1666 - Xero backups failing due to insufficient permissions

Symptom

Xero backups fail without the customer making any changes to their backup set.

Cause

This happens because Xero introduced authorisation changes to their Accounting API in June 2026. Read more in Xero's changelog here.

In short, if journals or manual journals are included in your backups, the connection between Xero and the RedApp must now be authorised by a user with the Advisor role OR by a Standard user with reporting permissions enabled. If the connection was originally authorised by a user without the required permissions, backups will fail. 

Solution

To allow backups to resume, you will need to update the role or permissions of the the authorising user within Xero. To do this:

1. In your Xero organisation, go to Settings. 

2. Under General, go to Users and open the user authorising the connection to the RedApp. You can then either:

• retain their Standard role for the user, but check the box for View and rerun reports; OR
• change their role to Advisor.

3. Click Update permissions at the bottom right.

If backups continue to fail even with the user's permissions updated, please log a ticket with our support team.