Accounting for Nature
HubSpot CRM Case Study
Eliminating manual invoicing through HubSpot Xero integration
The Challenge
Accounting for Nature came to Zippily with a common challenge. They had Sales Hub Pro in place, a functioning ticket pipeline managing new enquiries, and a motivated team but every time an invoice needed to go out, a manual process was in place to copy the invoice details back to the corresponding HubSpot record. This process made it difficult to scale with increased volume.
The Accounting for Nature team had a clear vision for what they needed but required the support from proven HubSpot specialists to put in place, particularly searching for expertise in automations, HubSpot product library, custom views, integrations and custom reporting to tie everything together.
They needed a partner over a supplier to engage with, understand their processes and work alongside them in building out a lasting solution.
Before touching a single workflow, Zippily mapped Accounting for Nature's operations end to end. This is standard practice for us. A HubSpot Xero integration built on top of a poorly understood process will simply automate the wrong things faster.
We traced each ticket pipeline from initial enquiry through to invoicing, identifying the precise stage at which an invoice should be generated, approved, and sent. That process mapping work became the foundation everything else was built on.
The Solution
What we built
We used Cloudify to connect HubSpot and Xero, syncing invoice details and direct links back to the relevant deal record in HubSpot. From there, the deal pipeline Accounting for Nature had never used became the operational hub for their billing workflow.
With invoice data flowing cleanly into HubSpot, we then activated HubSpot's transactional email functionality to automate the communication touchpoints that had previously required manual effort:
Invoice delivery, personalised to the specific service being billed. Overdue payment reminders triggered automatically based on invoice age. Payment confirmation emails sent the moment Xero recorded a payment.
We also built a commercial reporting dashboard inside HubSpot drawing on the payment data now flowing through the integration. Leadership can now see amounts invoiced versus collected, aged debtor status, and average payment time by company — all without leaving HubSpot or pulling a report from Xero separately
The outcome
The integration fundamentally changed how Accounting for Nature's team operates day to day. Billing communication that previously required manual intervention at every step now runs without it.
Working together brought:
● Automated invoice generation and a CRM as a source of truth.
● Automated invoice reminders and payment confirmation.
● A comprehensive commercial dashboard to review key financial metrics.
“Sean and the Zippily team are exceptional, professional, responsive, and quickly attuned to our needs. They are highly skilled with HubSpot and deliver well-designed automations and practical improvements that have significantly streamlined how we work and improved the usability of our CRM day to day. A highly capable and trusted partner, we would confidently recommend them.”
Mel Brooks - Accounting for Nature
The Process.
STEP 1: Process mapping
Before we open HubSpot, we map what's actually happening. That means walking through your existing workflows end to end, understanding where data moves, where it stalls, and where your team has built workarounds that nobody's documented. Most of the problems we solve in a build were already visible at this stage.
STEP 2: Solution design
Once we understand the process, we design against it. We identify which tools need to connect, at which point in the journey each action should trigger, and what the edge cases are. You see the plan before we write a single workflow. Nothing gets built that you haven't signed off on.
STEP 3: Build and test
We build in HubSpot and test against real scenarios, not hypothetical ones. That means running through the actual sequences your team will encounter. A workflow that handles 90% of cases cleanly and breaks on the other 10% is not a finished workflow.
STEP 4: Handover and embed
We don't hand over a set of workflows and disappear. We make sure your team understands what's been built, why it works the way it does, and what to do if something doesn't behave as expected. The goal is a system your team can own, not one that requires us to maintain it indefinitely.
A Proven Process for Xero to
HubSpot Integrations
Zippily executed the integration on budget and with the desired effect. The client realises their ideal tech ecosystem with minimal feedback and refinements. This HubSpot CRM case study demonstrates how the right partner can turn complex integration requirements into an efficient, automated workflow.
Conclusion
