Xero and Workday HCM integration

What moves between them

The main flow runs from Xero into Workday HCM. Invoices, purchase orders, and payments recorded in Xero are read on a schedule and posted to Workday HCM's GL accounts and cost centers. Supplier records are synchronized in both directions so that new suppliers added in Workday appear in Xero for invoicing and new vendors created in Xero are reflected in Workday. Worker records from Workday can be pulled and synced to Xero contacts to keep the customer database in agreement with the workforce roster. Manual journals in Xero can be read and mapped to Workday accounting journals so financial adjustments propagate across both systems.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector stores both credential sets encrypted. For Xero, it handles OAuth2 token refresh on 30-minute expiry and uses the required Xero-tenant-id header on every request. For Workday HCM, it uses SOAP WS-Security authentication for financial and procurement data, REST OAuth2 for worker and organizational data, and routes requests to the correct customer-specific subdomain. Because both systems are pull-only for some data, ml-connector polls on a configurable schedule aligned to your accounting and payroll cycles rather than waiting for a push. Invoices and purchase orders are mapped to Workday cost centers before posting so every GL entry references a valid dimension. Supplier records are reconciled in both directions so a new supplier created in either system does not duplicate in the other. The integration handles Xero's pagination (100 records per page) and Workday's SOAP response limits (approximately 2000 records per request) transparently. Every record carries a full audit trail and can be replayed if a downstream call fails.

A real-world example

A mid-sized service company runs Xero for accounting and invoicing and Workday HCM for payroll, benefits, and financial organization across multiple offices. Before the integration, the finance team exported supplier lists from Workday, manually added new vendors to Xero, and re-entered paid invoices into Workday's GL accounts by hand at month-end close. With Xero and Workday HCM connected, each invoice recorded in Xero flows into Workday HCM mapped to the correct office cost center and GL account, suppliers sync in both directions, and workers in Workday appear in Xero's contact database. The manual reconciliation step is eliminated, and the general ledger and supplier records stay in agreement without re-keying.

What you can do

• •Sync invoices, purchase orders, and payments from Xero into Workday HCM cost centers and GL accounts.
• •Keep supplier records aligned between Xero and Workday HCM in both directions.
• •Mirror worker records from Workday HCM to Xero contacts.
• •Authenticate Xero with OAuth2 and Workday HCM with SOAP WS-Security and REST OAuth2 as needed.
• •Poll on a schedule you control with full audit trails and automatic replay on failure.

Questions

Which direction does data move between Xero and Workday HCM?

The main flow is Xero into Workday HCM. Invoices, purchase orders, and payments move from Xero into Workday, mapped to cost centers and GL accounts. Suppliers and workers sync in both directions so new vendors and staff in either system are reflected in the other. Manual journals in Xero can be pulled and posted to Workday accounting journals.

How does ml-connector handle Xero's webhook metadata and Workday's lack of webhooks?

Xero webhooks contain metadata only, so ml-connector follows up webhook events with a GET request to fetch the full record. For Workday, which does not support webhooks, ml-connector polls on a configurable schedule tied to your accounting and payroll cycles, using date filters where available to pull only new and changed records.

What happens when a new supplier is created in one system?

Supplier records are reconciled in both directions. When a new supplier is created in Workday HCM, ml-connector pulls it and creates a matching contact in Xero. When a vendor is added to Xero, it is synced to Workday HCM. The integration deduplicates by supplier ID and name to prevent the same vendor appearing twice.