Connect QuickBooks Online or Xero from the Apps page (in the Connectors section) and Orbinly records your invoices in your books for you: the customer, the invoice, later edits, the payment when it's paid, and a void if you void it. It's available on the Professional plan and above and can be set up by owners and admins.

Setting it up

1. 01

   Connect

   Open Apps, choose QuickBooks Online or Xero under Connectors and press Connect. Sign in to Intuit or Xero and pick the company (with Xero, approve one organisation). You'll be sent back to that provider's page in Orbinly.

2. 02

   Choose where things go

   On the Settings tab, pick the income account invoices are recorded in. Choose the account payments are deposited to (Xero needs one before it can record a payment; QuickBooks uses its own default if you skip it), and the tax codes to use for invoices with and without tax. Save, and syncing starts.

3. 03

   Send an invoice as usual

   Nothing else changes. Each invoice you send appears in your books within a few moments.

What is sent, and when

Customers

• Each client is a customer (a contact in Xero), named after their company (or name). If one with that name and email is already there, Orbinly uses it instead of adding another.
• In QuickBooks, clients you invoice in a different currency get their own customer, named like Acme (EUR), because QuickBooks fixes a customer's currency.
• Later changes to a client's details in Orbinly aren't sent; update the customer in your books if you need to.

Tax, discounts and currencies

• The tax is sent exactly as Orbinly calculated it, using the tax code you chose. If QuickBooks calculates a different total (companies using QuickBooks' automated US sales tax do), the entry in the list shows a warning so you can check it.
• An invoice discount is sent as a discount line. QuickBooks needs Discount switched on in its sales settings to accept it.
• In QuickBooks, invoices in other currencies are sent when multi-currency is on. Without it they're skipped and listed, so nothing goes in wrongly. Invoices in other currencies aren't sent to Xero yet: they're skipped and listed too.

Invoices from before you connected

Only invoices you send after connecting go to your books by default, because older ones are usually entered already. If they aren't, open Earlier invoices on the Settings tab, choose a date, check how many would be sent and send them. Choose carefully: an invoice you already entered by hand would be added a second time.

When something doesn't go through

• Every invoice has an entry in the list on the Activity tab: Sent, Needs attention or Skipped, with the reason in plain words and a Retry button (or Retry all).
• Orbinly also tries again once a day on its own, a few times, for anything that failed, and sends anything that was missed.
• If your accounting software says the connection has expired, you'll see a Needs reconnecting notice. Reconnect and the waiting invoices are retried. Orbinly refreshes the connection about once a month even when you send nothing, so a quiet period doesn't cut it off (Xero ends a connection that goes unused for 60 days).
• If your QuickBooks Online subscription or trial ends or is paused, QuickBooks refuses new entries. Orbinly then shows a Subscription issue notice on the QuickBooks page and in Apps, explains it in plain words, and emails your workspace's owners and admins once (not once per invoice). Renew it in QuickBooks, then press Retry all on the Activity tab; Orbinly emails you again when it works.
• An invoice or payment that was deleted in your books is listed as skipped: Orbinly won't recreate something you removed on purpose.
• An invoice you already marked paid in Xero by hand can't be edited from Orbinly: the entry says so and nothing is changed.

What isn't sent

• Refunds and Stripe's processing fees. Orbinly records the full payment; your accountant records fees and refunds from your Stripe reports.
• Changes made in your books. Orbinly doesn't read them back.
• Anything while HIPAA safeguards mode is on: accounting sync is switched off then, because client names and invoice details would go to a third party.

Disconnecting

Choose Disconnect on the Overview tab. Orbinly revokes its access at Intuit or Xero and deletes its saved sign-in. What is already in your books stays there.