Posting timesheets to payroll
Send approved timesheets to Xero — Shiftly assembles a draft pay run for you to review and finalise. Pick the pay period, post, and track the sync.
Once you've reviewed and approved the week's hours, posting sends them to Xero. Shiftly doesn't run your pay — it builds a draft pay run in Xero from the approved timesheets, with the hours, rates, allowances and super filled in, for you to check and process there.
Who this is for
Owners and managers using the Shiftly web platform with Xero connected and configured.
Before you start
- Xero is connected and configured — the connection shows Configured, with a pay calendar and your wages and super accounts set. See Configuring Xero.
- The staff you're posting are linked to a Xero employee. Anyone not linked is skipped (you can link them and post again later).
- The timesheets you want to post are approved — only approved timesheets are postable.
- Open Time → Timesheets and pick the location at the top.
Open the Xero payrun
Once Xero is connected, a Xero payrun tab appears next to All.
Switch to the Xero payrun tab
Select Xero payrun. The tab shows this location's timesheets for the pay period (set by your Xero pay calendar — shown in the date control, for example 1 Jun – 14 Jun). Approved timesheets are ready to post; any still pending show an Approve button.
The Post … to Xero button counts the approved timesheets in the period — it's disabled until at least one is ready.
Only Xero-linked employees' timesheets appear here. If the tab is empty, check that the period has approved timesheets and that those employees are linked to Xero.
Post to Xero
Start the post
Select Post … to Xero. If the pay period hasn't ended yet, Shiftly warns you first — you can still post, but if you need to post the period again later you'll have to mark the timesheets as draft in Xero before re-posting.
Review the summary and confirm
Shiftly shows a summary of what's being posted — each employee, their number of shifts, total hours and positions — with a reminder that the figures are estimates you're responsible for verifying. Select Post to Xero to send them.
What happens after you post
Posting runs in the background. Shiftly confirms with "Posting timesheets to Xero. You will be notified when the process is complete." and works through the export — getting or starting the draft pay run for your pay calendar, creating any missing earnings rates, updating each employee's pay template, and pushing the hours as an approved Xero timesheet. The timesheet's status moves from Approved to Posted, and a sync status tracks it (with a retry if a sync fails).
Shiftly never finalises or pays the pay run. Everything lands in draft in Xero — open the pay run there to review the hours and pay, adjust if needed, and process it. For exactly what Shiftly creates in Xero (earnings rates, pay-template updates, the payslip on a supported award, and the tracked-time-only behaviour on an unsupported award), see Configuring Xero → What happens in Xero.
A few things that can stop or skip a post
- Unlinked employees are skipped. Anyone not matched to a Xero employee is left out — link them, then post again.
- You can't re-post a timesheet Xero has already approved. Revert it to draft in Xero first.
- Contractors are skipped — in Xero they're paid via bills, not payroll.
- If an employee's deductions would exceed their earnings, that timesheet is flagged with a warning instead of posting.
- Approved leave isn't part of this — it's pushed to Xero when you approve the request, separately. See What syncs with Xero.
Related
Editing times & breaks
Fix a clock-in time, adjust breaks, change the position, or override pay rates on a timesheet before you approve it.
Your team
Add staff, onboard them, classify them under their award, and manage their profiles — the people that everything you roster, pay, and report on is built around.