Xero and Chaney & Associates Expand Faith-Based Nonprofit Payments

Xero announced on November 5, 2026 an expanded partnership with Chaney & Associates, the Roseville, California, firm serving churches and tax-exempt faith-based nonprofits, but did not publish pricing for the arrangement.

The change is real but narrow. Chaney has built Melio’s payment tools into its own client dashboard through Xero’s open API, so its nonprofit clients can pay vendors and partners from the same screen that shows their books.

For accountants the interest lies less in one California firm than in the pattern. Xero is placing the payments product it bought a year ago inside the platforms of specialist practices, and the nonprofit niche is the latest test.

Xero expands Chaney partnership around Melio

Chaney & Associates has been a Xero partner since 2012. It sells cloud accounting, payroll, bill pay and fractional CFO advice to churches and faith-based organisations.

The firm adds about 50 new client organisations each year. To support that growth it used Xero’s open API and Melio’s payment solution to extend its proprietary, client-facing dashboard.

Xero said the integration brings core accounting, payroll and cross-border payments into one workflow. Nonprofit leaders get a live view of their finances, and Chaney can take on more clients without adding staff in proportion.

Jonathan Meltzer, managing director, US at Xero, said in a statement on November 5 that Chaney shows how a firm can build a practice around a client group’s specific needs.

“Chaney & Associates is a strong example of how an accounting firm can build a future-forward practice by focusing on their clients’ unique needs and then using technology to scale their support efficiently.”

Jonathan Meltzer, Managing Director, US, Xero

Meltzer added that Xero and Melio give faith-based nonprofits more visibility into financial performance and more control over how they manage payments across borders.

Melio pricing for Xero nonprofit clients

The announcement names no countries, currencies, fees or client numbers beyond the roughly 50 new organisations a year. It is a partner-channel announcement built on an existing product, not a new Xero payment rail.

The payment engine is Melio, the US bill-pay company Xero bought. Xero completed the acquisition on October 15, 2025, for $2.5 billion upfront, with up to $500 million more payable to Melio employees over three years. Melio chief executive Matan Bar now leads Xero’s US business.

Melio’s nonprofit page says organisations can pay program partners and vendors overseas from the same dashboard as local vendors. It says payments can go in US dollars or in local currencies, with conversion rates applying to the latter.

Melio’s pricing page lists international payments in US dollars at a $20 flat fee for bank-funded transfers. Paying by Visa or Mastercard costs 2.9% plus $20. A faster US dollar option is priced at 1%, with a $30 minimum and a $95 maximum.

Domestic payments are cheaper. A bank transfer costs $0.50 once a plan’s free allowance runs out, and the allowance ranges from 5 payments a month on the Go plan to unlimited on the top tier.

The pricing page does not list the countries or currencies Melio supports. A nonprofit sending mission funds to a specific country needs to confirm availability before assuming this works.

Xero tax-exempt reporting and cross-border gifts

Churches and faith-based nonprofits move money abroad for mission teams, outreach funds and partner organisations. Each transfer raises record-keeping questions that a payment screen does not answer.

Neither Xero nor Chaney has said how the integration handles tax-exempt reporting, restricted funds or documentation for overseas grants, and neither has published pricing for that work. The announcement presents visibility and control as the benefit, not compliance.

That matters because a faster payment is not a compliant one. A firm still has to match each overseas payment to a purpose, a recipient and the donor restrictions behind it, and that work sits in the ledger, not in Melio.

The same caution applies to cost claims. The announcement offers no savings figure, and no outside benchmark exists for what a nonprofit saves by paying through the dashboard instead of a bank wire. Melio’s own list puts a US wire at $10, so cheaper does not follow automatically.

Practices serving the sector can start from Accountio’s nonprofit audit and Form 990 pack, which covers the documentation that cross-border grants tend to generate.

Xero pricing and tax checks for firms

Xero’s own pricing covers the subscription for the ledger but not the payments layer or the tax work around it, which are billed separately.

A practice copying Chaney’s model has three costs to set. The first is Xero’s subscription for each client file. The second is Melio’s per-payment fee, which depends on the plan and the funding method. The third is the firm’s time on tax reporting for overseas payments.

Chaney has not disclosed how it charges clients for any of this. Firms weighing a similar build should write the payment service into the engagement terms, and Accountio’s bookkeeping and advisory engagement letter pack has wording for that.

Software that handles the compliance side is a separate purchase. Accountio’s list of tax and compliance software shows the vendors firms usually add when the ledger alone is not enough.

What comes next for Xero and Melio

The Chaney announcement follows a similar one on October 21, 2026, when Xero and Bookkeeper360 said they would build a custom integration that places Melio payments inside Bookkeeper360’s own platform. Both give accounting firms a branded payment experience and give Xero payment volume without requiring the firm’s clients to leave its dashboard.

Xero launched online bill payments powered by Melio in the US in March 2026. It named Meltzer as managing director, US, on July 27, 2026, and the two partner deals since then point to a strategy built on specialist firms rather than direct sales alone.

Several details remain open. Xero has not said how many firms will receive custom Melio integrations, whether the international payment fees change for partners, or which countries clients can pay.

The next evidence will be commercial. Xero’s half-year results, due after the end of its September 2026 half, should show whether payments revenue from the US is growing as the Melio deal case assumed.