Accounting API

The Unified Accounting API enables developers and product managers to access financial data from multiple accounting platforms through a single, standardized interface. Retrieve invoices, bills, transactions, contacts, and financial reports from QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, and other major accounting platforms - all with one API.

What is the Unified Accounting API?

Accounting platforms like QuickBooks, Xero, and FreshBooks each have unique APIs with different authentication methods, data models, and endpoints. The Unified Accounting API normalizes these differences, allowing you to build once and support all major accounting platforms without maintaining separate integrations for each provider.

Key Benefits for Developers

Single Integration: Write code once to support QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, and more - no need to learn multiple accounting APIs
Normalized Data Models: Work with consistent invoice, bill, transaction, and financial report structures across all platforms
Real-Time Data Access: Every request hits the source API live with no caching, ensuring you always have up-to-date financial data
Zero Maintenance: No need to track API version changes or deprecations across multiple accounting platforms
Faster Development: Ship accounting features in days instead of months of integration work

Benefits for Product Managers

Multi-Platform Support: Offer customers the ability to connect their preferred accounting platform without custom development
Competitive Advantage: Launch with support for all major accounting platforms while competitors build integrations one at a time
Customer Flexibility: Allow customers to access their financial data from QuickBooks, Xero, or any supported platform through your product
Reduced Time-to-Market: Get accounting integration features to market quickly without waiting for engineering to build multiple integrations
Scalable Product Strategy: Easily add new accounting platforms as they emerge without significant engineering resources

Accounting Data Objects

The Accounting API provides access to the following standardized objects:

Accounts: Chart of accounts, account types, and account balances
Balance Sheet: Assets, liabilities, and equity reporting
Bills: Vendor bills and payables
Cash Flow: Cash flow statements and reports
Categories: Expense and income categories
Contacts: Customers, vendors, and other business contacts
Credit Memos: Credit notes and customer credits
Expenses: Business expenses and spending records
Invoices: Customer invoices and receivables
Journals: Journal entries and general ledger data
Orders: Purchase and sales orders
Organizations: Company information and settings
Profit & Loss: Income statements and P&L reports
Purchase Orders: Vendor purchase orders
Reports: Various financial reports and analytics
Sales Orders: Customer sales orders
Tax Rates: Tax codes and rates
Transactions: Financial transactions and entries
Trial Balance: Trial balance reports

Common Use Cases

Financial Dashboards & Reporting

Build unified dashboards that display financial data from multiple accounting platforms. Enable finance teams to view invoices, bills, expenses, and financial reports from QuickBooks, Xero, or any supported platform from a single interface.

Expense Management Applications

Create expense tracking and management tools that sync with customers' accounting systems. Pull expense data, categorize transactions, and push expense reports back to their accounting platform.

Billing & Invoice Automation

Automate billing workflows by accessing invoice data from accounting platforms. Create tools that monitor invoice status, track payments, and generate reports on accounts receivable.

Financial Analytics & BI

Pull financial data from accounting platforms into your data warehouse or business intelligence tools. Combine accounting data with other business metrics for comprehensive financial analytics and forecasting.

Multi-Entity Consolidation

Aggregate financial data from multiple accounting systems for businesses operating across different entities, subsidiaries, or regions. Create consolidated financial reports from multiple QuickBooks or Xero instances.

Bookkeeping & Accounting Automation

Build AI-powered tools that categorize transactions, reconcile accounts, and generate financial reports by accessing live data from accounting platforms.

Supported Accounting Platforms

The Unified Accounting API supports integration with major accounting platforms including QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, Wave, Zoho Books, and many others. Each integration provides access to the standardized data objects listed above.

Why Use a Unified Accounting API?

Traditional Approach:

Build separate integrations for QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, etc.
Learn 5+ different authentication systems and API specifications
Maintain code for 5+ different API endpoints, data formats, and error handling patterns
Monitor and update integrations when any platform deprecates or changes their API
Handle platform-specific quirks, rate limits, and pagination implementations

With Unified Accounting API:

Integrate once with a single API that works across all accounting platforms
Use one authentication flow for all platforms
Work with normalized financial data objects
Automatic handling of API changes, rate limits, and platform-specific differences
Built-in support for webhooks and real-time data synchronization

Integration Scenarios

For Financial Software

Add "Connect Your Accounting Software" features that work with any major accounting platform. Build expense management, budgeting, or financial planning tools without building separate integrations.

For AI & Automation Tools

Create AI-powered financial assistants that can read transaction data, analyze spending patterns, generate insights, and provide financial recommendations across multiple platforms using a single API.

For Analytics & BI Platforms

Pull accounting data from all major platforms into your data warehouse or analytics tool. Create unified financial reports, dashboards, and forecasting models without building multiple data pipelines.

For Banking & Fintech

Connect banking products with customers' accounting systems. Enable automatic transaction categorization, reconciliation, and financial reporting by accessing their accounting platform data.

For E-commerce Platforms

Sync e-commerce sales data with customers' accounting systems. Automatically create invoices, track inventory, and update financial records in their QuickBooks or Xero account.

Platform-Specific Notes

QuickBooks

QuickBooks overwrites taxrate_id for some US-based accounts. You will need to enable Hybrid sales Tax or Automated sales tax within QuickBooks to specify taxrate_id for individual invoices. Learn more

GoCardless

Creating a contact requires GoCardless Advanced or GoCardless Pro with approved payment pages. Learn more

Real-Time, Live Data

Unlike other integration platforms that cache data or run periodic sync jobs, the Unified Accounting API provides real-time access to financial data. Every API request hits the source platform directly, ensuring you always have the most current financial information.

This real-time architecture is ideal for:

Financial dashboards displaying live invoice and expense data
Real-time expense tracking and approval workflows
Up-to-the-minute financial reporting and analytics
Automated reconciliation and bookkeeping workflows