# Email Paige invoices to Xero bills

The lowest-effort route into Xero: a one-step automation emails each PDF Paige finishes to your organisation's bills email address, and Xero creates a draft bill from it. Paige's own field values aren't sent — just the clean, searchable PDF — so you review the draft in Xero as usual.

Product: paige · Audience: user · Time: 30 minutes · Last verified: 2026-09-05

Canonical: https://help.ademero.com/paige/integrations/email-paige-invoices-to-xero-bills

**At the end of this guide, every invoice Paige finishes is emailed to your Xero organisation's bills address within minutes, and Xero turns it into a draft bill with the PDF attached — no mapping, no fields, one automation step.**

This path sends only the PDF. Xero reads it with its own tools and pre-fills what it can (usually contact, dates, and total); you check the draft as you normally would. If you want Paige's reviewed values on the bill itself, use the [Zapier or Make path](/paige/integrations/send-paige-invoices-to-xero-with-zapier-or-make).

## Step 1 — Get your Xero bills email address

1. In Xero, open **Business > Bills to pay**.
2. Click **Create bill from email** (at the top of the page or in the menu).
3. Click **Copy** next to the unique address Xero shows. Treat it like a password: anything emailed to it becomes a draft bill.

## Step 2 — Point Paige at your SFTP server

1. In Paige, open **Settings** (the gear at the bottom of the left menu — administrators only), pick the scan job, and choose **Export**.
2. Click the **FTP** card. Enter the **FTP Address**, **Port** `22`, **Username**, **Password**, and in **FTP Folder Path** a folder for this scan job, such as `/paige/invoices`.
3. Click **Test Connection**. **What you should see:** `FTP connection successful!` Connect — `Connected to FTP Server!` and a green **Connected** label.
4. Turn on **Enable Auto Export**, pick your invoice type under **Document Types**, and set **Human Reviewed** to **Reviewed** if you want a person to confirm the document is an invoice before Xero gets it. Click **Save**.

Open port 22 on your firewall to Paige's address ranges — [Outbound IP ranges for firewall allow-lists](/paige/document-processing/outbound-ip-ranges-for-firewall-allow-lists).

## Step 3 — Build the one-step forwarder

This time the automation triggers on the **PDF**, not the data file, because the PDF is all Xero needs.

### Zapier

1. **Trigger:** **SFTP by Zapier → New or Updated File**, folder = the scan job's folder.
2. **Filter by Zapier:** *File Name* **(Text) Ends with** `.pdf`.
3. **Email by Zapier → Send Outbound Email.** **To:** the Xero bills address. **Subject:** anything (`Invoice from Paige`). **Attachment:** the trigger's file.
4. Turn the Zap on.

### Make

1. **SFTP → Watch files in a folder**, pointed at the scan job's folder; filter *File name* **Ends with** `.pdf`.
2. **SFTP → Get a file** for the triggered file.
3. **Email → Send an email** to the Xero bills address with the file data from module 2 as an attachment (or use your Gmail or Microsoft 365 module).
4. Turn the scenario on.

### Power Automate

1. **SFTP - SSH: When a file is added or modified**, folder = the scan job's folder, **Include file content** on.
2. **Condition:** *File name* **ends with** `.pdf`.
3. **Office 365 Outlook → Send an email (V2)** to the Xero bills address, with the trigger's *File name* and *File content* as the attachment.
4. Save.

> **NOTE:** Xero accepts PDF, JPG, and PNG attachments, up to 25 MB per email and up to 10 bills per email. One PDF per email, as above, keeps it simple.

## Step 4 — Test it

1. Process one invoice through the scan job in Paige (review it if you required review) and wait for the export.
2. Check the automation's run history: one run, triggered by the `.pdf`.
3. In Xero, open **Bills to pay > Draft**. **What you should see:** a draft bill with the PDF attached, contact and amounts pre-filled as far as Xero could read them. Complete and approve it.

## When it doesn't work

| Symptom | Where to look |
| --- | --- |
| No draft appears | The email didn't arrive: wrong bills address, or the sending account blocked the attachment. Check the automation's run history for the email step. |
| Draft appears with nothing pre-filled | Xero couldn't read the PDF's contents. Rare with Paige's PDFs, which carry a clean text layer — but Xero's reading is separate from Paige's. Fill the draft by hand, or switch to the [Zapier or Make path](/paige/integrations/send-paige-invoices-to-xero-with-zapier-or-make), which uses Paige's values. |
| Four emails per invoice | The `.pdf` filter is missing, so the data files were emailed too. |
| Nothing arrives from Paige | Auto-export criteria aren't met, or the invoice was processed before you enabled auto export. Export once from the **Documents** page with **Export** and tick **FTP**. |

If the Paige side is the problem, contact Ademero support with the scan job name and the message from **Test Connection**.

## What's next

- [Send Paige invoices to Xero with Zapier or Make](https://help.ademero.com/paige/integrations/send-paige-invoices-to-xero-with-zapier-or-make)
- [Connect Paige to Xero](https://help.ademero.com/paige/integrations/connect-paige-to-xero)