An Exact Online integration can move sales data, customer information or bank transactions into your accounts. Start with an existing app if it supports your process. Custom work becomes relevant for unusual posting rules, several administrations or missing functions. Check available API operations, required traffic and responsibility for failures first. A working connection doesn’t by itself produce correct accounts.
Our guide to connecting software explains the general approach. If you still need to choose a process, use the process automation checklist.
What should an Exact Online integration transfer?
Describe the action precisely. Sending an order to Exact might mean creating a sales order, an invoice or just a customer record. Those are different requirements. Identify which system creates the document and the status that permits processing to begin.
Consider a hypothetical webshop that issues its own invoices, which an employee then re-enters in Exact. The required integration transfers existing invoices. A connector that generates and sends new invoices instead delivers a different process. Seeing the webshop’s logo in an app catalogue doesn’t resolve that distinction.
Which route can you choose?
The Exact Online App Store lists applications for different business processes. Read the specific app description and request a demonstration with your own input. A catalogue listing doesn’t establish support for every field, exception and administration.
| Route | When should you investigate it? | What must the supplier demonstrate? |
|---|---|---|
| Existing app | Your process resembles its standard workflow | Handling your documents and exceptions |
| Workflow platform | Available actions can form the required process | Access, error handling and actual usage |
| Custom integration | Required logic is missing or needs different management | Feasibility through available API operations |
A workflow platform isn’t automatically unsuitable for important data. Equally, custom code doesn’t make an integration reliable by default. Assess how each route handles failures, changes and missing information. Our Zapier, Make and n8n comparison helps with platform selection.
Ask where the integration runs too. An external service can introduce another supplier and subscription. Hosting, monitoring and maintenance also need an owner when you commission custom software.
What should you know about the Exact Online API?
Exact’s developer resources link to API documentation and describe REST and XML integration options. Ask the developer to identify the required read and write operations for your Exact Online edition. An API doesn’t necessarily reproduce every application screen.
Access and capacity are separate questions. Establish who registers the application, who grants permission and which administrations it may reach. Test revoked access as well. The integration should report it clearly, so an employee understands why new data has stopped arriving.
Exact publishes capacity limits by edition, including minute and daily limits per app and administration. Additional capacity through Volume Packs is associated with Premium. Have expected traffic checked against your contract instead of copying a general allowance from an old blog. Documentation checked on 2026-09-24.
How do you prevent duplicate invoices and incorrect entries?
Require a relationship between the source identifier and the resulting record. If the same order arrives again, the integration needs to establish whether it has already been processed. Knowing that a request was sent isn’t enough: its response and the created entry must be traceable.
Test interrupted processing. Suppose Exact receives an invoice but the integration loses the response. Creating it again without checking can produce a duplicate. Ask how that uncertain outcome is investigated before another write takes place.
Have your bookkeeper review field mappings too: posting date, currency, VAT code, ledger account and discounts. An integration can produce a technically valid message that doesn’t fit your accounts. Keep an approved example of the intended result alongside the technical test.
How should you plan an initial import?
Separate historical records from new transactions. Agree when the new route takes responsibility and which older documents still need transferring. Otherwise, an import file and the live integration could process the same period twice.
Make the import resumable. An interruption shouldn’t leave someone guessing which records were completed. Request a list of processed, rejected and unresolved documents. Stable source identifiers let the later reconciliation point to the same records.
Compare counts and amounts with the source afterwards. A total alone isn’t enough: a missing invoice and a duplicate can cancel each other out in the sum. Review individual exceptions too, and require an explanation for differences before retiring the old process.
How do bank connections and accountant access differ?
A bank connection needs a different setup from a webshop connector. Exact’s banking and payment overview distinguishes PSD2 connections from commercial bank connections. Features and possible bank charges differ. Check the route for your account rather than assuming every bank connects in the same way.
Set the first date of automatic processing during the transition. If you import older statements as well, check that the periods meet correctly. A received bank transaction also isn’t the same as a correctly matched invoice payment.
Discuss accountant access separately. An accountant working in the administration needs a user role; an integration needs application access. Don’t share a personal account to solve both problems. Have the administrator establish suitable permissions in your environment.
What does an Exact Online integration cost?
There is no useful fixed price without a scope. For an existing app, ask about the subscription, configuration, included administrations and support. For custom work, separate investigation, development, testing and maintenance. Any extra Exact capacity belongs in the comparison too.
Exceptions often drive the difference. Transferring new invoices is a different requirement from writing corrections back, supporting several administrations and repairing historical data. Ask suppliers to quote against the same sample files and acceptance criteria.
Our software cost guide helps separate initial and recurring costs. Measure remaining manual work during a trial as well. Count savings only once you know which checks disappear and which remain necessary.
Who maintains the integration after delivery?
Assign someone to review alerts and coordinate with the supplier. Agree what an error report contains, who may start a retry and when a bookkeeper must investigate. Keep complete customer files and access credentials out of general log messages.
Ask how changes are tested and how another supplier could take over. At TopDevs, the code for your custom integration remains yours; Exact and other products retain their own terms. Our explanation of code ownership makes that distinction practical.
How do you actually get started?
Choose one data flow and collect a normal transaction, a correction and a failure case. Agree the desired result with your bookkeeper. Then assess an existing app and, if needed, custom work against the same examples, including access, capacity and recovery.
For system integration development, book a call with your current process and the parts that still require manual work.
