Add to the power of Xero with a seamless connection to LiveCosts. LiveCosts will create and track all of your construction costs and let Xero manage your accounts. Better together.
Let’s take a look at how LiveCosts connects with Xero.
Xero and LiveCosts
Here at LiveCosts we’re big Xero fans and even use it ourselves for our accounting. An easy to use, access from everywhere software, what’s not to like!
Xero is designed for accounts to be made easy but it hasn’t been designed to deeply track construction financials. This can leave management with one simple question, are these projects making money or not?
LiveCosts have developed a simple cloud based solution to plug into the key areas of a construction business and sync that information to Xero.
LiveCosts is a project centric, digital procurement, e-invoice and cost management system built for modern day construction. We enhance Xero for Construction.
Purchasing & delivery management
LiveCosts is completely focused on the project and phase budgets. Purchase Orders are created belonging to a Project and Phase, immediately creating a committed cost to the budget whether on-site or in the office. These orders are tracked in a 3 way matching workflow that’s simple to use. Order / Delivery / Invoice.
Once on order has passed through our simple workflow its ready for Xero. With a click of a button the invoice is created in Xero ready for Accounts Payable.
LiveCosts has built a very comprehensive but simple Purchase Order system. By reading the incoming invoices, their line items are saved to the LiveCosts Catalogue for re-use on future Purchase Orders, simple, re-using your own data.
Managing the delivery or the order, simple. The LiveCosts mobile app captures the delivery once it reaches site, also capturing any possible issues once the invoice arrives.
Incoming Invoices, simple, LiveCosts extracts the invoice’s data looking for any matching Purchase Order numbers and Deliveries. An added bonus is each line item’s unit price can be checked against the catalogue for a match. A simple traffic light system can pick up overcharges against our agreed rates.
Digital procurement
The process of going to a supplier and buying is difficult at the moment. Material prices are fluctuating given the worlds circumstances. It is now more important than ever to keep on top of these changes.
LiveCosts offer Requests for Quotations (RFQ’s) to allow a step before purchase order creation. An RFQ in LiveCosts is very similar to a Purchase Order. Build a list (using your catalogue) and send on to your multiple Xero suppliers for pricing. A simple form is sent to the suppliers requesting their response and the replies are captured in LiveCosts for comparison.
When the buying decision is made, flip it to a purchase order and track it to invoice. Once complete, is off to Xero.
E-invoicing & integrations
With Accounts Payable, the number of invoices received on a weekly basis can be frightening. LiveCosts takes this pain away with our invoice extraction process. LiveCosts has two levels of invoice extraction.
Simple Scan is a Machine learning engine much like other products such as Auto Entry and Receipt Bank. The difference is that Simple Scan is construction focused. Simple Scan has the ability to read all invoices including handwritten! Simple Scan will 3 way match to our P/O & delivery.
Full Scan, which was mentioned already looks at material supplier’s line item detail. The suppliers unit price belonging to the product code is checked against your catalogue (database). Any price fluctuations will be found to ensure that contractors aren’t being overcharged. This full scan is set up for our main material suppliers and will also 3 way match to our P/O & delivery.
This invoice extraction feature takes away the need to manually key in invoice information in Xero.
