Xero to Snowflake Integration: 2 Easy Ways to Replicate Data

Xero is online accounting software that provides business owners with an understanding of their cash flow by highlighting details such as Bank Balances, Outstanding Invoices, Upcoming Bills, and Expense Claims.

Snowflake’s Data Cloud is built on a cutting-edge data platform that is delivered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Snowflake provides Data Storage, Processing, and Analytic Solutions that are faster, easier to use, and more flexible than traditional options.

This article explains the different ways for Xero to Snowflake Integration. It also gives an overview of Snowflake and Xero.

What is Xero?

Xero is a cloud-based accounting software program that integrates with more than 1,000 other apps and enables small-business owners to manage their finances from any location. It offers a cost-effective alternative for expanding businesses because it is less expensive than rivals like QuickBooks Online and doesn’t charge extra for additional users.

Small and medium-sized businesses can use the online accounting tools and services provided by Xero. A cashbook, automated daily bank feeds, invoicing, debtors, creditors, sales tax, and reporting are all included in the full accrual accounting system.

Xero adds new functionality about once per month. In response to the demands of new clients and emerging markets, functionality is expanded and added. 

Key Features of Xero

• Bank Connections: Set up bank feeds and connect your bank to Xero. Each business day, transactions flow safely right into Xero.
• Accept Payments: By integrating with companies like Stripe, GoCardless, and others, you can accept payments online and receive payments up to twice as quickly.
• Reporting: With accurate accounting reports, you can monitor your finances and work in real-time online collaboration with your advisor.
• Inventory: Inventory management software allows you to keep track of your inventory. Additionally, you can add the items you buy and sell to invoices and orders.
• Multi-currency: With the aid of instant currency conversions, multi-currency accounting allows you to pay and receive payments in more than 160 different currencies.
• Analytics: You can monitor metrics, check the health of your finances, and see future cash flow. To learn more, upgrade from Xero Analytics to Analytics Plus.
• Accounting Dashboard: Using the accounting dashboard, you can monitor your finances day by day and keep track of your bank balances, invoices, bills, and more.
• Manage Fixed Assets: Tracking fixed assets and collaborating with your accountant to manage them makes it simple to keep your books up to date with Xero.

What is Snowflake?

Snowflake is a fully managed SaaS (Software as a Service) that combines Data Warehousing, Data Lakes, Data Engineering, Data Science, Data Application Development, and Secure Sharing and Consumption of Real-time / Shared Data into a single platform. To meet the demanding needs of growing businesses, Snowflake includes out-of-the-box features such as Storage and Compute Separation, On-the-fly Scalable Compute, Data Sharing, Data Cloning, and third-party Tool Support.

Snowflake isn’t based on any existing database technology or “Big Data” software platforms like Hadoop. However, it combines a brand-new SQL query engine with cutting-edge Cloud Architecture.

Key Features of Snowflake

Here are some of the features of Snowflake as a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution:

• Snowflake enables you to enhance your Analytics Pipeline by transitioning from nightly Batch Loads to Real-time Data Streams, allowing you to improve the quality and speed of your analytics. By enabling Secure, Concurrent, and Monitoring Access to your Data Warehouse across your organization, you can improve the quality of analytics at your company.
• Snowflake uses the Caching Paradigm to swiftly deliver the results from the cache. To avoid re-generation of the report when nothing has changed, Snowflake employs Persistent (within the session) Query results.
• Snowflake allows you to get rid of silos and ensure access to meaningful insights across the enterprise, resulting in better Data-driven Decision-Making.
• Snowflake allows you to better analyze Customer Behaviour and Product Usage.
• Snowflake allows you to create your own Data Exchange, which allows you to communicate live, controlled data securely.

Connect Xero to Snowflake

• Method 1: Using Hevo to Set Up Xero to Snowflake
• Method 2: Using Custom Code to Move Data from Xero to Snowflake

Method 1: Using Hevo to Set Up Xero to Snowflake

Hevo provides an Automated No-code Data Pipeline that helps you move your Xero to Snowflake. Hevo is fully-managed and completely automates the process of not only loading data from your 150+ Sources(including 40+ free sources) but also enriching the data and transforming it into an analysis-ready form without having to write a single line of code. Its fault-tolerant architecture ensures that the data is handled in a secure, consistent manner with zero data loss.

Using Hevo Xero to Snowflake Migration can be done in the following 2 steps:

• Step 1: Configure Xero as the Source in your Pipeline by following the steps below:
  • Step 1.1: In the Asset Palette, select PIPELINES.
  • Step 1.2: In the Pipelines List View, click + CREATE.
  • Step 1.3: Select Xero on the Select Source Type page.
  • Step 1.4: Click + ADD XERO ACCOUNT on the Configure your Xero account page.

• Step 1.5: Open a Xero Account and log in.
• Step 1.6: Choose the company whose data you want to access from the drop-down menu.

• Step 1.7: To grant Hevo access to the chosen organization’s data, click Allow Access.

• Step 1.8: Enter the following information on the Configure your Xero Source page:
  • Pipeline Name: A name for the Pipeline that is unique and does not exceed 255 characters. 
  • Select Organizations: One or more businesses whose information you want to ingest. 

• Each organization you choose requires a separate authorization from you for Hevo. Repeat Steps 1.6 and 1.7 to add additional organizations by clicking + Add another Organization.

• In the Select Organizations drop-down, you can now choose from the organization(s) you added.

• Historical Sync Duration: The amount of time that the historical data must be ingested. 1 Year is the default value.

• Step 1.8: TEST & CONTINUE is the button to click.
• Step 1.9: Set up the Destination and configure the data ingestion.
• Step 2: To set up Snowflake as a destination in Hevo, follow these steps:
  • Step 2.1: In the Asset Palette, select DESTINATIONS.
  • Step 2.2: In the Destinations List View, click + CREATE.
  • Step 2.3: Select Snowflake from the Add Destination page.
  • Step 2.4: Set the following parameters on the Configure your Snowflake Destination page:
    • Destination Name: A unique name for your Destination.
    • Snowflake Account URL: This is the account URL that you retrieved.
    • Database User: The Hevo user that you created in the database. In the Snowflake database, this user has a non-administrative role.
    • Database Password: The password of the user.
    • Database Name: The name of the Destination database where data will be loaded.
    • Database Schema: The name of the Destination database schema. Default value: public.
    • Warehouse: SQL queries and DML operations are performed in the Snowflake warehouse associated with your database.

• Step 2.5: Click Test Connection to test connectivity with the Snowflake warehouse.
• Step 2.6: Once the test is successful, click SAVE DESTINATION.

Here are more reasons to try Hevo:

• Smooth Schema Management: Hevo takes away the tedious task of schema management & automatically detects the schema of incoming data and maps it to your schema in the desired Data Warehouse.
• Exceptional Data Transformations: Best-in-class & Native Support for Complex Data Transformation at fingertips. Code & No-code Flexibility is designed for everyone.
• Quick Setup: Hevo with its automated features, can be set up in minimal time. Moreover, with its simple and interactive UI, it is extremely easy for new customers to work on and perform operations.
• Built To Scale: As the number of sources and the volume of your data grows, Hevo scales horizontally, handling millions of records per minute with very little latency.
• Live Support: The Hevo team is available round the clock to extend exceptional support to its customers through chat, email, and support calls.

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Method 2: Using Custom Code to Move Data from Xero to Snowflake

Extract Data From Xero

APIs are used to move data from Xero to Snowflake. Xero encourages programmers to create applications that can be sold on their add-on marketplace and has a great API, or to be more precise, several excellent APIs. The following are the APIs that they expose:

• Xero Core (Accounting) API: The main Xero application’s accounting and related features are exposed through this type of API, which can be used for many tasks, from creating transactions like invoices and credit notes to extracting accounting data via our reports endpoint.
• Xero Payroll API: This API makes Payroll in Xero’s payroll-related features available and can be used for some things, including syncing employee information and importing timesheets.
• Files API: Access to the files, folders, and associated files within a Xero organization is made possible by this API.
• Fixed Assets API: This API is currently being examined. Users can vote for this feature to become publicly accessible even though it is not yet available.
• Xero Practice Manager API: Built on the WorkflowMax product, this is an API for managing workflows.

You will use the Xero Core (Accounting) API in this situation, which exposes the essential accounting features of the Xero product. The OAuth (v1.0a) protocol is used by the RESTful Xero API to authenticate applications from third parties. As a RESTful API, you can interact with it by using http clients for your preferred language or framework and tools like CURL or Postman. Below are a few options:

• Apache HttpClient for Java
• Spray-client for Scala
• Hyper for Rust
• Ruby rest-client
• Python http-client

Xero API takes excellent care of security because it is a product and consequently an API that must deal with sensitive data. Because of this, a variety of applications can be created and integrated with it, with the main variations being how the applications authenticate, how frequently the tokens expire, and other security-related factors.

Xero API Requests Limits

There are three different categories of usage restrictions for the Xero API. They should be kept in mind when creating applications that use its API because they can cause a lot of problems when someone tries to set up a system for extracting data from it.

• Daily Limit: Each organization is restricted to 1000 API calls per day.
• Requests per Minute: There is a 60-second time limit on how many times each OAuth access token can be used. On a rolling 60-second window, this rate cap is based.
• Request Size Limit: The maximum size for a single POST to the Accounting or Payroll APIs is 5MB.

Xero API Resources

With 31 resources, the Xero API has a very robust Data Model. It’s crucial to be aware that API calls by default return responses of type text/xml, but you have the option to override this setting and ask for JSON responses instead.

Requesting Data From The Xero API

Assume you want to get a hold of every invoice you’ve ever sent out through Xero and store it in your data warehouse for analysis and reporting. You should send a GET request to the https://api.xero.com/api.xro/2.0/Invoices endpoint to accomplish that. Following such an action, a typical outcome in XML is as follows:

<Invoices>
 <Invoice>
   <Type>ACCREC</Type>
   <Contact>
     <ContactID>025867f1-d741-4d6b-b1af-9ac774b59ba7</ContactID>
     <ContactStatus>ACTIVE</ContactStatus>
     <Name>City Agency</Name>
     <Addresses>
       <Address>
         <AddressType>STREET</AddressType>
       </Address>
       <Address>
         <AddressType>POBOX</AddressType>
         <AddressLine1>L4, CA House</AddressLine1>
         <AddressLine2>14 Boulevard Quay</AddressLine2>
         <City>Wellington</City>
         <PostalCode>6012</PostalCode>
       </Address>
     </Addresses>
     <Phones>
       <Phone>
         <PhoneType>DEFAULT</PhoneType>
       </Phone>
       <Phone>
         <PhoneType>DDI</PhoneType>
       </Phone>
       <Phone>
         <PhoneType>MOBILE</PhoneType>
       </Phone>
       <Phone>
         <PhoneType>FAX</PhoneType>
       </Phone>
     </Phones>
     <UpdatedDateUTC>2009-08-15T00:18:43.473</UpdatedDateUTC>
     <IsSupplier>false</IsSupplier>
     <IsCustomer>true</IsCustomer>
   </Contact>
   <Date>2009-05-27T00:00:00</Date>
   <DueDate>2009-06-06T00:00:00</DueDate>
   <Status>AUTHORISED</Status>
   <LineAmountTypes>Exclusive</LineAmountTypes>
   <LineItems>
     <LineItem>
       <Description>Onsite project management </Description>
       <Quantity>1.0000</Quantity>
       <UnitAmount>1800.00</UnitAmount>
       <TaxType>OUTPUT</TaxType>
       <TaxAmount>225.00</TaxAmount>
       <LineAmount>1800.00</LineAmount>
       <AccountCode>200</AccountCode>
       <Tracking>
         <TrackingCategory>
           <TrackingCategoryID>e2f2f732-e92a-4f3a9c4d-ee4da0182a13</TrackingCategoryID>
           <Name>Activity/Workstream</Name>
           <Option>Onsite consultancy</Option>
         </TrackingCategory>
       </Tracking>
       <LineItemID>52208ff9-528a-4985-a9ad-b2b1d4210e38</LineItemID>
     </LineItem>
   </LineItems>
   <SubTotal>1800.00</SubTotal>
   <TotalTax>225.00</TotalTax>
   <Total>2025.00</Total>
   <UpdatedDateUTC>2009-08-15T00:18:43.457</UpdatedDateUTC>
   <CurrencyCode>NZD</CurrencyCode>
   <InvoiceID>243216c5-369e-4056-ac67-05388f86dc81</InvoiceID>
   <InvoiceNumber>OIT00546</InvoiceNumber>
   <Payments>
     <Payment>
       <Date>2009-09-01T00:00:00</Date>
       <Amount>1000.00</Amount>
       <PaymentID>0d666415-cf77-43fa-80c7-56775591d426</PaymentID>
     </Payment>
   </Payments>
   <AmountDue>1025.00</AmountDue>
   <AmountPaid>1000.00</AmountPaid>
   <AmountCredited>0.00</AmountCredited>
 </Invoice>
</Invoices>

• When dealing with a large number of invoices, the Xero API’s paging support can be used to paginate your results, which is very helpful. Additionally, you can ask the API for only the most recent invoices. The “Modified After” parameter on the GET request to the API is used to accomplish this.
• The ‘If-Modified-Since’ HTTP header is what the ModifiedAfter filter depicts. A timestamp in UTC format (yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss). Only invoices created or modified after this timestamp, such as 2009-11-12T00:00:00, will be returned.
• You can access very detailed information about your accounting activities through the very rich API that Xero exposes and use it for reporting and analytic purposes. However, this wealth comes at a cost; many resources must be managed, some of which permit fetching updates while others do not.

Data Preparation For Snowflake

• Before you begin ingesting your data from Xero to Snowflake data warehouse instance, the first step is to have a clearly defined data schema.
• In Snowflake, data is arranged in tables with a clear set of columns, each with a distinct data type.
• A wide range of data types is supported by Snowflake. A few semi-structured data types are also supported, which is worth mentioning. Data in JSON, Avro, ORC, Parquet, or XML format can be loaded directly into Snowflake. Similar to what Google BigQuery provides, hierarchical data is treated as an equal member of society.
• There is one notable popular data type that Snowflake does not support. The data type LOB, or large object, is not supported. Use a BINARY or VARCHAR type in its place. These types, however, are not very useful in use cases involving data warehouses.
• Making a schema where you will map each API endpoint to a table is a common approach for loading data from Xero to Snowflake.
• The correct conversion to a Snowflake data type must be ensured for each key contained in the Xero API endpoint response, which should be mapped to a column of that table.
• Naturally, you must make sure that you update your database tables as any Xero API data types might change. Automatic data type casting is not a thing.
• You can proceed and begin loading your data into the database once you have a comprehensive and clearly defined data model or schema for Snowflake.

Data Loading From Xero To Snowflake

• The COPY INTO command is typically used to bulk load data into Snowflake. Data files are kept in a local file system or Amazon S3 buckets, typically in JSON format. Data is then copied into a data warehouse using the Snowflake instance’s COPY INTO command.
• Before using the COPY command, the files can be pushed into Snowflake using the PUT command into a staging environment.
• Another option is to directly upload data to a platform like Amazon S3, where Snowflake can access it.
• Finally, Snowflake provides a web interface in the form of a data loading wizard that enables visual setup and copying of data into a Data Warehouse. Just keep in mind that this wizard’s functionality is constrained in comparison to the other approaches.
• In contrast to other technologies like Redshift, Snowflake does not demand that a data schema be packed with the data being copied. Instead, the query that will copy data into the data warehouse includes the schema. This makes data loading easier and gives data type management more flexibility.

Updating Data On Snowflake

• You will need to update your older data on Snowflake because you will be producing more data on Xero. This includes both newly created records and updates to older records that have been made on Xero for any reason.
• Repeat the procedure that has been previously described while periodically checking Xero for new data, updating your current data as necessary. UPDATE statements are used to update an already existing row on a Snowflake table.
• The detection and elimination of any duplicate records from your database is a further concern that needs your attention. Duplicate records may be added to your database either because Xero lacks a mechanism to recognize new and updated records or because of errors in your data pipelines. In general, it is a major and challenging problem to guarantee the quality of data that is inserted into your database.

Conclusion

This article talks about how to Connect Xero to Snowflake in two simple methods. In addition to that, it also describes Xero and Snowflake briefly.

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Hevo offers a No-code Data Pipeline that can automate your data transfer process, hence allowing you to focus on other aspects of your business like Analytics, Marketing, Customer Management, etc.

This platform allows you to transfer data from 150+ sources (including 40+ Free Sources) such as Xero and Cloud-based Data Warehouses like Snowflake, Google BigQuery, etc. It will provide you with a hassle-free experience and make your work life much easier.

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