Running a brewery creates enough work without entering the same information twice.
Between processing orders, raising invoices, tracking stock and keeping the accounts up to date, it's easy for admin to take up more time than anyone intended.
The problem often isn't any one task. It's the handover between systems. An order is entered by sales, the invoice is recreated in the accounts, and someone later checks whether the payment has been recorded. Multiply that across customers, suppliers and production, and those small jobs soon add up.
If your brewery already uses Xero, you don't necessarily need to change how you manage your accounts. The opportunity is to make it easier for information to move between the brewery and your existing accounting software, without someone having to enter it all again.
How does connecting brewery software with Xero reduce admin?
Connecting brewery management software with Xero allows supported accounting information, such as invoices, payments and stock-related journals, to move between systems. This can reduce duplicate data entry, improve access to customer account information and make financial administration easier for brewery teams.
With the Breww and Xero integration, breweries can send finalised sales invoices, credit notes and supplier invoices to Xero, while payments and customer balances recorded in Xero can be reflected in Breww.
It's not about replacing your accountant or removing financial checks. It's about reducing the amount of information people have to enter, transfer and reconcile by hand.
Why are we still entering the same information twice?
Brewery operations and accounting are closely connected, but they don't always happen in the same system. Sales need to know what customers have ordered and paid for, production needs reliable stock information, and finance needs accurate invoices, costs and balances.
When those systems don't communicate, people become the connection between them. Someone exports a report, updates a spreadsheet or re-enters an invoice, often using information that's already been recorded elsewhere.
That creates more work and more opportunities for errors. It can also leave important processes dependent on the one person who knows which figures need checking and where everything is saved.
For Bristol-based Left Handed Giant, removing that double data entry was a major benefit of connecting Breww with Xero.
James Matamala, Warehouse and Logistics Manager, explains:
“The double data input has been removed, Breww takes care of this automatically”
Left Handed Giant reports that integrating Breww with Xero has reduced administration and the potential for errors. The brewery previously employed temporary support for several days each week to help with administrative work, although the wider savings it describes come from improvements across its operation rather than the Xero integration alone.
For a small team, the benefit is straightforward: fewer repetitive tasks and less time spent making sure information matches across systems.
Read Left Handed Giant's story.
Has that customer paid, or do I need to ask someone to check Xero?
It's a familiar situation for brewery sales teams. A customer places another order, but before it's processed, someone needs to check whether their previous invoice has been paid.
If that information is held in Xero but isn't available to the sales team, they may need to ring the office, send a message or wait for someone to look it up. It's a small interruption, but one that can happen repeatedly throughout the week.
Boxing Rock Brewing Company in Nova Scotia, Canada, wanted brewery management software that could communicate with Xero while giving its sales team better access to customer information.
Before Breww, sales activity had to be transferred manually into account management, creating extra work and making it harder for the team to access the information it needed.
Co-Founder Emily Cowin describes the difference:
“Now our sales team has all the account information at their fingertips”
With account information more readily available, Boxing Rock says collecting payments has become more efficient.
It's a good example of why an accounting integration matters beyond bookkeeping. When sales and finance can work from consistent information, the sales team can spend less time chasing internal updates and more time looking after customers.
Why does month-end mean piecing together so many spreadsheets?
For a brewery finance team, preparing the accounts involves more than checking sales invoices and payments. Ingredients have been purchased, beer has moved through production, finished stock has been packaged, and some of that beer has been sold.
Those movements affect the value of stock and the cost of goods sold. If the information sits across production records, inventory spreadsheets and accounting software, someone has to bring it together before the figures can be checked.
Breww's Xero integration can support this process by posting accounting journals for raw materials, work in progress, finished goods and cost of goods sold, using the brewery's configured account mappings.
That can reduce the need to reconstruct stock movements manually at month-end, while still giving the finance team responsibility for reviewing and reconciling the accounts.
The important point isn't that accounting becomes automatic or that checks disappear. It's that the information needed to prepare the accounts doesn't have to be rebuilt from several disconnected records.
Why is paperwork still moving between the brewery and the office?
Not every administrative problem starts with an invoice. Sometimes it's a production record, a delivery note or a piece of purchasing paperwork that needs to reach someone else before the next job can happen.
Kent Falls Brewing Company in Connecticut knows that challenge. With production, inventory, sales and its own distribution operation to manage, the team had been moving information between separate systems and spreadsheets.
Today, Kent Falls uses Breww across its operations while continuing to use Xero for accounting. Its team can photograph paperwork and attach it to a purchase order, with relevant information syncing into Xero.
That means information recorded during everyday brewery work can become part of the accounting process without someone having to recreate it separately in the office.
Kent Falls also reports wider reductions in paperwork and manual processes, although those improvements come from its broader use of Breww rather than the Xero integration alone.
For breweries with small teams, the practical benefit is having fewer disconnected processes to maintain, particularly when the person who normally handles the paperwork is away.
Will connecting brewery software mean changing how we use Xero?
If your brewery already uses Xero, you may have a chart of accounts, established bookkeeping processes and an accountant who's happy with how everything is organised. Understandably, you won't want to disrupt that unnecessarily.
Connecting Breww doesn't mean replacing Xero. Breww manages brewery operations, while Xero remains your accounting software.
There is some setup involved. Your finance team will need to check how invoices, payments, products and stock movements map to your existing accounts. You can also choose to have invoices created as drafts in Xero for review, rather than automatically approving them.
It's worth starting with the areas causing the most admin, checking that the information is moving correctly and then considering whether to introduce more detailed stock accounting.
You can find the supported transactions, configuration options and setup information on the Breww and Xero integration page.
Frequently asked questions
Does Breww integrate with Xero?
Yes. Breww connects with Xero to exchange supported invoices, payments, credit note information and customer balances. It can also post stock and production-related accounting journals when configured.
Can connecting brewery software with Xero reduce double data entry?
Yes. An integration can transfer supported information between the systems without staff entering it again manually. The time saved depends on the brewery's existing processes and setup.
Can Xero track brewery production and stock?
Xero is accounting software, not a dedicated brewery production management system. Breww manages brewery operations and can send relevant stock and production accounting information to Xero.
Less time moving information, more time running the brewery
Whether it's Left Handed Giant removing double data entry, Boxing Rock giving sales better visibility of customer accounts or Kent Falls reducing paperwork, the underlying problem is familiar: too much time spent moving information between systems.
Connecting brewery operations with accounting won't remove every administrative job, and it doesn't replace the need for proper financial oversight. But it can make everyday work easier for the people already juggling production, sales, stock and finance.
If your brewery uses Xero, start by looking at where the same information is being entered more than once, or where someone has to stop what they're doing to find an answer in another system.
For more detail on what can be connected and how it works, explore our Breww and Xero integration.
