Article

How to export Xero invoices, quotes and contacts

By TrustPast

Updated November 7, 2026

A lot of trade companies send their quotes and invoices out of Xero. The quote for the bathroom refit, the revised one after the customer dropped the heated floor, the invoice that followed, and the credit note when a tile run came up short: all of it sits in Xero with a date on it. Here is what to count before you apply, why you don’t export anything to apply, and, for after an agreement, how the export works, as far as the pages we could read describe it.

Version note. Checked on 7 November 2026 against Xero’s own quoting and invoicing pages and Polyshares’ Xero guide, which names three Xero help articles as its sources and says it was checked in September 2026. Xero Central’s help pages returned no readable text to our plain fetch on 7 November, so this page states no menu detail from them that Polyshares does not report. Menus change. If a step differs, Xero’s export overview wins.

Count what you have; you do not export to apply

Polyshares publishes the order of things on its data handling page. “Intake asks for record counts, not files or exports.” And: “Nothing leaves your systems until Polyshares has made an offer and you have accepted it.”

Its Xero guide says the same about this tool: “The intake only needs the size, so you do not have to run an export to fill it in. You also do not need to clean or scrub an export.”

So the first job is a count. Polyshares’ guide says to report Xero “in records,” and that the intake “also asks how many years the company has used it and how many seats it has.” In plain terms, write down:

how many transactions the books hold, from the first to today;
how many quotes the company has sent, as our own advice, because for a trade company they are the record of how it priced work;
how many years the books go back, and whether an older system came before;
how many people log in to Xero, the outside bookkeeper included.

The export steps further down are for later, if Polyshares makes an offer and you accept it. Until then, the books stay in Xero, and the office keeps sending quotes from it on Monday.

See your estimate

What the buyer wants from it, and what it doesn’t

Owners tend to assume a buyer wants the customer list, or the money. It wants neither. Polyshares’ data handling page says: “Names, emails, phone numbers, account numbers, and addresses are removed or replaced by a specialist PII partner before Polyshares or any buyer sees the record. Roles, timestamps, and the work itself are kept.”

So the customer’s name goes. The record is de-identified before anyone uses it. The payments the customer made are not the point either. What is left is the work. Polyshares’ data licensing page says: “The value is not in volume. It is in reasoning that was captured while the work happened.” It adds: “A thread where two people disagree about a quote and work it out carries judgment that cannot be manufactured.”

In a trade company that runs its quoting through Xero, as our own reading, that looks like this:

How an estimate became a job. The first quote, the revised one, and the accepted one. Xero says it keeps “a clear link between the quote and the invoice,” so the trail from the price to the bill is already in the books.
How the work was priced. The line items on each quote: the labour hours, the materials, the call-out charge, the discount for a repeat customer.
How a change was settled. The second invoice for the extra work found on the day, the credit note for the part that wasn’t needed, and the note on the line that says why.
Which quotes were lost. A declined quote is a price the market said no to. That is worth as much as one that was won.

The cornerstone page on what data buyers actually want from a trade business goes through the whole list. Why lost quotes count is on the estimates and quotes page.

Worth two minutes to see your range? Our estimate asks five questions about the company and its records.

Where Xero shows how much you have

Polyshares’ guide opens with the plain fact: “Xero does not show a total data size or record count in one place.” Its method is a report. In its words, run the Account Transactions report “across all dates, count the rows and report that number as records.”

The guide gives the order:

Sign in with the administrator user role.
Open the reports screen and find the Account Transactions report.
Set the date range to start at the organization’s first transaction and end today. If you use multicurrency, select all columns, including the FX columns.
Export the report and count the data rows. That count is your transaction total.
To check invoice and bill volume on their own, run the Receivable Invoice Detail and Payable Invoice Detail reports over the same dates.

That count is a file on your computer. It isn’t sent anywhere.

For years in use, Polyshares says to take the date of the oldest transaction in the report, and notes that if the business moved to Xero from other software, “earlier years may exist only as conversion balances, so count from the first real transaction.” For seats, it says to count everyone with a login to the organization, “including outside accountants and bookkeepers.”

For quotes, Xero’s quoting page says it “shows the status of every quote on one screen – draft, sent, accepted, or declined,” and that you can “filter by status, search by customer name, and sort by date.” As our own advice, filter by each status in turn and write down the four numbers. The declined count matters as much as the accepted one.

Who can export, and what the plan allows

The role. Polyshares’ guide says: “Your user role decides what you can export; the administrator role can run and export all reports, and standard users need the reports permission.” Its answer on roles adds that for a standard user with the reports permission, “some reports may still be out of reach.”

The subscriber. Polyshares’ guide says the subscriber is the person who set up the organization or had the role transferred to them, and that “by default the subscriber has the standard + reports role and can change it to administrator for full access.” If the person who set Xero up has left, find out who holds the subscriber role before the export day.

The plan. Polyshares’ guide says “Any Xero plan.” Xero’s pages we read do not publish a plan limit on exports, so we give none.

Limits. Neither Xero’s pages we read nor Polyshares’ guide publish a row or size limit for a Xero export. We give no figure.

The steps, as Xero’s guidance is reported

These steps are for after an agreement with Polyshares says what is in scope. Each step names its source. Xero Central’s pages did not load for us, so where a step comes through Polyshares’ summary of Xero’s guidance, the step says so, and it gives no menu path Polyshares does not give.

Sign in as an administrator. Polyshares’ guide says to “sign in with the administrator user role,” because only that role “can run and export every report.” Source: Polyshares’ Xero data source guide, listed under Sources.
Export the general ledger first. Polyshares’ guide says: “Export the general ledger first. Xero offers it as CSV/XLS, MYE or TXT.” Source: Polyshares’ Xero data source guide, listed under Sources.
Export the contacts. Polyshares’ guide lists contacts among what to export, each “from its own area of Xero,” as CSV/XLS. The contacts file carries names and addresses; the de-identification step below deals with them. Source: Polyshares’ Xero data source guide, listed under Sources.
Export the invoices and bills. From their own area of Xero, as CSV/XLS, in Polyshares’ words. Pick the date range the agreement covers. Source: Polyshares’ Xero data source guide, listed under Sources.
Export the chart of accounts, fixed assets and inventory items, if they are in scope. Polyshares’ guide says the chart of accounts and fixed assets export as CSV/XLS, and inventory items as CSV/XLS or PDF. As our own reading, for a trade company the inventory items are the saved materials and labour lines the quotes draw on. Source: Polyshares’ Xero data source guide, listed under Sources.
Run the three transaction reports across all dates. From the reports screen, export the Account Transactions, Receivable Invoice Detail and Payable Invoice Detail reports. Polyshares says reports export as “CSV/XLS, Google Sheets or PDF.” Source: Polyshares’ Xero data source guide, listed under Sources.
Run the yearly reports. Polyshares’ guide says to export the Balance Sheet and Income Statement for each year, the Trial Balance with past periods, and the Bank Reconciliation report. Source: Polyshares’ Xero data source guide, listed under Sources.
Keep the quotes. Xero’s quoting page says each quote can go out as an emailed PDF or a secure online link, and that Xero tracks every quote “from draft to yes.” Neither Xero’s pages we could read nor Polyshares’ guide describe a bulk export of quotes. Ask Xero support how to export the quotes list before you rely on one. Source: Xero, quoting software.
Ask about the attachments, if they are in scope. Polyshares’ guide says Xero’s export overview “does not cover files attached to invoices, bills or contacts,” and says to ask Xero support how to retrieve them. Source: Polyshares’ Xero data source guide, listed under Sources.

One more point, from the same guide: “Xero does not offer one full export.” Each area and each report is its own file. Expect a folder of files, not one download. Polyshares also reports that Xero “backs up organization data on its side but says keeping your own records is your responsibility.” On a company that is closing, as our own advice, export before the subscription ends, not after.

What the files contain, and what they don’t

The ledger and the transaction reports. Polyshares’ guide says the Account Transactions report “lists every transaction posted to the ledger, so it is the closest Xero has to a total.” It says the receivable and payable detail reports show “invoices, credit notes, overpayments and prepayments together.”

The invoices. Every bill the company sent, line by line. Xero’s invoicing page says that once a customer accepts a quote, you can turn it into an invoice “without re-entering any details,” and that in the web version of Xero you can invoice “just some of them,” meaning some of the quote’s items. As our own reading, a quote invoiced in parts is a job that ran in stages, and the dates on each part show how.

The quotes. The pricing history: every job the company quoted, the lines, the amount and the status. Xero says it updates the status “automatically” when a customer accepts or declines online, and that you can “revise and resend” when the price changes.

The contacts. Names, addresses, emails and phone numbers. As our own reading, this is the part of the export a buyer does not want, and it is the part the de-identification removes. What stays useful is the shape: how many customers came back, and how often.

What the files don’t hold, as Polyshares reports it: the attachments. The photos of the job and the signed paperwork attached to an invoice need their own request to Xero support.

The quote is where the reasoning sits

Here is why, as our own reading. An invoice records what was charged. A quote records what the company thought the job would take, before anyone knew. Put the two side by side and you can see where the estimate was right and where the job ran over.

Take a plumbing company, as our own example. The quote prices a water heater replacement: the labour and the unit. The invoice carries more labour, a new expansion tank and a pressure valve. A note on the extra line says the old tank had corroded through at the inlet. That is a record of a tradesman finding something on site and the office settling the price with the customer. Multiply it by years of jobs and it is the kind of working record Polyshares describes.

The declined quotes add the other half. A quote that went out at a price and came back declined shows where the market drew a line. The CRM records page covers the same idea for the notes kept on each customer, and the QuickBooks guide covers it for books kept in QuickBooks.

Check the export

Five checks, as our own advice:

Count the files. Is there one for every area and report the agreement lists?
Check the dates. Does the oldest row in Account Transactions match the year the company started on Xero?
Open the receivable detail. Do the credit notes show beside the invoices they belong to?
Look for what you meant to leave out. If a payroll file or a bank feed export is in the folder, take it out.
Check the quotes. If the agreement covers them and no file came out, go back to step 8.

The personal data in a Xero export

Books are full of names. Customer names and addresses on every quote and invoice. Supplier names on every bill. Payment lines in the transaction reports.

Polyshares publishes how this is handled. Its data handling page says: “Names, emails, phone numbers, account numbers, and addresses are removed or replaced by a specialist PII partner before Polyshares or any buyer sees the record.” It also says that if the partner reviewing the sample “spots anything that reads as identifying, the record goes back for another pass before pricing continues.”

Polyshares’ Xero guide adds: “We anonymize identifying details before anything moves. Polyshares does that work, so your team does not have to scrub records first.” How the de-identification works, in plain words, is on how it’s safe.

What is never included

Start with what Polyshares publishes. Its Xero guide says: “Bank feed connections and payroll data can stay in Xero; the ledger and invoice exports carry the useful history.” Its home page says the licence is “Defined material for a defined term. It does not cover what you hold on behalf of your own clients.” Its data handling page says names, emails, phone numbers, account numbers and addresses are removed or replaced before Polyshares or any buyer sees the record.

Now our own advice, which is ours and not Polyshares’:

Customer names and contact details. Names, addresses, phone numbers and emails on quotes, invoices and contacts. They are not what is wanted, and they are removed before anyone sees the record.
Payments. Who paid what, by card or by transfer, and when. The money is not the record; the work is.
Bank details and bank feeds. Account numbers, sort codes or routing numbers, card numbers, and the bank feed connection. Never licensed.
Logins. Nobody needs your Xero password or your bank login. Nobody should ask for them.
Payroll. Pay rates, tax forms, timesheets with pay on them. Polyshares says payroll can stay in Xero.
Tax filings and tax IDs. The company’s returns and its customers’ tax numbers belong to the accountant’s file.
Anything a client owns under contract. Drawings or specs attached to a quote may be the client’s.

What is licensed is set out in Polyshares’ offer and the terms you agree, after Polyshares has read an anonymized sample.

What this means for an electrician, a plumber or an HVAC company

Some small service companies quote and invoice straight from Xero, with no separate field tool. If that is you, as our own reading, Xero is the whole record: the quote, the revised quote, the invoice, the credit note. The plumbing companies page and the HVAC companies page cover what each trade keeps beyond the books.

What this means for a roofing company

A roofer often quotes from a measuring tool or a field system and invoices from Xero. As our own advice, count both. The quote lines with squares and materials may sit in the other system; the invoices, the supplements and the supplier bills sit in Xero. The roofing companies page covers the rest of a roofer’s record.

Where we fit

We, TrustPast, explain the process and give you a range with our estimate. It is ours, not an offer. Polyshares pays us a referral fee. You pay us nothing. We never see your books, your export or your files.

What Polyshares has paid is public. Its home page says deals “typically land between $100K and $2M” (indicative, not an offer), and run higher for large or long records. It says depth of operating history and “how much visible reasoning the record contains move the number far more than raw volume does.” Years of quotes, revised and accepted and declined, is that kind of reasoning.

Before you apply

Four things to settle first, as our own advice:

Count. Transactions from Account Transactions, quotes by status, years, seats. Write the numbers down.
Don’t export for the application. Polyshares asks for counts.
Find the books before Xero. If the company switched software, note how many years sit in the old system.
List what stays out. Customer contacts, payments, bank details, payroll, tax filings, client-owned files.

Then answer the five questions. If the range is worth your time, apply.

TrustPast

Questions and answers

Do we have to export our Xero data to apply?

No. Polyshares says intake asks for record counts, not files or exports, and that nothing leaves your systems until Polyshares has made an offer and you have accepted it. Its Xero guide says the intake only needs the size, so you do not have to run an export to fill it in.

Can we export everything from Xero in one file?

No. Polyshares’ Xero guide says Xero does not offer one full export. Xero’s guidance, as Polyshares reports it, is to export data from each area of Xero and each report from the reports screen, one at a time.

Which Xero user can run the export?

Polyshares’ Xero guide says the administrator user role can run and export all reports, and that a standard user needs the reports permission. It adds that the subscriber starts with the standard + reports role and can switch to administrator.

How do we count our Xero records?

Polyshares’ guide says to run the Account Transactions report across all dates, count the rows and report that number as records. It is the report that lists every transaction posted to the ledger.

Do the attachments come with the export?

Polyshares’ guide says Xero’s export overview does not cover files attached to invoices, bills or contacts, and suggests asking Xero support how to retrieve them if they are in scope.

Do we take out customer names and bank details first?

No. Polyshares says names, emails, phone numbers, account numbers and addresses are removed or replaced by a specialist PII partner before Polyshares or any buyer sees the record. Its Xero guide says bank feed connections and payroll data can stay in Xero.

What does it cost us?

Nothing. Polyshares says there is no fee and no commission. Polyshares pays TrustPast a referral fee; you pay us nothing.