Connect finance metrics from Xero to strategy in Cascade

Whether you’re a strategic leader responsible for financial growth or a finance executive monitoring the company’s finances, bringing your finance metrics closer to your strategy will help you drive faster results and contribute to critical decision making.

Integrate Xero with Cascade to bring visibility on your key metrics like net income, profit margin, return on equity, quick ratio, and so on. With this integration, you can automatically update your measures in Cascade, and report accurate progress on your strategic objectives.

This connection is enabled through Zapier. Eliminate the need to go back and forth between Cascade and your Xero tool. Keep your data up-to-date, accurate, and right where you need it. Save time spent on reporting and monitoring your strategy.

Being that one source of truth with centralized access to all company data, Cascade provides the ability to transform statistical information into actionable insights and a compelling narrative with effective data storytelling.

Prerequisites

Before you establish the connection, it is important that these prerequisites are met:

Cascade:

• A paid account in Cascade to access Zapier connections.
• A 'Measure' that is associated with your 'Objective' in the plan that you created in Cascade, and want to link to your Xero record.
• The tracking type of the measure is set as Zapier, with the initial and target values defined.

Zapier:

• A valid Zapier account.

Xero:

• A valid Xero account with either Standard or Advisor level rights to use the Xero API.
• A record in Xero app that has the measure's progress value (that needs to be updated in Cascade).

Integrate Xero with Cascade:

Step 1: Connect Zapier with Cascade

It is important to establish a connection between Zapier and Cascade to start integrating the measures. You can then use the same connection to integrate other apps to Cascade via Zapier.

1. From the measure’s sidebar, under the Tracking section, select Zapier.
2. Enter the initial and target values for the measure to track progress. If you wish to customize the tracking option, toggle the Maintain button to define target and critical limits.
3. Click Save.

When you select Zapier from the measure's tracking section, a modal pop-up redirects you to Zapier. You'll now see the zap’s interface.

Alternatively, you can also establish a connection from Zapier.

1. Log in to your Zapier account.
2. Click My Apps > + Add connection, and search for Cascade Strategy.
3. Enter your Cascade credentials to establish the connection.

See How to Use Zapier with Cascade for more information.

Step 2: Sync the progress of measures in Xero to the relevant measures in Cascade

Now, to sync the progress made in Xero records to a measure in Cascade, you’ll need to get those details in the zap’s interface.

1. Set up the trigger:

1. Click + Create Zap or My Zaps from the left navigation pane to either create a new zap from scratch or to use a pre-made zap.
2. Search for Xero, select the organization from the list, and choose a relevant trigger.
   The value obtained from this trigger must be mapped to the measure value in Cascade later.
3. Select the record's details in which the measure resides.
   To understand the different triggers from Xero, troubleshooting, and other related help information with the Xero- Zapier workflows, please search for "Xero" in the Zapier Help Center.

2. Update measure in Cascade:

1. Now, select Cascade Strategy to update progress of the measure in Cascade.
2. Select the Cascade workspace, plan, and measure. 
3. Choose the Measure value from the triggered values obtained from the Xero event.
4. Click Save.

Refer Integrate Xero with Cascade article for detailed information on this integration.

You've now successfully established the trigger and action. Now, with ease and no efforts from you, your values will get updated automatically in Cascade, every time the relevant event is triggered in Xero.

Some tips:

• You can add a step for Scheduler and then run a query to fetch a dataset from Xero to decide on what values you need to bring into Cascade.
• You can add your own custom unit if you do not find the unit of your choice. Just enter the text or symbol, and it’ll prompt you to add it to the list.
• Choose the relevant "maintain" options under the Target type dropdown when you need to customize the health of your measure.

Benefits

This integration provides you with all the elements for an effective “data storytelling”.

• Bring precise and up-to-date “data”: Track the progress precisely and on time with automatic sync between the Xero records and the measures in Cascade.
• Build engaging “visuals”: Visualize the progress with the various measure widgets and custom charts in the dashboards.
• Create compelling “narratives”: Build reports to make guided decisions based on the progress made in these measures and thereby the objectives in the plans.

FAQs

My test with Zapier was unsuccessful. How should I proceed?

You can skip the test, and proceed to publish the zap. It might still reflect the progress in Cascade perfectly. But if it does not update the value, then reach out to us.

I can't connect my Xero account.

The Xero account you're connecting with must have either Standard or Advisor level rights in order to use the Xero API, which is required for connecting with Zapier. Read-only, Invoice Only, and Cashbook Client roles don't have the ability to use the API.

There is a connection error with Zapier.

Start a new zap connection and redo the steps.

The "New Payment" trigger isn't finding all of my payments

The "New Payment" trigger will only find new payments created within the last 7 days. If you reconcile bank statements with unpaid invoices that are older than 7 days, they won't trigger your Zap.

My account keeps getting disconnected

This can happen if a second connection to Xero from the same account has taken place. If, under a separate Zapier account, you try to connect to the same organization in Xero, this will replace the previous connection. To resolve, only connect your Xero account to one Zapier account.

I've completed all the steps, and yet the Publish to Zap is disabled. Why?

Look out for  against any of the steps. If this is shown, it means that the particular step is not completed. Please go back, complete that step, and you'll now see that the publish is enabled.