Xero Power — Shortcuts & Command Palette

Keyboard-first power tools for Xero. Ctrl+K command palette, bank rec shortcuts, default-to-Approve for invoices, and more.

Stop clicking through menus. Start flying through Xero. Xero Power adds the keyboard-first workflow Xero users keep asking for — a command palette, bank reconciliation you can drive without a mouse, a safer Approve button, and a colour for every organisation you look after. CTRL+K COMMAND PALETTE Press Ctrl+K anywhere in Xero — on Windows, on a Chromebook, or Cmd+K on a Mac — to open a searchable list of 39 screens. ・Bank Reconciliation — type "rec", press Enter ・New Invoice — type "inv", press Enter ・Chart of Accounts — type "chart", press Enter ・Aged Receivables — type "aged", press Enter ・Any report, contact, or settings page — just type it No more Dashboard, Accounting, Bank Accounts, Reconcile. Press Ctrl+K and go. The palette learns which screens you open most and floats them to the top, so after a week you barely type anything. Every destination was rechecked against live Xero for this release. Fifteen of them had quietly gone dead as Xero moved pages — including every report. RECONCILE WITHOUT THE MOUSE Stop reaching for your mouse on every single transaction. ・Up and Down — move between statement lines ・M — match to an existing transaction ・C — create a new transaction ・T — transfer between accounts ・D — mark for discussion ・Space — pick a transaction out of the match list ・Enter — reconcile ・Ctrl+Enter — save a transaction you have created ・Esc — back to the statement lines A hint bar shows the shortcuts while you work, and the row you are on is highlighted so you never lose your place. When Xero will not let a line reconcile, it tells you why instead of doing nothing. A SAFER APPROVE BUTTON Xero's default button on an invoice is "Approve & email", so one stray click sends an email to your client. 440 people asked Xero to let them change it. Xero said there are no plans to, and locked the thread. Xero Power makes plain Approve the default. Emailing is still one click away in the dropdown, exactly where it was. Nothing is removed — the default is just the safe one, and you can switch it back in settings. KNOW WHICH BOOKS YOU ARE IN If you look after several organisations, they all look the same. That is how a transaction ends up in the wrong client's file. Give each organisation its own navigation bar colour and you know where you are before you read a word. Xero Power also watches for a subtler version of the same mistake: 23 of Xero's screens carry no organisation in their web address, so they open whichever organisation your session moved to last. Open one of those from a different tab and you can land in another client's books with nothing on screen to tell you. Xero Power says so, and offers to take you back. Two organisation colours are free. Solo Pro and Practice Pro cover as many as you run. DARK MODE Xero has no plans to add one. 533 people asked. Flip a switch and every Xero screen goes dark — invoices, bank rec, reports, the lot. STOP MISCODED LINES BEFORE THEY LAND (PRACTICE PRO) If your practice runs tracking categories, one untagged line means a report that does not add up and someone reopening the file weeks later. Turn the requirement on and Approve is blocked — on invoices, on bills, and in bank reconciliation — until every populated line carries a tracking category. The lines missing one are marked. Drafts still save normally, so nobody loses work in progress. Bank reconciliation matters most here. For Making Tax Digital, Xero's own guidance is to separate businesses with tracking categories, and a line without one is left out of the quarterly totals sent to HMRC. Xero has said making the field mandatory is not on its roadmap, and suggests finding the gaps afterwards with Find & Recode — after the return has gone. For sole traders and landlords, nearly every transaction arrives through the bank feed, which is exactly where nothing else is watching. Practices can also require a description on every populated line. Both checks are configurable and report their own counts before approval. It is a guardrail, not a lock. Someone who disables the extension can approve without it. It is there to catch the honest slip, which is what actually costs you time. KEEP APPROVAL WORK VISIBLE (PRACTICE PRO) When you open Xero's invoice or bill lists, Xero Power notes the Awaiting Approval count shown on the page. The popup keeps the latest count for each organisation, and an optional Chrome notification tells you when a queue you have already seen grows. Nothing is polled in the background. On Find & Recode, a searchable Description index sorts what is on screen A to Z or Z to A and jumps to the original row. It never rearranges Xero's table. SOLO PRO WORKFLOW TOOLS Search your organisations and open the ones you want as separate, colour-coded dashboard tabs. Solo Pro also mirrors page controls above long lists and remembers items-per-page selectors. Every automation is conservative: if Xero Power cannot identify the native Xero action exactly, it leaves the page alone. PLANS Free — $0 For any Xero user who wants fewer clicks. Command palette, bank reconciliation shortcuts, safer Approve default, dark mode, wrong-organisation warning, and two organisation colours. Solo Pro — $14.99/month For solo bookkeepers and Xero power users. Everything free, plus unlimited organisation colours, custom shortcuts, the multi-organisation workspace, list workflow tools, and priority email support. Practice Pro — $44.99/month For bookkeeping and accounting practices. Everything in Solo Pro, plus the coding guardrails, approval queue watch, Find & Recode review tools, and practice-level support. BUILT FOR BOOKKEEPERS AND ACCOUNTANTS If you spend hours in Xero every day — reconciling hundreds of transactions, chasing invoices, pulling reports — Xero Power gives you back real time. Inspired by RightTool for QuickBooks. Now Xero users get the same treatment. PRIVACY Xero Power works on the Xero page in front of you. To do its job it reads what is on that page — including tracking fields, line descriptions, and Awaiting Approval counts. None of it is stored except the approval counts, which stay on your device and are discarded after 30 days. Your accounting data, credentials, and company information never leave your browser. No analytics, no tracking, no ads. The extension contacts an outside service in five situations, and no others: ・You activate a paid licence, when Chrome starts, and about once every 24 hours — your licence key goes to Polar so cancellations and plan changes take effect ・You click Upgrade — Polar's checkout opens in a new tab. You pay Polar directly and we never see your payment details ・You click Manage subscription — Polar's customer portal opens in a new tab ・You click the feedback link — a Google form opens. Nothing is sent unless you fill it in ・You uninstall — a one-question survey opens. Closing the tab sends nothing Full privacy policy: https://dartmass.github.io/xero-power/privacy-policy.html v0.9.0 ・Dark mode — 533 of you asked Xero for this ・Colour-code your organisations — give each one its own nav bar colour so you always know which set of books you are in ・Tells you when Xero has opened a different organisation than the one you set out from. 23 of Xero's screens carry no organisation in their address and follow whichever tab moved last, so this is easier to do than it sounds — and worst noticed after you have started typing ・Reconcile from the keyboard — arrow through the transactions Xero offers, Space to pick them, Enter to reconcile, Ctrl+Enter to save one you have created. Esc puts you back on the statement rows ・Require a tracking category before a line is approved — on invoices, on bills, and now in bank reconciliation (Practice Pro). Xero leaves untracked lines out of the quarterly totals it sends to HMRC for MTD, and has said it will not make the field mandatory ・Require a line description before an invoice or bill can be approved (Practice Pro) ・Watch Awaiting Approval counts by organisation and notify when a seen queue grows (Practice Pro) ・Search and sort a non-destructive Description index on Find & Recode results (Practice Pro) ・Solo Pro tools — search and open selected organisations in separate colour-coded tabs, and keep long-list controls within reach ・Rebuilt the command palette against live Xero — 15 of its destinations had gone dead as Xero moved pages, including every report. All 39 are now checked, and there are more of them v0.8.0 ・You can now send questions and feature requests straight from the extension popup v0.7.1 ・Fixed custom command palette shortcut not taking effect (paid plans) ・Shortcut changes now apply instantly — no page reload needed ・Shortcuts now display correctly on ChromeOS and Windows (Ctrl instead of the Mac-only Cmd symbol) ・Interface text is now consistently in English v0.7.0 ・Added a welcome page that opens on first install — explains all features and how to use them ・Added a one-time toast notification on your first Xero visit confirming the extension is active v0.5.0 ・Invoicing "Approve" default button v0.4.1 ・Customise your Bank Rec shortcuts, remap any key to fit your workflow v0.3.0 ・Most Used — the command palette now learns from you