Initial integration set up
Breww is integrated with a number of accountancy platforms. This guide covers Breww’s automated accountancy integrations, which all work in roughly the same way, and the information on this page applies to them all unless otherwise stated.
- Xero
- QuickBooks Online
- Sage Accounting (sometimes known as Sage One or Sage Business Cloud)
- Clear Books
- KashFlow
- Visma eAccounting
- Exact Online
- Twinfield
- Sage 200
If you are using one of Breww’s manual accountancy integrations, please see Manual accountancy integrations.
- Sage 50
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 just in 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 accountant provider select Actions → Configuration, click on the Tools tab, and lastly the Map and download customers button. You’ll be presented with a list of your customers in the accountancy software on the left, and from the right, you can choose the corresponding customer in Breww. You can also choose “Create as new customer in Breww” which will cause the customer to be downloaded from the accountancy provider to Breww and mapped. Make sure you click the Sync customers button after each page of changes and before navigating to a different page, or the customers on the previous page will not be saved.
There is also a helpful Auto allocation button to get Breww to automatically attempt to map your Breww customers to those in your accountancy provider. We do this with an exact match on the name of the customer.
Mapping suppliers is almost an identical process, except you will use the Map and download suppliers button instead.
Chart of accounts (nominal codes)
From the Accounts (nominal codes) tab, use the Download accounts button and 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 (in the Settings tab). 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 customer type in Breww (from the customer type list screen) 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. 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). 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
This is the main toggle to set if you’d like Breww to sync with your accountancy provider. This will be disabled by default so you have a chance to map your customers, chart of accounts and configure the service to how you’d like it to work. When you’re ready, simply enable the sync. 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.
How does data flow between Breww and my accountancy software?
| Breww | Accountancy software | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Invoiced orders | Invoices | Orders invoiced in Breww are uploaded. If they are then voided in Breww, they are voided with your provider as well. |
| Credit notes | Credit notes | Credit notes are uploaded. |
| Payments | Payments | Payments are uploaded and are also downloaded from your provider when an uploaded invoice is paid. |
| Credit note allocations | Credit note allocations | Credit note allocations are uploaded. |
| Customers | Customers/Contacts | Customers/contacts can be downloaded, and Breww will update them with your provider when updated in Breww. |
| Inventory receipts | Bills/Purchases | When an Inventory Receipt in Breww has been marked as “Invoiced by Supplier”, this will be uploaded to your accountancy provider as a bill. |
Order flow
graph TD
A[Draft order] --> B[Confirmed order]
B --> C[Invoiced order]
C --> U(Uploaded to accountancy software)
C --> P[Payments & refunds]
P --> U
U --> P
P --> C
style U fill:#15c377,color:#fff
Bill (purchase) flow
graph TD
A["Purchase order (optional)"] --> B[Inventory receipt 'Draft']
B --> C[Inventory receipt 'Added to Stock']
C --> D[Inventory receipt 'Invoiced by Supplier']
D --> U(Uploaded to accountancy software)
style U fill:#15c377,color:#fff
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 Why haven't some of my invoices/other documents/payments appeared in my accounting software?.
Once an issue has been resolved, you can either manually force the item to re-try uploading (from the “All sync statuses” tab) or wait for Breww to try it again automatically. Breww will try all stuck items again every 8-10 hours.
FAQ
How often does data sync?
Data should sync initially within 15 minutes of triggering an update on either platform. If the data cannot sync, this should raise a sync message. Once a sync message has been resolved, Breww will re-try the upload again automatically within 8-10 hours.
How do I disconnect my Breww account from my accountancy provider?
To disconnect, simply go to your accountancy settings page and click the Disconnect tab, then click the Disconnect button. This should only be used if you want to permanently disconnect Breww from your account platform (for example, if you’re migrating to a different accounting platform).
If you just want to temporarily prevent syncing, you should disable syncing instead by using the button in the Settings tab.
An order I’ve invoiced hasn’t appeared in my accountancy provider, what do I do?
We have a full guide on this topic available at:
Why has Breww created a customer in my accountancy software with a number after their name?
Will Breww download/import invoices and credit notes that I create directly in my accounting software?
No, never. Invoices and credit notes are a one-way sync from Breww to your accounting platform. Breww only ever pushes invoices and credit notes to your accountancy platform and will never pull invoices into Breww that were created in your accounting software.
We recommend not creating invoices or credit notes manually in your accounting software ever (even if they’re for a non-beer product or something else not currently tracked in Breww). These should be created in Breww, just like any other invoice or credit note. This greatly simplifies a number of processes behind the scenes and reduces the chances of these causing problems (such as conflicting invoice numbers, duplicate customers, customer balance differences, etc).
For invoices that Breww uploaded to your accounting platform initially, the payments are a two-way sync. As a general rule we suggest, where possible, managing payments directly in Breww and letting Breww inform your accounting software, however, if you do add payments to an invoice in your accounting software, Breww will download this information into Breww for you. This is helpful if you create payments from a bank feed/reconciliation process.
If a credit note has been created directly in your accountancy software, we highly recommend cancelling this and raising it in Breww. Breww will not download a credit note that it did not create, and the customer balance will, therefore, be out of sync between Breww and your accountancy software.
Credit notes created in Breww and uploaded to your accountancy software should also be allocated against invoices in Breww and not directly in your accountancy software, as Breww will upload credit note allocations but will never download them, which may lead to errors where a credit note can be allocated twice.
What does this sync message mean?
For help with understanding the sync messages, please see Why haven't some of my invoices/other documents/payments appeared in my accounting software?.
Platform-specific quirks and notes
Xero
I’ve created a contact in Xero, but I cannot map them as a customer in Breww
When you create a contact in Xero, this can be a customer, supplier, or both. However, initially, it will be neither. In order to map them to their Breww counterpart, you’ll need Xero to know it’s a customer/supplier.
- To make the contact a customer, you can create an invoice in Xero, then delete it.
- To make the contact a supplier, you can create a bill in Xero, then delete it.
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). We have several other Companies setup in the same Sage instance, accessed via the same login. When we enable the integration from Breww, we’re transferred to Sage and are presented with a message prompting allow integration with all of them (which we can’t do).