# How to Go Paperless with Xero in Australia **Author:** James Whitfield, Content Lead at eggz.ai **Last updated:** 28 August 2026 --- Going paperless in Australia means connecting your email inbox to Xero so financial documents flow in automatically rather than getting re-keyed by hand. For most small businesses, this requires two things: your business email (Gmail or Missive) and Xero. eggz connects them and handles the extraction, so invoices, bills, and quotes stop piling up as manual entry tasks. --- ## What "paperless" actually means for a small business There are two distinct problems when people talk about going paperless: **Problem 1: Physical paper.** Receipts, invoices by post, statements from suppliers that arrive as printed documents. This requires scanning or photographing. **Problem 2: Digital documents that still require manual re-keying.** PDF invoices attached to emails, quote requests, bills from suppliers. These are already "digital" but still require someone to open Xero, find the right account, enter the figures, and post. This is where most small businesses lose the most time. Most guides focus on problem 1. Problem 2 is where the actual hours go for a typical Australian service business. An email arrives with a supplier invoice attached. Someone has to download the PDF, open Xero, create a new bill, fill in the vendor, date, amount, and GST code, then save it as a draft. Multiply by 30 supplier invoices a month and you're looking at 2-3 hours of low-value admin. eggz solves problem 2, and it will take a photo for problem 1: open eggz on your phone and there is a camera button in the bottom bar. At real volume, a dedicated tool like Dext's mobile app is still the better answer for physical paper. --- ## The core setup: Gmail + eggz + Xero For email-based document automation, the setup is: 1. Gmail or Missive (your inbox) 2. eggz (reads emails, extracts document data) 3. Xero (receives the structured records) Paper dockets are the awkward part of going paperless, and there is more than one way in: our guide to how to [upload receipts to Xero](/upload-receipts-to-xero) covers photographing a docket, forwarding an email, and capturing a bill straight off a supplier's website. When a supplier sends you an invoice by email, eggz picks it up, extracts the vendor name, invoice number, date, line items, and GST, and creates a draft bill in Xero. You review the draft, approve it, and it's posted. No data entry. When a client emails asking for a quote, you build the quote in eggz using saved line item templates and publish it to Xero. When the client accepts, one click converts it to a linked Xero invoice with every line carried across. This covers the document flow for most service businesses. The physical paper problem, meaning receipts from hardware stores, petrol stations and coffee for meetings, can be photographed straight into eggz from your phone. At high volume it is worth a dedicated capture app as well. --- ## Tools you'll need | Purpose | Tool | Cost | |---------|------|------| | Email-to-Xero automation (invoices, bills, quotes) | eggz | $90 AUD/year | | Physical receipt capture | Dext (mobile app) | US$31.50/month | | Cloud document storage | Xero Files (included with Xero) | Free | | Invoice reminders | Xero (built-in) | Free | | Debtor chasing | Chaser | ~$55 AUD/month | Most small businesses start with eggz for the email automation and add Dext if they have significant physical receipt volumes. Between them, very little paperwork is left that somebody has to key in by hand. --- ## Going paperless in practice: step by step **Step 1: Connect eggz to your Gmail or Missive** Sign up at [app.eggz.ai/sign-up](https://app.eggz.ai/sign-up), then connect your business email via OAuth. eggz monitors your inbox for financial documents. No forwarding required. **Step 2: Connect eggz to your Xero account** Authorise eggz to access your Xero organisation. eggz will use your existing contacts, accounts, and tax settings when it creates records. **Step 3: Set up supplier rules** Add your regular suppliers so eggz recognises their invoices and codes each line from your own Xero chart of accounts. The bill is a draft until you confirm it, and new suppliers get flagged for review the first time. **Step 4: Set up quote templates** If you send quotes to clients, save your standard service lines as templates in eggz. That makes a new quote a 2-minute job rather than a blank page. **Step 5: Enable Xero invoice reminders** In Xero Settings, turn on automatic payment reminders for outgoing invoices. Once invoices are in Xero via eggz, reminders run without you following up manually. **Step 6: Decide how physical paper gets in** For the occasional receipt, photograph it with the camera button in eggz on your phone: it uploads, gets read, and joins everything else awaiting your approval. If you are dealing with paper in volume every week, Dext's mobile app is worth the second subscription alongside eggz. **Step 7: Tell suppliers to email invoices** The biggest leverage point. If you have suppliers who still post paper invoices, ask them to switch to email. Most will. This eliminates the scanning step entirely for those suppliers. --- ## Three statistics worth knowing The Australian Taxation Office accepts digital records in place of paper for all business tax purposes, provided the digital copy is a true and clear reproduction and is retained for five years ([ATO, 2025](https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/preparing-lodging-and-paying/record-keeping-for-business/setting-up-and-managing-records/business-record-keeping-systems/digital-record-keeping)). Research from Xero found that Australian small business owners spend an average of six hours per week on financial administration tasks, with manual data entry from invoices and bills accounting for a significant share of that time ([Xero Small Business Insights, 2025](https://www.xero.com/au/resources/small-business-insights/)). Keeping complete, well-organised digital records is one of the simplest ways to save time and avoid mistakes at BAS and tax time. The ATO specifically recommends accurate, up-to-date record-keeping to make GST reporting faster and correct ([ATO, 2025](https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/preparing-lodging-and-paying/business-activity-statements-bas/bas-and-gst-tips)). --- ## Common questions about going paperless in Australia **Is it legal to go paperless in Australia?** Yes. The ATO accepts digital records for all business tax purposes, including GST claims and deductions, as long as the records are accurate, legible, and retained for the required period (generally five years). You don't need to keep paper originals if you have a valid digital copy. **What counts as a valid digital record for the ATO?** A clear, legible digital copy of the original document. This can be a scanned image, a PDF received by email, or a record created by your accounting software. The ATO doesn't require a specific file format, but the document must be readable and complete. **Can I claim GST on a digital invoice?** Yes. GST claims require a valid tax invoice. A PDF invoice received by email is a valid tax invoice if it includes the supplier's ABN, GST amount, and the required invoice details. eggz extracts this information and codes it correctly in Xero. **What happens to paper invoices I've already received?** You can photograph or scan them using Dext's mobile app or a scanner, then delete or shred the paper originals once the digital copy is confirmed. For paper documents older than 5 years, they can generally be destroyed. **Does eggz handle both inbound bills and outbound invoices?** Yes. eggz processes inbound supplier bills from your email inbox and lets you create outbound quotes and invoices that sync to Xero. It covers both directions of the document flow. **How does eggz handle attachments in email threads?** eggz monitors your inbox for emails with financial document attachments. It extracts data from PDF and image attachments. If an email thread has multiple attachments, eggz processes each one as a separate candidate record for your review. **Do I need an accountant to set this up?** No. eggz and the Xero connection are set up by the business owner directly, without technical help or an accountant. The OAuth connections to Gmail and Xero are point-and-click. Your accountant will benefit from better-organised Xero data at BAS and tax time. **What if I run both Gmail and Missive?** eggz connects to both. If you use Gmail for personal client communication and Missive for team inboxes, you can connect both to eggz and process documents from either source. --- *[Create your account](https://app.eggz.ai/sign-up). Every account starts free, with the first 50 documents included. 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