When one company pays for another company's expenses on a shared credit card, the books have to catch up. Each spend needs to appear as a supplier bill in the company that actually benefited, with the right account code, the right GST treatment and the invoice attached, and then be settled against the intercompany account.

It is slow work, and it multiplies with every company in the group. It is also the sort of job where a duplicate entry or a missing invoice can sit unnoticed until the accountant finds it.

This article describes how we automate intercompany card recharges across several Xero organisations, with a review step before anything is posted.

How it works

  1. It reads the card's intercompany report. One company pays for some of the others' spending on a shared credit card. You export that card's transactions report from the paying company's Xero, and the automation starts from it.
  2. It builds a plan. For each line, the plan says which entity it belongs to, who the supplier is, which GL code applies, how GST is treated, and whether an invoice PDF is needed.
  3. You review the plan. You look through it, correct anything that does not look right, and gather any invoices that are missing.
  4. It posts the supplier bills. Only after that review does it create the bills in each company's own Xero organisation.
  5. It attaches the invoice. The invoice PDF is attached to the bill it belongs to.
  6. It pays the bill. Each bill is paid from the intercompany account in that company.

The AI (Anthropic's Claude) does the reading and the judgement, such as working out which entity a line belongs to and who the supplier is. Small scripts do the arithmetic and the Xero API calls. The results land in Xero, where your accountant already works.

What to watch out for

Plan first, post second. The plan stage is where the judgement calls get checked. It is far easier to correct a line in a plan than to void and re-enter a bill in Xero. We put the human checkpoint before anything is posted.

Duplicates. Every posting carries a unique reference, and the process skips anything already entered. This matters because reports overlap: if you run it again next week, last week's spends should not be booked a second time.

Foreign-currency bills. Some bills arrive in Australian dollars. The process handles AUD bills with an exchange rate, but you should decide where that rate comes from and apply it consistently, because the bill amount in New Zealand dollars depends on it.

Missing invoices. A bill without its invoice is a problem at audit time. That is why the plan flags whether an invoice PDF is needed, so you can chase suppliers before posting rather than after.

The right entity. When several companies share a card, a line can easily land in the wrong company. Make the entity decision explicit in the plan, and look at it.

What still needs a person

  • Reviewing the plan and correcting entity, supplier, account code or GST where needed.
  • Collecting the invoices that are missing.
  • Deciding what to do with unusual items that do not fit the pattern.
  • Handling repayments and money received, which are a separate process from the one described here.

Real example

We run this for two franchise fitness studios in Auckland that are related companies of ours. A related company pays for some of each studio's spending on a shared credit card. Someone exports the card's intercompany transactions report from Xero, and the automation reads it and builds a plan. The owner reviews it and collects any missing invoices. It then posts the supplier bills in each studio's Xero, attaches the invoice, and pays them from the intercompany account. It also handles AUD bills with an exchange rate and skips duplicates.

Read the case study

Want this for your business?

We build automations like this at a fixed price, from NZ$1,000 + GST. If you run several companies and a shared card, we can talk through your set-up and say whether this approach fits.

Book a free 30-minute automation audit

FAQ

Does it post anything before I have reviewed the plan? No. The plan comes first and the bills are only posted after you have reviewed it.

What if a bill is in Australian dollars? The process handles AUD bills using an exchange rate.

Can it book the same spend twice? It is built not to. Each posting has a unique reference and anything already entered is skipped.