Can I invoice storage tenants from Xero alone?

Yes. Create a contact per tenant, set up a monthly repeating invoice with the unit number in the reference, turn on invoice reminders, and reconcile payments from your bank feed. It works well for small facilities with few move-ins and move-outs.

What does storage software add on top of Xero?

Invoices are raised from each tenancy, so move-ins, move-outs and extras are handled automatically. UnitsHQ sends contacts, invoices, payments and credit notes to Xero, and payments reconciled in Xero update the tenant balance in UnitsHQ.

Guide

How to invoice storage tenants in Xero

Most small facilities start by billing tenants straight out of Xero. It works, up to a point. Here's how to set it up properly, where it starts to hurt, and what changes when your storage software does the billing for you.

UnitsHQ team · Updated October 2026 · 6 min read

Doing it by hand in Xero

If you're billing from Xero today, this is the setup most operators land on.

Create a contact for each tenant. Put the unit number in the contact name or a note so you can find them quickly.
Set up a repeating invoice for each tenancy. Monthly, for the unit rate, with the unit number in the reference. Xero raises and emails it automatically each month.
Turn on Xero's invoice reminders. Xero can email a reminder when an invoice is overdue, so you're not writing every chaser yourself.
Reconcile payments from your bank feed. Match each tenant's payment to their invoice. If they used the unit number as the reference, this is much quicker.
Keep your unit list up to date separately. Xero knows who owes what, but not which units are empty, so most people keep a spreadsheet alongside it.

Where it starts to hurt

That setup is fine for a handful of tenants. As the facility fills up, the same few jobs keep coming back.

Move-ins and move-outs. Every new tenant needs a contact and a repeating invoice, and every move-out means remembering to stop one. Miss it and you either bill someone who's left or stop billing someone who hasn't.
Part months and rate changes. A mid-month move-in or a price rise means editing invoices by hand.
Two places to check. Xero has the balances, the spreadsheet has the units. Answering "is unit 14 paid up?" means looking in both.
Extras. Locks, insurance and one-off fees get added to invoices manually, and are easy to forget.

Letting your storage software do the invoicing

The other approach is to run billing from the tenancy itself and let it flow into Xero. Your accounts stay in Xero, but you stop building invoices there.

1TenancyUnit, rate and billing date set once at move-in
2InvoiceRaised automatically each period, extras included
3 Xero Invoice and contact sent across with the right tax code
4PaymentPaid in either system, and both show it

Here's what that looks like in UnitsHQ:

Connect Xero once. Log in to Xero, then pick the revenue account, bank account and tax rate to use.
Invoices come from the tenancy. Move a tenant in and their invoices follow the unit and rate. Move them out and billing stops.
Everything lands in Xero. Contacts, invoices, payments and credit notes are sent across, and each invoice line goes over with its own tax code, so GST is right.
Payments work both ways. If you reconcile a payment in Xero, the invoice and the tenant's balance update in UnitsHQ too.
Invoices raised in Xero are picked up. If you still raise the odd invoice in Xero for a tenant, it's brought into their account rather than missed.
You can see what happened. Every sync run is logged, and anything that failed can be retried on its own.

The full breakdown of what syncs each way is on our Xero integration page.

When to switch

If you have a few dozen units and rarely have tenants coming or going, Xero on its own is fine. Set it up as above and keep it tidy.

Once you're spending more time setting up and stopping repeating invoices than you'd like, or checking two places to answer a tenant's question, it's worth looking at software. Our guide to what self storage software costs covers what to budget for.