Speed to Innovation: Xero’s Customer Transactions API Integration

Case study at a glance

• API: Customer Transactions API
• Industry: Finance (Online Accounting, Ecommerce)
• Company: Xero
• Company Size: 1,700 employees
• Current User Base: 1,000,000+ subscribers
• Site: www.xero.com
• Timeline: 100 days

Background

Xero is a leading provider of cloud-based accounting software with more than 1 million small business subscribers, offices in 20 countries, and clients in more than 180 countries.

By providing businesses with better tools, information, and connections—and collaborating with partners both in and outside of finance—they’re helping to push financial technologies forward. For accountants and bookkeepers, that means having access to reliable financial data anytime and anywhere without sacrificing security or privacy.

Solution

Designed to enhance access to Capital One credit card transaction data with added control, convenience, and security, our Customer Transactions API was a natural fit for Xero’s data feed.

Leveraging oAuth technology allowed tokenized access to customer account information without the need to share login credentials, which created a more secure and direct connection between services and gave customers more control over how and when their data is shared for an optimal customer experience.

Support and implementation

The environment and people were key to the integration, says Dinesh Katyal, Head of Product Partner Development (Americas/EMEA) at Xero: “We had one developer working on the project on our side, and we never had to increase the resources we had dedicated to the integration. We were able to complete everything in a couple of sprints.”

Katyal added that aside from a few ordinary pull requests, the largest implementation barrier was an edge case issue with connectivity, which the Capital One DevExchange team was able to address overnight: “They […] worked overnight and over the weekend to fix the issue, which allowed us to keep our release schedule and all the go to market activities.”

Results

The Customer Transactions API integration went to market in the summer of 2017 after a 100-day timeline, helping Xero become one of the first cloud accounting platforms to offer a card feed integration with Capital One.

Capital One customers now have more control over the information they share through Xero and how they share it, and setting up tokenized, on-demand views of their transaction data is simple.

Florian Marschoun, co-owner of BellaEva Photography in Kahului, Hawaii, explains how the integration brings ease of use to small business accounting: “Having a fast overview of our current financial situation as well as automated, secure bank feeds are the most important features of an accounting platform. I spend a lot of time managing my business, doing everything from client communications to building our website to financial planning. Anything that helps me save time on administrative work is a bonus.”

For a video overview of Xero’s Capital One data feed, visit their business help center.