How the app matches ticket requesters to Xero contacts

When an agent opens a ticket, the Xero Integration automatically looks for the requester in your connected Xero organisation. Here's how the matching works, in order.

1. Email match (primary)

The app takes the ticket requester's email address and looks for a Xero contact with the same email. The comparison is exact (ignoring capitalisation), so a match means the addresses are genuinely the same — the app won't guess.

2. Phone match (fallback)

If no contact matches by email and the requester has a phone number on their Zendesk profile, the app scans the most recently updated contacts in Xero (up to 400) and compares phone numbers, ignoring formatting differences like spaces, dashes and country-code prefixes.

Because this fallback only scans the most recent contacts, a very old, untouched contact may not be found this way — use manual search in that case.

3. Manual search (when nothing matches)

If neither match succeeds, the app shows a search box so the agent can find the right contact by name, email or account number.

When multiple contacts match

If more than one Xero contact shares the requester's email or phone number, the app lists all of them and lets the agent pick the right one rather than guessing.

What the agent sees after a match

• The contact's name and details, with a one-click link to open them in Xero
• Their invoices grouped into Outstanding, Paid and Draft tabs
• The current outstanding balance (shown per currency, if the contact has invoices in more than one)
• Overdue flags on any outstanding invoice past its due date

Clicking any invoice opens its full details — line items, discounts, tax and totals — without leaving the ticket.

Tips for better matching

• Keep email addresses up to date in Xero — email is the most reliable match.
• Make sure the contact's primary email in Xero is the address your customer writes in from.
• If a customer uses multiple addresses, agents can always fall back to manual search.