Close and analytics · acquired

Syft Analytics

A cloud reporting, consolidation and forecasting tool over synced small-business ledgers and commerce data, now owned by Xero and partly built into Xero itself.

syftanalytics.com · founded 2016 · Johannesburg, South Africa (contracting entity Syft Analytics Inc., terms governed by California law) · researched 2026-10-10

Scope: Syft pulls accounts, contacts, invoices, journals and bank transactions from Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, MYOB, FreshBooks, FreeAgent and ERPs, plus Stripe, Shopify, Square, Gusto and US and Canadian bank feeds, and refreshes once a day. On that copy it builds dashboards, financial statements, consolidations, forecasts, KPIs, benchmarks, valuations and data-quality reviews, with AI summaries. It is read-only toward the ledger, does not post entries, and publishes no public API.
Backing: Xero (ASX: XRO) agreed on 17 September 2024 to buy it for up to US$70m: US$40m upfront (including about US$10m in Xero shares), the rest in earnouts and employee RSUs over three years. It now trades as 'Syft from Xero'. Earlier funding was not found.
Serves: accountants, smb, mid-market
Covers: reporting, ledger, close, commerce, payments, bank
To ownpurse: Neighbour. Syft is the strongest reporting layer over a synced copy of the books, and Xero bought it. The ledger vendor now owns the copy and builds its views into the ledger, which narrows the room for a hosted third-party reporting tool. It leaves open the case ownpurse makes: a record the owner holds that spans every vendor and that agents can read.

What it is

Syft Analytics is a cloud reporting, consolidation and forecasting tool for accountants, bookkeepers and small and medium businesses. It was founded in Johannesburg in 2016. On 17 September 2024 Xero agreed to buy it for up to US$70 million: US$40 million upfront, about US$10 million of that in Xero shares, and the rest in earnouts and employee stock over three years. At the time it had more than 50,000 small-business users and about 70 staff. Its logo now reads “Syft from Xero”, and its terms, updated in July 2025, were rewritten to match Xero’s.

How it works

You connect a source and Syft keeps a copy. From Xero it takes accounts, contacts, invoices, journals and bank transactions, so you can drill from a figure to the transactions behind it. Beyond ledgers it connects Stripe, Shopify, Square, Gusto, Xero Payroll, Sage Intacct, Acumatica and US and Canadian bank feeds, about twenty sources on its integrations page. Data refreshes once a day, every 48 hours for Sage. On that copy you build dashboards, IFRS and GAAP statements, consolidations with eliminations and currency handling, driver-based forecasts, KPIs, scorecards, valuations and industry benchmarks. A “Clarify” review checks bank, accounts, contacts and VAT or GST data before you report.

Data and access

Syft has no public API. Its site footer links to /api, which returned “Page not found” on 10 October 2026. Reports export to PDF, Excel and Word, and Spreadsheet Link pushes report data into Excel and Google Sheets. Under the terms, once a subscription ends the data “is no longer available to you” and is kept only for the retention period.

Pricing (read 10 October 2026): a free Basic plan, then Standard at US$23, Plus at US$47 and Advanced at US$95 a month, with a quote above ten entities. Firms buy fixed packages of 10, 25, 50 or 100+ connections, with limits on how often a slot can be swapped. Xero partners get Syft at no extra cost on qualifying Xero plans.

Agents

Syft Assist AI writes insights, email summaries and suggestions for any report, and can answer spoken questions and narrate in 56 languages. Inside Xero, the Syft team now ships an AI commentary widget and AI explanations of benchmarks. All of it runs inside the product. An outside agent cannot read Syft’s copy, and Syft never writes to the books.

Customers

Syft is well liked: 4.81 out of 5 from 476 reviews on the Xero App Store, and 4.8 from 76 on G2. Reviewers praise the support, how easy it is to use and how well it syncs. They complain that it is less flexible than Power BI or Tableau, has a learning curve, has occasional Excel and connectivity problems, and costs too much for some. Customers range from small firms to BDO and Atari’s group consolidation.

History

Syft grew as a Xero app partner and became the most used reporting app in Xero’s store. After the acquisition Xero kept it as a standalone product and began building it in. In June 2025, “Analytics powered by Syft” arrived inside Xero in early release, and by September 2026 Xero Analytics had new Budgets and AI commentary built by the Syft team. This is the familiar arc: an independent tool that kept a copy of the ledger becomes a feature of the ledger.

For ownpurse

Syft shows the most a hosted copy can do: wide coverage of sources, review before reporting, drilldown to the transaction, a free tier and well-liked support. Its sale also shows where that copy ends up, owned by the ledger vendor and serving that vendor’s customers. What it does not offer, and what Xero has no reason to build, is a record the owner holds that spans QuickBooks, Stripe and the bank as well as Xero, keeps every version, and can be read by an agent. ownpurse should borrow the review step and the drilldown, and stay on the side of the owner.

Data and access

Public API: No. none
Auth: n/a. Users sign in with Google, Microsoft, Xero or Intuit; Syft connects to sources by OAuth.
Limits: n/a. Upstream refresh is daily for Xero and most sources, every 48 hours for Sage.
What access costs: n/a; no API product
Export: Reports export to PDF, Excel and Word (with optional AI text). Spreadsheet Link pushes report data to Excel and Google Sheets. No bulk raw-data export documented. On cancellation the subscription is archived and the data is no longer available to you, though it can be reactivated during the retention period.
Notes: The site footer links to /api, which returned 'Page not found' on 2026-10-10; api.syftanalytics.com is the app's sign-in page, not a developer API.

Price

Model: Tiered monthly subscription per connected entity; plus fixed 'Packages' of 10, 25, 50 or 100+ connections for firms; free tier
Entry: Basic: free for ever (unlimited users, dashboards and graphs). Standard: US$23 a month
Top: Advanced: US$95 a month; above 10 entities, a quote. Plus is US$47 a month
Notes: From syftanalytics.com/pricing-page, read 2026-10-10. 14-day trial, no card. Xero partners get Syft at no extra cost on qualifying Xero business plans, matched to the Xero plan tier. Per-entity billing is inferred from 'More than 10 entities? Contact us' and the package terms, not stated outright.

Agents

MCP: none
AI features: Syft Assist AI: insights, email summaries, improvement suggestions, voice questions and narrated summaries in 56 languages, PDF or Word with AI text, on any report or visualisation. In Xero Analytics (2026): an AI commentary widget on dashboards and 'Explain this to me' on industry benchmarks.
Agent writes: No. There is no external interface, and Syft never writes to the ledger.
Approval: n/a. A person copies or exports the AI text.
Notes: Its AI reads Syft's own copy, inside Syft's UI. Agents reach Xero itself through Xero's own API and MCP server, not through Syft.

Integration and customers

Connects to: About 20 sources: Xero, QuickBooks Online and Desktop, Sage, Sage Intacct (premium), MYOB, FreshBooks, FreeAgent, Acumatica, Excel, Google Sheets, Square, Stripe, Stripe Connect (premium), Shopify, Gusto, Xero Payroll, US and Canadian bank feeds, trial balance and transaction-list uploads
Notes: From Xero it reads accounts, contacts, invoices, journals and bank transactions, so you can drill down to the transaction. Refresh is daily, and a stale connection needs re-authentication.
Scale: 50,000+ SMBs at acquisition (September 2024, Accounting Times). '200,000+ businesses' on its Xero App Store listing (undated, read 2026-10-10). About 70 staff in 2024. Xero calls it the most used reporting and insights app in its store.
Ratings: Xero App Store 4.81/5 from 476 reviews (read 2026-10-10). G2 4.8/5 from 76 reviews (read 2026-10-10). Pricing page claims '2,000+ five star reviews' and 'App of the Year 2024'.
What customers say: Praised for support (human live chat, Syft Campus), ease of use, attractive reports and smooth ledger sync. Complaints: less custom than Power BI or Tableau, a learning curve, some Excel-integration and connectivity issues, budget-sync trouble, and cost for some users.

Timeline

2016
Founded in Johannesburg by Vangelis Kyriazis, Eleftherios Kyriazis, Duran Hamer and Matt Stephanou
2024
Claims Xero 'App of the Year 2024'
2024-09-17
Xero announces it will buy Syft for up to US$70m; 50,000+ SMB users, about 70 staff; Syft to stay standalone and be built into Xero over time
2025-06-18
'Analytics powered by Syft' appears inside Xero in early release, for some plans and regions
2025-07-09
Syft's terms of use are rewritten to match Xero's; legal notices go to Xero
2026-09-10
Xero Analytics adds new Budgets (beta), an AI commentary widget and AI benchmark explanations, built by the Syft team

Borrow and avoid

Borrow: Breadth beyond the ledger (commerce, payments, payroll, bank feeds) in one reporting surface; a data-quality 'review' (bank, accounts, contacts, VAT/GST) before reporting; transaction-level drilldown from every figure; a free tier; consolidations without extra charges.
Avoid: A daily overwrite of a vendor-held copy; data that becomes unavailable when you cancel; an advertised API that does not exist; analysis that only lives in the vendor's UI, which an agent cannot reach.

Sources

Not confirmed against a primary source

The date the acquisition closed: completion was expected in Q3 of Xero's FY25 (roughly early 2025), and the 'Syft from Xero' branding and Xero legal notices imply it closed, but no completion notice was read.
Pre-acquisition funding: none found; the search budget ran out before checking.
Whether the US$23/47/95 prices are per entity: implied by 'More than 10 entities? Contact us' and the package terms, not stated outright. Aggregators list other figures (US$19, US$29/99/199) that conflict.
'200,000+ businesses' (Xero App Store listing) is undated and conflicts with 50,000+ at acquisition; it may count entities connected, not paying businesses.
Whether a partner or private API exists behind the dead /api footer link.
No MCP server or agent interface was found, but the search budget ran out before an exhaustive check.
Capterra and Trustpilot ratings were not checked.

On the spectrum

0 to 4. The grey tick is ownpurse.

Custody: 1
Where it runs: 0
History: 1
Openness: 1
Breadth: 2
Autonomy: 1
Agent-ready: 0
Easy to connect: 1
Market: 2

See it on the map

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ownpurse is not affiliated with Syft Analytics or any company named here. Names are their owners' trademarks. Figures come from the company's own pages and the press, as linked, as of 2026-10-10; scores are our reading of them against the definitions in the landscape. This is not legal or financial advice.