Xero's Account Data API beta: what NZ finance teams should check

What Xero released on 5 November

On 5 November 2026, Xero's developer team posted five changes to its public API. The largest is a beta of a new Account Data API. Connected apps get read-only access to transactions, balances and movements for each account in the chart of accounts. Xero says the API is "gated behind the Advanced Developer Plan" and warns that endpoints, parameters and schemas may still change before general availability. The specification in Xero's OpenAPI repository lists three read-only endpoints for account balances, account movements and account transactions. Each endpoint has its own permission scope, and the spec was included in release 20.0.0 on 2 November.

The same changelog also covers four smaller updates. Feed Connections 2.0 lets bank feed providers choose which Xero bank account a connection uses, and it reports a result for every item in a request. The Budgets endpoint now returns budgets created in Xero Analytics as well as those from Budget Manager, with a new field showing where each budget came from. The Accounts endpoint gains a creation timestamp. A new webhook notifies apps when prepayments are created or updated.

A feature request that took 14 years

Xero users have wanted account-level transaction data for a long time. A developer posted the request on Xero's UserVoice forum on 20 November 2012, and it has gathered 470 votes. Xero said in 2016 that designs had begun, then marked the idea "not planned" in 2019. On 21 September 2026, Xero said a small-group beta would run in October and that access would need the Advanced developer plan.

Account-level data matters most to software that works the way an accountant does at month end. A balance sheet reconciliation tool needs the movement on each account for a period. Management reporting and consolidation tools need balances at given dates. Audit support tools need the transactions behind a balance. An app without a direct account-level API has to rebuild those figures from other data. Xero's own developer FAQ puts the Journals endpoint, the obvious alternative source, behind the Advanced tier as well.

What the Advanced plan costs

Xero's developer pricing page shows four published tiers and an Enterprise tier priced on application, all in Australian dollars excluding tax. Core costs A$35 a month for 50 connections and 10 GB of data. Plus costs A$245 for 1,000 connections and 50 GB. Advanced costs A$1,445 a month for 10,000 connections and 250 GB, with extra data billed at A$2.40 per GB. On the Advanced plan, the Journals endpoint, the Xero Practice Manager API and bulk connections each need a security assessment and approval of the intended use. Xero hasn't said whether the Account Data API will carry the same assessment once it leaves beta.

The tiered model took effect on 2 March 2026. It replaced a 15% revenue share on apps billed through the Xero App Store, according to The Register's report of the December 2025 announcement. In the same report, the founder of a balance sheet reconciliation app estimated a yearly bill of $17,340 under the new model. That estimate matches twelve months on the Advanced plan.

The price matters to app users because many of the reconciliation and reporting apps NZ accountants rely on are built by small teams. A developer serving a few hundred NZ practices has to decide whether account-level data justifies more than A$17,000 a year in platform fees. Some will move to Advanced and pass the cost on in their own subscriptions. Others will stay on Plus and keep rebuilding balances from cheaper endpoints. For now, Xero hasn't published which apps are in the beta.

What it means for NZ businesses

Most NZ businesses on Xero never call the API themselves. Their reporting, inventory, payroll and practice tools do. The Account Data API matters to them in two ways. Reporting and reconciliation apps that adopt the API could return more accurate figures with fewer workarounds. Apps that don't adopt it will carry on with their current methods. Neither outcome is visible from inside Xero, so the questions have to go to app vendors.

The beta label has practical consequences. Xero says the schemas may change before general availability. A vendor that builds production features on the beta takes on the risk of those changes, and so do its customers at month end. We'd treat account-level features built on the new API as early-release software until Xero announces general availability.

Businesses with in-house integrations face a separate question. Xero's FAQ says bespoke integrations that accountants build for their own practice or a single client are exempt from the new pricing, and that Custom Connections stay on their existing commercial terms. Xero hasn't published whether either connection type can reach the Account Data API during the beta. A firm that feeds Xero data into its own data warehouse should get a written answer before planning around the new endpoints.

Two smaller changes also need attention. Tools that read the Budgets endpoint will now receive Xero Analytics budgets alongside Budget Manager budgets. A report that adds up every returned budget could double count if both systems hold a version of the same plan. Firms sending Xero data to AI tools should also know that Xero's revised developer terms, as The Register reported, prohibit using API data to train AI and machine learning models.

For growing businesses, the pricing gives a useful signal about cost. If month-end close now depends on several paid apps rebuilding ledger data from Xero, the total cost of that setup is worth comparing with a mid-market ERP that holds the ledger, inventory and reporting in one database.

Next steps

• List every app connected to your Xero organisation and mark which ones produce balances, reconciliations or management reports.
• Ask each reporting or reconciliation vendor whether it's in the Account Data API beta, when it expects to use the API in production, and whether its pricing will change because of Xero's Advanced tier.
• Keep month-end controls unchanged for any feature built on the beta until Xero announces general availability, and check a sample of balances against Xero's own trial balance.
• If you run an in-house or accountant-built integration, ask Xero support whether your connection type can access the Account Data API and what it'll cost.
• Check whether any budget reports read the Budgets endpoint, and confirm they filter by the new source field so Xero Analytics budgets aren't counted twice.
• Review where Xero data goes after it leaves Xero, including AI tools, against Xero's developer terms. Our process and automation team can help map those data flows.