Accountancy

Supported accountancy platforms

This is the complete list of accountancy platforms Breww integrates with. You can set up any of them from Integrations → Accountancy, where each one appears under the name shown below.

Automated integrations

These connect directly to your accountancy software and sync in the background. The rest of this guide covers them, and applies to them all unless otherwise stated.

• Xero
• QuickBooks Online
• Sage Accounting (sometimes known as Sage One or Sage Business Cloud)
• Sage 200 (UK & IE)
• Sage 200 (Spain) - early access, shown in Breww with a Closed beta test badge. Contact the Breww support team if you'd like to use it, and see the Sage 200 (Spain) accountancy integration guide
• Fortnox
• Visma eAccounting (see the Visma eAccounting accountancy integration guide)
• Exact Online (Netherlands and Belgium versions)
• Twinfield
• Clear Books
• KashFlow

Manual integration

Rather than syncing automatically, Breww generates a file for you to import into your accountancy software yourself. See Manual accountancy integrations.

• Sage 50 (UK & IE)

Custom API accountancy sync

If your accountancy software isn't listed above (for example, QuickBooks Desktop), Breww doesn't have a built-in integration for it. If you're comfortable building against a REST API, you can use Breww's Custom API accountancy integration to build your own sync to any platform.

Initial integration set up

Connecting Breww to your provider

The first step is to grant Breww access to your account with your provider. When this is first done, nothing will sync initially and you'll get a chance to configure how you'd like the integration to work before enabling syncing. To connect, navigate to our Integrations -> Accountancy page and then click the Set up [software] integration button.

Next, you'll be able to configure a few basic settings, such as which types of data should be synced, optional prefixes for invoice and credit note numbers, etc.

The next steps vary slightly between the platforms (typically, we redirect you to your provider for you to authorise our access), but please just follow the steps shown on screen. This should guide you through the applicable authorisation process, and you'll be back in Breww in just a moment.

Mapping & downloading customers & suppliers

When you raise an invoice in Breww, we will push this to your accountancy provider. At this point, Breww will create a customer in your accountancy provider to attach the invoice to. When this customer has subsequent invoices, Breww will add these to the same accountancy provider customer that it created the first time. This is all well and good if this is a brand-new customer that doesn't already exist in your accounting software, prior to you joining Breww, however, if any of your customers already exist in your accountancy software and Breww, you'll want to "map" them together so that Breww knows this customer already exists in your accountancy provider and puts the orders against the right customer in your accountancy provider.

If you have any customers in your accountancy provider already that are the same as existing customers in Breww (or you'd like them in Breww, and they're only in your provider), head to Integrations → Accountancy and next to your accountancy provider select Actions → Configuration. From the Data import & mapping section, click the Map and download customers button. You'll be presented with a list of your customers in the accountancy software on the left, and on the right, you can choose the corresponding customer in Breww. You can also click Import from [software] to Breww, which will download the customer from the accountancy provider to Breww and map it (see Importing customers and suppliers from your accountancy software below). There may be several pages of customers to review, so make sure you check them all.

Breww suggests a matching Breww customer for each of your unmapped customers, based on the customer's name. The Accept all suggestions button at the top of the page accepts every suggestion, across all pages, where Breww has found just one match. To bring every customer that has no suggested match into Breww, use Import all unmapped.

Mapping suppliers is almost an identical process, except you will use the Map and download suppliers button instead.

Importing customers and suppliers from your accountancy software

If your customers are already in your accountancy software, you can import them straight into Breww instead of re-entering them or preparing a spreadsheet. This works with all of the automated integrations listed above. Each customer imported this way is automatically mapped to its record in your accountancy software, so Breww won't create a duplicate there when it uploads their invoices. You don't need to enable syncing before importing.

1. Go to Integrations → Accountancy and, next to your accountancy provider, select Actions → Configuration.
2. On the Dashboard tab, in the Data import & mapping section, click Map and download customers.
3. Import your customers:
   • To import all of them in one go, click Import all unmapped at the top of the page. This runs in the background, shows its progress, and then tells you how many customers were imported.
   • To import one customer, click Import from [software] to Breww on that customer's row.

Avoiding duplicates

• Import all unmapped skips any customer that Breww thinks may already exist in Breww (shown with a Suggestion on its row). Review these and either map them to the suggested Breww customer (Map, or Accept all suggestions to accept every single-match suggestion at once), or, if they're genuinely new, import them individually. Breww asks you to confirm before importing a customer that has a suggestion.
• Customers that are already mapped to a Breww customer can't be imported again.
• Suggestions are based on the customer's name, narrowed down using their country and postcode where available.

What is imported

For each customer, Breww brings across whatever your accountancy software holds of the following:

• Name and account reference
• Billing and delivery addresses
• Email addresses and phone numbers (customers with an email address are given the Receives invoice emails tag)
• Active contact people
• Payment terms
• VAT/tax number and company registration number
• Website and notes
• Their current balance, as a starting balance, if you've set Breww to sync customer balances from your accountancy software

Each imported customer is given the customer type that most of your existing customers use. Details that your accountancy software doesn't hold, such as price books, aren't set, so review your imported customers afterwards and use Bulk updating data to fill these in.

Keeping the list up to date

Breww fetches the list of customers from your accountancy software and keeps it for up to 2 hours. If you've just added or changed customers there, click Refresh data at the top of the page to see the changes.

Importing only ever creates new customers in Breww. To fill in details that are missing on customers you've already mapped, use Populate missing customer data from [software] in the same Data import & mapping section. This only fills in fields that are empty in Breww and never overwrites your existing Breww data.

Importing suppliers

Suppliers are imported in the same way, using the Map and download suppliers button. This button is shown when your accountancy platform supports supplier invoices.

Chart of accounts (nominal codes)

You will be able to choose the accounts you would like to use by selecting the Accounts & tracking categories button (shown as Accounts if your platform doesn't have tracking categories) in the Data import & mapping section. You will then be able to select the Actions button, followed by Import accounts. From here, you can choose the accounts that you'd like Breww to be able to use. Once the accounts have been downloaded, you can map your default sales and default bank accounts. If you wish for payments of different methods to go into different accounts in your accountancy provider, you can set these in the settings here too. If you don't, just leave them blank.

For even more fine-grain control, you can also set an account on any customers, customer type, and parent companies in Breww for their sales to go into (rather than the default). Likewise, you can do the same for any product within Breww if you prefer to split sales in this way. Finally, there is a config option to configure which account should take precedence in a conflict (this is discussed further here: Chart of accounts). If you're not sure what this all means, don't worry about these options.

Sync settings

Sync setting are found in the Settings tab of your integration configuration found by heading to Integrations → Accountancy and next to your accountant provider select Actions → Configuration. You can configure options surrounding your sync from here, including which types of data should be synced (customers, invoices & payments). Where customer/contact email addresses are synced, the email selection process is outlined here.
On Xero and QuickBooks Online, you can also choose to send the files attached to a supplier invoice over to the matching bill - see Sending attached files to your accountancy software.
We will never download an invoice from your accountancy provider, we'll only ever upload invoices from Breww to the accountancy provider. For any of "our" invoices, we will sync payments relating to them both ways - so if you add a payment in Breww, we'll upload it for you and if you add a payment in your accountancy provider we'll download this back to Breww.

Enable syncing

Syncing is disabled when you first connect, so you have a chance to map your customers, set up your chart of accounts and configure the service to work how you'd like. When you're ready, go to the Dashboard tab of your integration configuration and, in the Data syncing section, click Enable next to Transaction data. Once enabled, data will be synced to your accountancy provider in the background. We don't upload orders to your accountancy provider until they have been invoiced in Breww.

What data flows between Breww and my accountancy software?

Although we aim to ensure that all accountancy integrations work in the same way, some differences in what is supported by the other platform determine what Breww can and cannot sync.

Xero

QuickBooks Online

Sage Accounting

Exact Online

KashFlow

Sage 50 (UK & IE)

Clear Books

Visma eAccounting

Invoices and credit notes can be uploaded to Visma eAccounting either as journal vouchers (the default) or as sales invoices, which Visma's own e-invoicing can send. Please see the dedicated Visma eAccounting accountancy integration guide for how each mode works.

Twinfield

Sage 200 (UK & IE)

Sage 200 (Spain)

This integration is in early access and works a little differently to the other platforms - invoices are uploaded as pending delivery notes (albaranes), which you then invoice within Sage 200 (Spain), and your Sage products are used as your accounts in Breww. Please see the dedicated Sage 200 (Spain) accountancy integration guide for the platform-specific workflow.

Fortnox

Custom API accountancy sync

The Custom API accountancy integration lets you build your own sync against any accountancy platform using Breww's REST API. What gets uploaded is entirely up to the code you write: Breww exposes the data, your code pushes it to your chosen platform, then reports the platform's IDs and upload statuses back to Breww. "Downloaded" means your code records the change in Breww through Breww's standard API.

The accountancy sync endpoints only list finalised documents, so they don't report voided orders or credit notes. Your code can find these through Breww's standard orders and credit notes endpoints. See the Custom API accountancy integration guide for details.

How does data flow between Breww and my accountancy software

Order flow

Bill (purchase) flow

Sync messages

If Breww is unable to upload something (e.g. an invoice, credit note, payment, etc) to your accounting platform, it will raise a "Sync message" for you and show you a warning number in the "Integrations" main menu. These messages should explain why the item couldn't be uploaded, so that you can resolve the issue.

For more information on resolving sync messages, please see Upload issues.

Once an issue has been resolved, you can either manually force the item to re-try uploading (from the All upload statuses tab) or wait for Breww to try it again automatically. Breww will try all stuck items again every 8-10 hours.

Common questions

For answers to common questions, such as how often data syncs, how to disconnect Breww from your accountancy provider, and whether Breww downloads invoices created in your accountancy software, see FAQs - Accounting integrations.