What to do if a Xero connection "could not be established" or is showing as "forbidden"

This article is for you if you're working with Pleo's Xero integration and:

• Pleo keeps showing an ellipsis (three dots), or

• A message says “the connection couldn't be established,” or

• You've tried to export expenses and a message says that "Access to Xero is forbidden."

Fear not! This article explains why this is happening and how to fix it.

Step 1: Please humour us and try a different browser. 

Pleo should work swimmingly across all popular web browsers (Chrome, Safari, etc.). That said, sometimes weird things happen in a specific web browser. So before we ask you to do anything else, please humour us and try reconnecting Xero using Pleo on a different web browser. If that solves the problem—great! If it doesn’t, keep reading.

Step 2: Fix the chart of accounts in Xero.

• As part of a valiant effort to organise financial reports, an accountant has likely changed the code of a Pleo bank account in Xero. This change is what causes the connection between Pleo and Xero to fail.

• The solution is to change the codes back to their original format.

  1. Log into Xero.

  2. Click “Accounting” in the top bar.

  3. Click “Chart of Accounts” from the options.

  4. Type “Pleo” in the search box on the right-hand side of the chart of accounts section.

  5. Click on the codes and change the names back to “PLEO”, “PLEOBANK”, and “PLEOREIMBURSEMENTS” (as shown in the below image). Please note that “PLEOREIMBURSEMENTS” is only relevant to our customers who use Reimbursements functionality.
     
     

Step 3: Go back to Pleo and try reconnecting to Xero again.

Even if you've fixed the chart of accounts, the connection is still broken. So please follow these steps to properly disconnect and reconnect Pleo and Xero:

1. In Xero, click on your company name in the top left corner.
2. Click Settings
3. Click Connected Apps
4. Next to Pleo, click Disconnect
5. Log into the Pleo web app
6. Go to the Accounting 
7. Click Disconnect
8. Reconnect Xero by following these steps