Accounting sync: sending expenses to Xero

Accounting sync

ibakepro connects to Xero today. Once it is connected, expenses you have submitted are pushed across on a schedule, with the receipt image attached to the record the platform creates. Accounting sync is on the Business plan.

Why it exists

The expense already exists. You photographed the receipt at the supplier, the amount is in ibakepro, it is categorised and the same figure then gets typed a second time into the accountant's system by a person who is guessing at the category from a two-word description. The second entry is where the errors and the lost receipts come from, not the first.

Connecting

Xero connects from Settings, Integrations, in the accounting section: you authorise ibakepro from inside your own accounting platform, and the connection appears in ibakepro. MYOB and QuickBooks will connect the same way when they arrive. Disconnecting is a button in the same place, and doing so stops the exports.

Two extra steps exist for Xero and only for Xero. If your login has access to more than one Xero organisation, you choose which one ibakepro posts to. And you can map each of your ibakepro expense categories to a specific Xero account, so an expense lands where your chart of accounts expects it rather than in a catch-all.

What syncs, and when

ibakepro pushes to your accounting platform. The sync runs one way, out, so your books stay the system of record.

Expenses are picked up automatically, a few times a day, for every account with a platform connected. There is one human checkpoint and it is deliberate: only expenses you have submitted are exported. A draft you are still working on stays where it is. An expense that has already gone across is not sent twice, and one that fails is shown as failed so you can see it, not silently lost.

Processing fees charged by your payment provider are recorded in ibakepro as expenses in their own right, so they reach your accounting platform through the same path. That happens whether or not you have connected anything, which is covered in are payment processing fees tracked automatically.

After an expense has gone across

Two things can happen to an expense that is already in your books, and ibakepro records both instead of quietly papering over them. These checks are on the Xero connection.

Edit an expense that has already been exported and it is marked edited since export. Xero still holds the original figures, and ibakepro does not overwrite them behind your back. Delete an expense that has already been exported and ibakepro voids the record in Xero so the two ledgers do not diverge. If that void fails, because Xero was down or the record was locked, the expense is marked as a delete that Xero has not reflected, so it is a thing you can find and fix rather than a silent gap.

Design decisions

• This is an outbound export. Bills, bank feeds, contacts and invoices created in your accounting platform stay there.
• Only expenses you have submitted leave ibakepro.
• Transactions arrive ready to reconcile. They land in your accounting platform for you or your bookkeeper to match to the bank line.
• A connection can expire. Accounting platforms revoke access periodically, and ibakepro tells you the moment yours stops working so you can reconnect it.