Accounting Integrations

Table of Contents

• Why use CashFlow accounting integrations?
• How do accounting integrations work?
• What integrations are available
• Setting up Integration
• Integration Configuration
• Using the Integration
• Important to know

Why use CashFlow accounting integrations?

Integrating OpenSolar CashFlow with your accounting software offers significant advantages for managing your payments. Eliminate the manual data entry required to record invoices and payments in your accounting system after processing them in OpenSolar. 

By using accounting integrations, this process becomes automatic, allowing you to send invoices and collect payments through OpenSolar while your accounting system is updated with minimal manual intervention. 

How do accounting integrations work?

Accounting integrations within OpenSolar CashFlow enable the automatic synchronization of data between OpenSolar and your connected accounting software (QuickBooks Online or Xero). This feature aims to eliminate manual data entry and streamline your accounts receivable process. 

Here's how it works:

• Connecting to Your Accounting Software: You initiate the connection process on the Accounting page within the CashFlow tab in OpenSolar. You will be redirected to your chosen accounting software, where you'll need to log in and authorize OpenSolar to connect. 
  • It's important to note that each accounting provider account can only be connected to one OpenSolar organization. If you wish to connect a different accounting system, you must first disconnect the existing one.
    
    
• Initial Data Exchange: Once the connection is authorized, OpenSolar checks specific data from your accounting system to match with your existing OpenSolar records. This initial synchronization includes:
  
  
  • Counterparts (Customers): OpenSolar retrieves customer contact information from your accounting system. It attempts to match these counterparts based on their name, country, city, and address, in that exact order. Importantly, no new customer records are created in OpenSolar during this process if a match isn't found.
  • Products (Invoice Line Items): All products or service items from your accounting system are retrieved. OpenSolar matches these based on their names. 
  • Tax Rates: Tax rates are also pulled from your accounting system. This information is used for mapping purposes, and OpenSolar does not create new tax rates based on this data.
  • Ledger Accounts: OpenSolar also pulls your General Ledger accounts from your accounting system. This allows you to designate which ledger accounts should be used for your OpenSolar products on the Accounting page. This mapping ensures that when invoices are synced, the income is categorized correctly within your accounting system. You need to select these ledger account designations before you can successfully send invoices to your accounting software.
    
    
• Ongoing Data Synchronization (Pushing Information): After the initial setup, OpenSolar primarily pushes data to your accounting system when certain actions occur within OpenSolar:
  
  
  • Counterparts: When you send the first invoice to a new customer from OpenSolar, and if a matching counterpart wasn't found during the initial pull, a new customer record will be created in your accounting system. Subsequent invoices sent to the same customer will then be associated with this record.
  • Invoices: When an invoice in OpenSolar transitions from a draft to an issued status (i.e., when you send an invoice), a corresponding invoice record is created in your accounting system. This includes all the invoice details such as line items, quantities, prices, discounts, and tax information. 
    • It's important to note that invoices created in OpenSolar before the accounting integration was connected will not be automatically synchronized.
  • Credit Notes: If you cancel an invoice in OpenSolar, a credit note is automatically generated and sent to your accounting system. However, these credit notes are pushed without a document number and are not automatically linked to the original invoices within your accounting software.
  • Payment Records: When a customer payment is recorded for an invoice in OpenSolar, a corresponding payment record is created and pushed to your accounting system. This allows your accounting system to reflect that the invoice has been successfully paid.

• Background Synchronization: In addition to these event-driven pushes, an automatic synchronization occurs every 24 hours after the initial connection. This background process primarily involves pulling updated data (like counterparts, products, and tax rates) from your accounting system to ensure data consistency and facilitate matching for future transactions in OpenSolar.
  
  
• Monitoring Synchronization Status and Handling Errors: On the Invoices page within the CashFlow tab, you can view the synchronization status of each invoice. If a sync fails, the system will provide information about why the sync failed, and you'll typically have the option to retry the synchronization.

By automating the flow of invoice and payment information to your accounting software, this integration aims to significantly reduce the manual effort involved in keeping your financial records up-to-date and minimize the potential for errors.

What integrations are available

Currently, OpenSolar CashFlow supports integration with the following accounting systems:

• QuickBooks Online
• Xero

More integrations may be added in the future, and you can submit requests for other accounting software by emailing payments@opensolar.com

Setting up Integration

To set up an accounting integration, you will need an existing account with the supported accounting system. The setup process generally involves the following steps:

1. Ensure you have CashFlow active within your OpenSolar organization.
2. Navigate to the Accounting page within the CashFlow tab (usually under Configure). Note that this page will only be available for orgs that have been approved for CashFlow.
   
3. Select your accounting software (QuickBooks or Xero) from the list and click to connect.
4. You will be redirected to your accounting software's website, where you will need to log in and authorize the connection with OpenSolar.

Each accounting provider account can only be connected to one OpenSolar organization. If you wish to connect to a different accounting system, you will need to disconnect the currently connected one first. It's also important to have sent at least one invoice from your CashFlow-approved org before attempting to connect to accounting.

Integration Configuration

Once the connection is established, there are a few steps required to set it up:

1. Define a ledger account for Payments. OpenSolar will pull a list of your General Ledger accounts from your accounting system - select the ledger account to which all payment records for paid invoices will be assigned. 
2. Enter an accounting contact email address to receive important updates on the accounting integration
3. Select the appropriate ledger account(s) to associate with your OpenSolar products. 
   1. If you use QuickBooks, you only need to select the product ledger account, 
   2. Xero requires selecting both product and payment ledger accounts for each supported tax rate. 

You will not be able to send invoices to accounting until you choose your ledger account designations.

Using the Integration

Once the accounting integration is set up, it will primarily work automatically in the background when you send invoices through OpenSolar.

• When you send a new invoice in OpenSolar, the system will attempt to sync this invoice data with your connected accounting system.
• The Invoices page in the CashFlow tab will display a new row indicating the sync status of each invoice. This will allow you to see if an invoice has been successfully synced, if the sync failed, and the reason for failure. You will also have options to retry syncing a failed invoice and access debugging information.
• The system will attempt to match or create counterparts (customers) in your accounting tool based on the information in OpenSolar when an invoice is sent. If a counterpart doesn't exist in the accounting system, a new one will be created. Note this only occurs when it’s the first invoice sent to the customer from OpenSolar. 
• Corresponding invoice records will be generated in your accounting tool for every invoice sent from OpenSolar. This includes invoice details such as line items/products, taxes, and amounts.
• When an invoice is paid out, a corresponding payment record will be generated in the accounting tool.
• Credit notes generated when an invoice is cancelled in OpenSolar will also be pushed to the accounting system. However, these pushed credit notes may not be automatically associated with the corresponding invoices in the accounting system, and invoices in the accounting system will not be automatically cancelled when a credit note is pushed.

Data synchronization between the systems will also occur automatically every 24 hours after the initial connection. This includes pulling data like counterparts, products, and tax rates from the accounting software for matching purposes within OpenSolar. You also have an option for manual synchronization on demand on the Accounting page.

Important to know

While accounting integrations aim to streamline your workflow, it's important to be aware of the current limitations:

• Invoices with a "pending" sync status might take a few minutes to update (up to 5 minutes).
• Invoices sent before the accounting integration was connected will not sync.
• Invoices sent before you chose your ledger account designations will not sync.
• You cannot connect multiple OpenSolar organizations to the same accounting account.
• Cancelling or marking invoices as paid offline in your accounting system will not update the status of invoices that have already been synced from OpenSolar.
• Surcharges are not represented in accounting.
• When retrieving counterpart data, matching is done based on name, country, city, and address in that order. If no exact match is found, no new item is created in OpenSolar.
• Ledger accounts are not pushed into the accounting system.
• Credit notes are pushed without a document number, which might need to be backfilled manually in the accounting system. Also, pushed credit notes do not automatically associate with the original invoices in the accounting system.
• Products are pulled from the accounting system based on their names. If a product doesn't exist in OpenSolar, a new one will be created. 
• Changes made in either OpenSolar or the accounting software for customer data might break the sync for an individual invoice record until both systems match.