Quick Answer
Three tools, one afternoon. Connect Tradify for quoting and job management, Xero for accounting, and Stripe for card payments. Total setup is two to three hours. Your quote-to-payment workflow runs on autopilot from day one, and the whole stack costs from £62 per month for a sole trader.
Table of Contents
- What you are building (and why it matters)
- What you need before you start
- Set up your Tradify account
- Connect Tradify to Xero
- Connect Stripe to Tradify
- Test the complete workflow
- Automate payment reminders and reconciliation
- What the full stack costs
- What tradespeople are saying
- Recommended videos
- Frequently asked questions
- My verdict
Tradify
Xero
StripeWhat you are building (and why it matters)
Most trades businesses run three disconnected systems. Job notes in one place. Invoices somewhere else. Accounting in a spreadsheet or a shoebox. Every time you move data between them, you lose time and make mistakes.
This guide connects three tools into one pipeline. Tradify handles quoting, job scheduling, and invoicing. Xero handles accounting, VAT returns, and Making Tax Digital compliance. Stripe handles card payments so customers pay with a single click.
Once connected, the data flows automatically. You create a quote in Tradify, convert it to an invoice, the customer pays by card through Stripe, and the payment appears in Xero ready for reconciliation. No double entry. No chasing paper.
Tradify report that their users save over 10 hours a week on admin. Even if your saving is half that, at £40 an hour that is £800 a month of billable time recovered. The entire stack costs £62 per month for a sole trader. The maths speaks for itself.
What you need before you start
Gather these before you sit down. Having everything to hand means you can get through the setup without stopping and starting.
- A laptop or desktop with a browser (Chrome or Edge work best for Tradify)
- Your business bank details for Stripe verification
- Your company logo in PNG or JPG format
- Your VAT number if you are VAT registered
- A list of your common services with labour rates and material markups
- Your top 10-20 customer contacts (or a CSV export from your current system)
If you already use Xero, make sure your chart of accounts is set up with the right revenue and expense categories. If you are starting fresh, our Xero MTD setup guide walks through every step.
You do not need a Stripe account yet. Tradify walks you through creating one during the connection process.
Set up your Tradify account
Sign up for a 14-day free trial at tradifyhq.com. No credit card needed. The Lite plan is £34 per user per month after the trial, or £28 on the Pro plan for teams of four or more.
1. Business details
Enter your company name, address, and phone number. Upload your logo. This appears on every quote and invoice you send, so use a clean, professional version.
2. VAT settings
If you are VAT registered, enable VAT and set your default rate to 20%. Tradify applies this automatically to quotes and invoices. You can override it per line item for zero-rated work like energy-saving materials.
3. Labour rates and price list
Add your standard labour rates. Most trades businesses set up two or three: standard, overtime, and emergency callout. Add your common materials with unit costs and markups. Tradify lets you create a reusable price list so quoting takes seconds rather than minutes.
4. Quote and invoice templates
The default templates work well out of the box. Customise the payment terms, footer text, and default due date. Fourteen or thirty days is standard. Add your terms and conditions to the footer if you have them.
5. Import your customers
You can add customers one at a time or import a CSV. If you are coming from a spreadsheet, export it with columns for name, email, phone, and address. Tradify maps these automatically during the import.
Connect Tradify to Xero
This is the step that eliminates double data entry. The entire connection takes about ten minutes, and most of that is mapping your account codes.
1. Open the integration settings
In Tradify, go to Settings, then Integrations. Click the Xero tile.
2. Authorise the connection
Click Login to Xero. You are redirected to Xero's login page. Sign in with your Xero credentials and click Allow Access. Tradify redirects you back automatically.
3. Map your account codes
This is the most important step. Tradify needs to know which Xero accounts to post to. You need to map four codes:
- Sales of Labour → a revenue account (typically code 200 in Xero)
- Sales of Materials → a revenue account (typically code 201)
- Bank Account → your bank account in Xero (make sure "Enable Payments" is ticked in Xero first)
- Purchases Account → a cost of sales or expense account (typically code 300 or 400)
If you are unsure which codes to use, ask your accountant. Getting this right means your profit and loss report splits labour and materials correctly from day one.
4. Configure sync options
Enable these three options for the cleanest data flow:
- Invoice numbering from Xero keeps your invoice numbers sequential, even if you invoice from both platforms
- Send invoice descriptions pushes line item detail to Xero so your accountant can see what each charge covers
- Send file attachments forwards photos and job notes with invoices to Xero for a complete record
The two-way sync also pulls contacts and tax rates from Xero into Tradify. If you update a customer address in either system, the change flows both ways. This saves a surprising amount of time once you have more than a dozen active customers.
Connect Stripe to Tradify
1. Open payment settings
In Tradify, go to Settings, then Payment Methods. Under Invoice Payments, click Connect with Stripe.
2. Create or link your Stripe account
A new tab opens with Stripe's onboarding form. If you already have a Stripe account, sign in. If not, create one here. You need your legal business name and type (sole trader, limited company, or partnership), business address, bank account details for payouts, and a form of ID for verification.
Stripe usually verifies within minutes. The tab closes and you are returned to Tradify, which now shows "Connected with Stripe".
3. Configure surcharges (optional)
You can pass the card processing fee on to your customers or absorb it. Go to Settings, then Stripe Surcharges to enable this.
Tradify also supports Scan to Pay through the mobile app. Your customer can pay on the spot when you are on site, which is useful for smaller maintenance and callout jobs where you want payment before you leave.
Test the complete workflow
Before you use this with a real customer, run a test. It takes about fifteen minutes and catches any configuration issues before they matter.
1. Create a test quote
In Tradify, create a new job for a test customer (use your own email address). Add a labour line and a materials line. Convert the job to a quote and send it to yourself.
2. Accept and invoice
Open the quote email and accept it. Back in Tradify, convert the accepted quote to an invoice. Send the invoice to your email.
3. Pay by card
Open the invoice email and click the payment link. Complete the payment using a real card for a small amount. You can refund it through Stripe later.
4. Verify the chain
Check three things:
- In Tradify, the invoice should show as paid
- In Xero, the invoice should appear with the payment applied
- In your Stripe dashboard, the transaction should be visible with fees deducted
If all three systems show the correct data, your pipeline is live. Everything from this point forward flows automatically.
Automate payment reminders and reconciliation
The integration handles the data flow, but two more settings make the whole system hands-free.
Payment reminders in Tradify
Go to Settings, then Reminders. Set up automatic email reminders for overdue invoices. Three reminders work well: one day overdue, seven days overdue, and fourteen days overdue. Tradify sends these without you lifting a finger. Combine this with the Stripe payment link in the invoice and most customers pay within the first reminder.
Tradify report that businesses using payment reminders combined with online payments get paid 25% faster on average. For a typical trades business billing £8,000 to £15,000 per month, that improvement in cash flow is significant.
Xero bank reconciliation
Once Stripe payments flow into your bank account, Xero's bank feed picks them up automatically. Xero uses AI-powered matching to suggest reconciliation rules. After a few manual matches, it learns your patterns and starts auto-matching Stripe payouts to the correct invoices.
If you process more than 20 card payments a month, consider connecting Stripe directly to Xero as well. This creates a Stripe "bank feed" inside Xero that itemises every individual transaction before it hits your bank account in a lump sum. It makes reconciliation considerably faster for high-volume businesses. Our zero-touch invoice pipeline guide covers more advanced automation workflows if you want to take this further.
What the full stack costs
| Tool | Plan | Monthly cost | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tradify | Lite (1-3 users) | £34/user | Quoting, jobs, invoicing, scheduling |
| Tradify | Pro (4+ users) | £28/user | Everything in Lite, volume pricing |
| Xero | Grow | £28 | Accounting, bank rec, VAT, MTD |
| Stripe | Pay-as-you-go | £0 + 1.5% + 20p/txn | Card payments, payouts to your bank |
Sole trader total: £62 per month (one Tradify Lite licence plus Xero Grow). Stripe has no monthly fee.
Team of three total: £130 per month (£34 times three for Tradify plus £28 for Xero).
Xero offers 80% off for the first six months for new customers, bringing the Grow plan down to £5.60 per month. That drops your first-six-month total to £39.60 per month as a sole trader.
There are no setup fees for any of the three tools. All three offer free trials (Tradify 14 days, Xero 30 days, Stripe unlimited). You can test the entire stack without spending a penny.
If you want to go further with automation, tools like n8n can connect Tradify to WhatsApp notifications, Google Calendar, and other systems. But the core Tradify-Xero-Stripe stack covers the essentials.
What tradespeople are saying
Recommended videos
New to Tradify? This is how I set it up. Part 1/3
Alpha Tradie | Business Coaching
Tradify in Action: 6-Minute Guide (UK Edition)
Tradify Help & Training
How to set up Xero with Tradify
Tradify Help & Training
The 15-Minute Xero Beginner Guide (2026 Edition)
accountant_she
How to connect Stripe to Xero for online invoice payments
Xero Accounting Software
How to set up a Stripe account in the UK (complete guide)
Nwaeze David
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Tradify has native apps for both iOS and Android, and they work offline. You can create quotes, log time, and take photos on site without a signal. Everything syncs when you reconnect.
No. Only invoices created after you connect the integration flow through automatically. If you need historical invoices in both systems, you can re-send them manually through Tradify or use the one-time sync tool.
Yes. Tradify has a surcharge setting that adds the processing fee to the customer's total. Whether you should is a business decision. Absorbing it reduces friction and gets you paid faster. Passing it through keeps your margins intact. Most trades businesses I see absorb it for invoices under £500 and pass it through on larger jobs.
Tradify notifies you by email if the sync fails. Usually it is a token expiry that fixes itself when you re-authorise through Settings > Integrations > Xero. Any invoices created while the connection was down sync automatically once it is restored. No data is lost.
If you are billing more than £2,000 per month and spending any time on manual quoting or invoicing, yes. The £34 monthly cost pays for itself if it saves you one hour of admin per month. Most sole traders report saving considerably more than that.
My verdict
Tradify, Xero, and Stripe are not the cheapest tools individually. Tradify at £34 per month is more than some alternatives, and Xero's Grow plan at £28 is not the budget option either. But the three work together without friction, and that is what matters. The time you save on data entry, chasing payments, and reconciling accounts adds up to hundreds of pounds per month in recovered billable hours. You can set this up in an afternoon and have a professional, automated workflow running by tomorrow morning. For £62 per month, that is hard to argue with.
