Syncing your bills
Overview
If you use NetSuite, Quickbooks Online, or Xero as your integrated ERP, you can set up your bill pay bills to sync to your accounting platform. Once the Brex transaction corresponding to the bill is synced over to your accounting platform, the transaction row will prompt you to confirm that the transaction should be assigned to a matched bill for reconciliation. Brex syncs the bill amount, due_date, accounting fields like erp_class_id, erp_department_id, vendor, attachment, line item information, and the bill invoice. You can click Confirm or click into the row for more details. Once confirmed, the bill will be marked as paid. If a bill is in the payment processed state, then we’ll also create an associated Vendor Payment for that bill. We do not retroactively sync past bills – any bills that were submitted for payment prior to the integration being enabled or fully set up will not be synced. If a bill is canceled and sent back to draft state, any changes to the bill will not be synced until the bill is resubmitted.
Setup instructions
NetSuite
Step 1: In your dashboard, click your name in the top right and go to Integrations. Step 2: If you haven’t set up NetSuite yet, click Connect on the NetSuite card and follow the prompts. If you see Manage instead of Connect, you can skip to Step 4. Step 3: In the Settings page, you’ll need to enable Bills data. Step 4: If you’ve already connected to NetSuite, navigate to your integration in the dashboard and click Accounting, then Manage NetSuite. Here, you’ll need to enable Bills data. Afterward, click Refresh integration so that you can sync your latest account categories.
QuickBooks Online
Note: Only users of QuickBooks Online Essentials plan or higher (Plus/Advanced) can use bills sync. Step 1: Click your name in the top right corner of the dashboard and go to Integrations. Step 2: If you haven’t set up QuickBooks yet, click Connect on the QuickBooks card and follow the prompts. If you see Manage instead of Connect, you can skip to Step 4. Step 3: While you’re setting up QuickBooks, you’ll have the option to enable bill and expense data syncing. Make sure the Bills box is checked, then click Sync data. Step 4: If you’ve already connected QuickBooks, navigate to your QuickBooks integration in the dashboard and click Manage, then Settings. Here, you’ll need to enable both Bills data and Expenses data. Note: Bills sync is only available for QuickBooks Online Plus and QuickBooks Online Essentials.
Xero
Step 1: Click your name in the top right corner of the dashboard and go to Integrations. Step 2: If you haven’t set up Xero yet, click Connect on the Xero card and follow the prompts. If you see Manage instead of Connect, you can skip to Step 4. Step 3: Bill sync will be enabled automatically after connecting Xero. You can switch this off later on the Xero settings page. Step 4: If you’ve already connected Xero, navigate to your integration in the dashboard and click Manage, then Settings. Here, you’ll need to enable Bills data. Note: Bills sync is only available for five bills per month with the Xero Starter Plan.
Import purchase orders
When you make a purchase, some vendors might issue you a purchase order, which is a legal document that outlines the purchase’s details. It’s normally issued upon purchase initiation but can be used to trace the entire lifecycle of the purchase, all the way up to payment and delivery. If you use NetSuite or QuickBooks Online, you can import approved purchase orders from your ERP into your Brex account. Upon import, these purchase orders will be matched to incoming bills If there are any billing discrepancies, we’ll automatically inform the user that made the purchase. Should that user or an admin make any changes to the purchase order’s information, these changes will reflect in your ERP. To enable this feature, follow the steps below. Step 1: Go to Accounting > ERP Settings > Bill pay configuration. Step 2: Next to Import purchase orders, click Enable.
Purchase orders can now be matched to new bills.
Canceled bills
When you cancel a bill on Brex, it reverts to the draft state. From this point, a few things can happen:
- If the draft gets deleted, the corresponding bill in your ERP will be deleted.
- If the draft gets resubmitted for payment, any changes to the bill while in draft state will be synced with the corresponding bill.
- Modifications to the bill while it's in draft state will not be synced.
Troubleshooting
This guide covers errors you may experience when using Brex bill pay. If you don’t see your error listed here, please reach out to Brex Support for more information.
Syncing issues
If you’re having trouble syncing a bill payment, please note the following:
- We sync bills only when the bill is submitted for payment.
- We do not retroactively sync bills created before the integration is set up.
- This is a one-way sync, meaning we only sync data from Brex into your external accounting platform.
If a bill sync outright fails, you’ll see a banner at the top of the Bills page with some information as to why it failed, and often a suggestion for how to fix the issue. You will also see a resync button once the issue blocking the sync has been fixed.
NetSuite issues
You can find error messages in Bills > Sync errors. Follow the provided steps to resolve the issue and resync the bill. Currently NetSuite integration is a one-directional sync from Brex to NetSuite. This means that bills created in Brex, will be synced over to NetSuite. However, edits to bills made in NetSuite will not get synced back to Brex. When bills get edited in Brex and synced over to NetSuite, it will overwrite the corresponding bill data in NetSuite. Please make sure you set the standard bill form in NetSuite as preferred.
QuickBooks issues
You can find error messages in Bills > Sync errors. Follow the provided steps to resolve the issue and resync the bill. Another common bill pay error is due to stale data. When data is modified on QuickBooks, syncing will halt for that bill. To continue syncing the bill changes to QuickBooks, you’ll have to overwrite the data for that bill, which you can do by navigating to the specific bill, and clicking Resync this bill.
Xero issues
Currently Xero integration is a one-directional sync from Brex to Xero. This means that bills created in Brex will be synced over to Xero. However, edits to bills made in Xero will not get synced back to Brex. When bills get edited in Brex and synced over to Xero, it will overwrite the corresponding bill data in Xero.