Quick answer
Open Automation → Apps in FYI and check the Xero Practice Manager app. If it shows a warning or "needs to reconnect", click the cog and choose Reset Connection, then sign back in with an account that has admin access. If the link is fine, run a manual sync to pull the latest clients, staff and jobs across.
WHY IT HAPPENS
Nearly always the connection, not your data.
FYI keeps in step with your practice software through an authorised link. When that link drops — after a password change, an expired token, or a permission change in Xero Practice Manager — FYI can no longer read your data and the sync quietly stops. You'll often see a message like "XPM needs to reconnect" or "authentication failed" in Practice Activity. The other common culprit is a temporary delay: when XPM hits its daily API rate limits, FYI pauses the sync and resumes it automatically once the limits refresh, so a short wait sometimes fixes it on its own.
THE FIX
Work through these in order.
- Check the app status in FYIGo to Automation → Apps and open the Xero Practice Manager (or relevant practice management) app. Look for a warning banner, a "needs to reconnect" message, or a paused/error state. This tells you whether it's a broken connection or just a delay.
- Give a sync delay a little timeIf the app says the sync is "paused until" a date and time, XPM's rate limits have been reached. FYI will resume on its own — note the time shown and check back after it passes before doing anything else.
- Reset the connectionIf FYI reports an authentication or reconnect problem, open the app's settings (the cog icon) and choose Reset Connection. You'll be asked to sign in to Xero Practice Manager again to re-authorise the link.
- Sign in with the right permissionsRe-authorise using a Xero login that has admin access to your Xero Practice Manager organisation. A staff account without the right role can't grant the connection, which is a frequent reason the reset appears to work but syncing still fails.
- Run a manual syncOnce reconnected, open the integration settings and use the manual sync option to pull across clients, staff, jobs and tax returns. This catches FYI up immediately rather than waiting for the next scheduled sync.
- Confirm the records came throughSpot-check a client or job you know is new in your practice software and confirm it now appears in FYI. If most records synced but a few didn't, they may have a data issue in XPM (for example a missing field) worth reviewing.
- Check for a wider outageIf resetting and manual sync both fail, the issue may be on the vendor side. Check FYI's and Xero's official status pages for any reported incident before troubleshooting further.
The FYI Desktop App is separate from the practice-software sync. The Desktop App is what lets you open and edit documents from FYI on your PC — if that's your problem (a red icon on the tray icon, or documents won't open), you likely just need to sign the Desktop App back in rather than reset the XPM integration. If the whole practice keeps losing the sync, or only some staff are affected, it usually points to an account or permissions issue worth having looked at properly.
