Accounting integrations: introduction and functional background
What does an accounting integration do?
i-Reserve can push invoices and customer data automatically to an external accounting system. Currently there are integrations with Exact Online, Moneybird and AFAS Profit. i-Reserve remains the place where the booking and the invoice originate; the accounting system receives the sales invoice and the matching relation/customer for the financial administration.
When does it synchronise?
Both integrations react at the same moments:
- Invoice finalised — as soon as an invoice becomes final in i-Reserve, it is sent to the bookkeeping.
- Sending the invoice — optionally, sending the invoice email can trigger the sync.
- Manual — from the customer and invoice screen a sync button can push the customer/invoice on demand.
The direction is basically one-way (i-Reserve → bookkeeping). Moneybird additionally has a sync-back: a changed contact in Moneybird can update the customer data in i-Reserve via a webhook.
What is pushed?
- Relation/customer — company name, address, email, phone, IBAN and contact person. In Exact Online this is an Account (and optionally a Contact); in Moneybird a Contact.
- Sales invoice — the invoice lines (description, quantity, price excl. VAT, VAT code) with invoice date and customer reference.
- VAT — the i-Reserve VAT rates are linked via mapping to the VAT codes/rates of the accounting system (required, otherwise the invoice fails).
Authentication (OAuth2)
Both systems use OAuth 2.0 (authorization code) with a two-step consent screen:
- Step 1 – consent: you are redirected to Exact Online / Moneybird to grant the integration permission.
- Step 2 – connect: i-Reserve exchanges the consent code for a token and fetches the administration (the division for Exact Online, the administration for Moneybird).
For this you register your own OAuth app in the accounting system’s developer portal (client id + client secret) and add the redirect URL shown by i-Reserve to the allowed list. The token is then refreshed automatically.
Exact Online vs. Moneybird
| Topic | Exact Online | Moneybird |
|---|---|---|
| Administration concept | Division (fetched automatically) | Administration (selected automatically) |
| Relation model | Account + (optional) Contact | Contact (all-in-one) |
| Invoice type | Sales invoice (full ledger posting) | Choice: regular or external sales invoice |
| Sync-back | No (outbound only) | Yes: contact change back via webhook |
| Mappings | VAT, article, payment condition | VAT |
| Finalise invoice | Optional (locks the invoice) | Optional (ignored for external invoice) |
The per-system setup is described in “Setting up Exact Online”, “Setting up Moneybird” and “Setting up AFAS Profit”.
What about AFAS Profit?
Besides Exact Online and Moneybird, there is an integration with AFAS Profit. It differs from the two OAuth2 integrations above on a few points:
- Authentication through an AFAS app connector with a token (no OAuth2 consent flow).
- Besides invoices, AFAS can also book payments (down-payments) as financial entries, with automatic matching against the open item.
- Optional inbound sync: changed debtors in AFAS are periodically pulled back into i-Reserve, with a configurable direction per field.
See Setting up AFAS Profit, AFAS invoicing and AFAS customer synchronisation.
