Xero + SMS
Text a question, get an answer from Xero
Some of your team never open a laptop during a shift. They can still ask, and still get a straight answer back.
Nothing to install, nothing to log into, and no smartphone required. Kipper reads contacts, invoices, payments, supplier bills, bill payments, purchase orders, inventory, credit notes and supplier credits, plus prepayments and overpayments on both sides. The Xero Trial Balance, P&L and Balance Sheet are available too. Tracking Categories break a total down when you ask for it.
Kipper
+1 (415) 555-0142
Today 2:47 PM
Has Greenhalgh Farms paid INV-3182?
INV-3182 for Greenhalgh Farms
Anything else open for them?
One open invoice: INV-3219, £1,880, due in 6 days.
Kipper answers questions about your Xero organisation over ordinary text message. Each person saves their own mobile number on their Kipper profile and consents to it, then texts a question and gets the answer back. Nobody needs a Xero login. Kipper only ever replies to a message somebody sent it, never reads your bank feed, and logs every exchange.
No Xero login and no app for the person texting
Each person consents with their own number
Replies only, and read-only, so nothing is ever changed
Trial Balance, P&L and Balance Sheet
Your bank feed is not part of the connection
Xero already has an SMS feature. This is a different one.
Xero texts invoices out to your customers. Kipper texts answers back to your staff.
Xero's own SMS invoicing sends a customer their invoice and a payment link so they can settle it from their phone. That is a billing tool aimed outward. This points the other way entirely, and the two never meet.
Xero SMS invoicing
Built into Xero
- Sends a customer their invoice and a payment link
- The message leaves your company
- Good for: getting paid sooner
- Your own staff learn nothing from it
Kipper
Answers to staff, not messages to customers
- Your own staff text a question about the books
- The message never leaves your company
- Good for: is it paid, what do we owe, what is left
- It never texts anybody first
What your team can ask
What people text Xero about
Asked from a yard, a van or a customer's kitchen, where opening a laptop is not happening.
"Has Greenhalgh Farms paid INV-3182?"
Driver before handing over paperwork
"What is still owed to Dalton Roofing?"
Site foreman in the yard
"Count on item PT-215?"
Stores assistant at the racking
"Any credit notes on the Ashcombe Studio account?"
Owner fielding a query in the car
"How much of the Pemberton Tiles deposit is left?"
Foreman before ordering the next batch
"Is the Ferndale Garage purchase order still open?"
Technician checking before collection
"What did we invoice Greenhalgh Farms last month?"
Owner between appointments
"Which supplier bills are due this week?"
Foreman planning the week
See it answer a Xero question for real.
The public demo runs in your browser on a sample data set. No signup, and it never touches your own account.
Who it's for
Who texts instead of ringing the office
Site foreman
Standing in a yard, check whether the supplier bill for the last delivery has been settled.
Mobile technician
Find out whether a contact still owes on the previous job before starting the next one.
Delivery driver
Confirm an invoice has been paid before handing over the paperwork at the door.
Stores assistant
Check the count on an item from the racking, without walking back to a screen.
Owner between appointments
Ask what a supplier is owed while sitting in the car, rather than making a note to look it up.
A firm's client
The business owner who will never log into anything texts their own question instead of ringing the bookkeeper.
Pricing
$5 a month for each extra person who asks
Xero plans start at $200 a month with 10 active users included, then $5 for each additional active user. Billing follows the people who actually ask a question that month, so a quiet month costs less.
- 2,000 questions a month included
- Free 14-day trial with 100 questions
- No credit card required to start
- Month to month, no long-term commitment
How it works
How to set up Xero over text
One authorisation for the organisation, then each person opts themselves in. No handset setup and no app to roll out.
Authorise Xero
In the Kipper portal, open Data Sources and pick Xero. Xero's own login asks which organisation you are granting access to, and what comes back is read-only.
Add the person and set their scope
Invite them in the portal with a permission set. What they can ask by text is exactly what they could see anywhere else in Kipper, never more.
They add their own number
The number goes on their own Kipper profile, added by them, with their own consent. There is no way for an administrator to put a colleague's handset on the list, which is the point.
They text a question
Save the number, type the question like a message to a colleague. Kipper works out who is asking from the handset it came from, answers within their scope, and texts back.
We'll do the setup with you.
A 30-minute session: connect Xero, add SMS, and set who can see what. Free, no commitment.
Straight answer
What Kipper will not do
Worth knowing before you book a call, so nothing here is a surprise later.
Send an invoice or a payment link to one of your customers. Xero's own SMS invoicing does that.
Text anybody first. Kipper replies to a message you send it and does nothing else.
Answer a handset whose number is not saved on a Kipper profile.
Work on numbers outside the United States and Canada.
Go anywhere near your bank feed, or tell you a cash position.
Return a Cash Flow statement. Kipper supports that report on QuickBooks and NetSuite, not Xero.
Change a single record in Xero.
How Kipper handles access
Read-only. Permissioned. Logged.
- Kipper never creates, updates, or deletes Xero records.
- You choose what each user or team can see.
- Every question is written to an audit log.
- Pricing is the same on every interface. See plans.
Also for Xero
Other ways to ask Xero through Kipper
+ 
Xero + Slack
Ask Xero in a Slack channel without an extra Xero login
+ 
Xero + Microsoft Teams
Xero answers in Microsoft 365 department channels
+ 
Xero + ChatGPT
Live Xero records in a ChatGPT thread via MCP
+ 
Xero + Claude
Xero lookups inside a Claude project
+ 
Xero + Google Gemini
Xero facts in Gemini via MCP
FAQ
Xero over text message
How this differs from Xero's own SMS invoicing, who can use it, and where it works.
Reach the people a Xero seat was never going to reach
Read-only against your Xero organisation, answered on the phone they already carry.
Prefer to try it yourself? Start a free trial.