The next stage involves exporting your journals from Cookaborough, importing these journals into Xero and reconciling your payout amount. 

We suggest you complete this stage for each payment received to make the reconciliation process as easy as possible.

Export your journals from Cookaborough

To generate your journals from Cookaborough, we suggest watching this video.

Login into your Cookaborough account, select ‘Data’ from the side-bar navigation and go to the Reports page. 

From here, select ‘Payout Summaries’ – From the dropdown box, choose the relevant payment and select either ‘Accounting Report – Summary’ or ‘Accounting Report – Detailed’ noting the Detailed report provides an itemised summary of your sales. 

Manually import your journals into Xero

You are now ready to import your journals into Xero. To do this:

1. Log into Xero.
2. In the ‘Accounting’ menu, select ‘Reports’.
3. Find and select the ‘Journal Report’. You can use the search file in the top right hand corner.
4. Click ‘Manual Journals’, then click ‘Import’.
5. On the Import manual journal screen, click ‘Browse’ and select the file. 
6. Click ‘Import’, review the message and select the ‘Complete Import’ button.

TIP: BE SURE TO OPEN EACH MANUAL JOURNAL FILE AND CHECK AMOUNTS ARE SELECTED AS ‘TAX INCLUSIVE’, DEBIT AND CREDIT BALANCES MATCH AND THAT THE CORRECT GST CODES HAVE BEEN ALLOCATED TO EACH ITEM.

Once you have reviewed the journal file, you can then click ‘Post’ to post these journals to your general ledger. 

Manually import your HCP & NDIS debtors

Watch this video to learn how to import and manage your NDIS & HCP debtors.

Step 4: Reconcile your payouts received

The final step in this stage of the process is to review your ‘Cookaborough chart of account balances’ in Xero and ensure these reconcile. Most importantly, this includes ensuring your ‘Stripe Holding Account (Cookaborough)’ has a ‘zero’ balance. 

To confirm the balance of your Stripe Holding Account, go to: 

1. The ‘Accounting’ menu, select ‘Balance Sheet’
2. Set the date as ‘today’ (date of import)
3. Find the ‘Stripe Holding Account (Cookaborough)’ ledger account

In the event the account does not reconcile, typically this is due to an open menu and the lag of two business days for payments to Stripe, but feel contact our team at help@cookaborough.com if you require support through this reconciliation process.

You will also note that you have the ability to keep a track of any voucher credits as well as any amounts owed to you from NDIS and HCP customers.

To learn more about how to reconcile your payouts received, click here.

And you're done. We understand this can be a complex process, so we do offer our assistance to you and/or your bookkeeper should you have any difficulty with this process. 

Need more help?

Online: Check out the 'Learn' tab on the Cookaborough home page for more information.

Email: If you have further questions or need assistance, contact our team.