Tracking Hire Assets in Xero

When integrating HirePOS with Xero, we generally recommend not tracking HirePOS hire inventory as inventory in Xero. Instead, each system should be used for the area it is designed to manage.

HirePOS should remain the source of truth for your physical hire equipment and operational inventory, including:

• Item quantities and availability

• Serialised equipment

• Item locations

• Maintenance and inspections

• Hire activity and movements

Hire equipment is typically returned after each hire rather than sold, so maintaining the same inventory quantities in Xero can create unnecessary complexity and reconciliation issues.

HirePOS item codes and descriptions can still be exported to Xero invoice lines where required for reporting and account coding, without tracking the physical quantities as Xero inventory.

Xero should be used as the source of truth for financial accounting, including invoices, payments, purchase bills, revenue and expenses.

For capital equipment, Xero Fixed Assets can be used to manage the financial value of your hire assets, including depreciation and disposals. This allows the physical equipment to remain managed in HirePOS while its accounting value is maintained separately in Xero.

For more information, see https://www.xero.com/au/glossary/fixed-assets.

Where additional financial reporting is required, Xero Tracking Categories can be used to group financial activity without duplicating HirePOS inventory quantities in Xero.

For example, tracking categories may be useful for reporting by:

• Branch

• Division

• Equipment type

• Profit centre

For more information on tracking categories, see https://central.xero.com/0/article/Set-up-tracking-categories.

You can also use your Xero Chart of Accounts to control how revenue, expenses and other transactions are categorised for accounting purposes. see https://central.xero.com/0/article/View-your-chart-of-accounts for more information on Chart of Accounts.

For most hire businesses, we recommend:

HirePOS → Manage physical hire assets and operational inventory
Xero Fixed Assets → Manage the accounting value of capital equipment
Xero Tracking Categories → Provide additional financial reporting where required

This approach avoids maintaining two competing inventory systems and helps keep the HirePOS and Xero integration simpler and easier to reconcile.