Project Finance Connected via Zapier to Xero and Other Accounting Systems
Are you interested in how to connect Easy Project with XERO and other accounting systems? Simply thanks to Zapier platform, which gives you integration allow you almost real-time finance controlling of your project budgets.
Easy Project budget
Planning your budgets and comparing them to the real revenues and expenses using Easy Project Budgets is the best way to control your project finances. With this module, you are able to monitor revenues, costs, payroll costs and the final profit of each project.
It also allows you to monitor real money entries in context with the defined plan and provides profit/loss statement of the projects, cash flow prediction, and cash flow history.
Project budget overview
Data for Easy Project budget
There are many ways how to get financial data to the budget of your projects you want to monitor project finances on. Especially expenses from received bills and incomes from issued invoices managed in a separate accounting system must be transferred and distributed correctly in each project budget.
You can insert it manually after a bill or an invoice is paid in your accounting system, but it is highly inefficient and there is a high risk of human error. Another way is to export and import data in batches after the end of a day or a week, but there is also the problem with not up to date data in your project budgets.
Real expenses overview
Integration solution
The best solution is an integration with the accounting system, which allows automated transfer of data and separating financial data for each project budget. The data prepared in the accounting system must be transferred as quickly as possible to assure up to date state of your project budget.
All you need to know is what data must be transferred and what projects you want to monitor the finances on. Of course, you have to analyze data workflow and choose technology for the integration.
Zapier technology
Great technology solution is Zapier. The integration platform connects the API of more than 1000 systems and allows transfer of new data from one system to another. You can easily set up automated workflow called ZAP, which is the connection between two systems made of a trigger and an action.
When ZAP is running and the trigger event happens in the accounting system (bill or invoice is paid), Zapier automatically makes the action event in Easy Project (create expense or income entry in project budget).
ZAP workflow examples
Benefits of Zapier integration
If your accounting system is ready to use on Zapier platform, you easily integrate this system with Easy Project without further development for a particular integration of each system, everything is connected and handled by Zapier.
The most benefits are no manual export/import, but regular data transfers every 5 minutes ensuring actual financial data in the project budget and automated distribution of data for each project.
This integration allows you almost real-time finance controlling of your project budgets. Of course, automation of boring and manual workflows helps your team to save time and make their work more effective as well.
Case study of integrated accounting system XERO
The real presentable case study of integration is with XERO accounting system, which is ready to use on Zapier platform https://zapier.com/apps/xero/integrations. All you need to specify is:
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Data workflow analysis for integration
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Appropriate triggers and actions
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Zapier account with an appropriate plan
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XERO account to allow Zapier’s connection to API
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Easy Project account to allow Zapier’s connection to API
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Rules for distribution data to the right project budget
Data workflow analysis for integration
The first step is to define what workflows we want to integrate via Zapier platform, and then what triggered data from XERO must be assigned to required fields for action event in Easy Project to create expense or income entry in the project budget. For our case study we defined this data workflow: Create Easy Project real expenses from new XERO paid bills
It means that every new bill with a status changed to paid creates a trigger, and through Zapier real expense entry in the project budget is created. Required Easy Project data are:
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Project ID for distribution of financial data to the right project budget
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Name of the expense entry, for our case study it consists of bill number and bill issuer
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A total amount of a paid bill
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Currency code of a paid bill
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Date of a received bill
Triggered data from XERO assigned to required Easy Project fields
Appropriate triggers and actions
From available XERO trigger events and Easy Project action events, these ones are appropriate for a transfer of financial data.
XERO triggers
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New Bill - Triggered when you add a new bill or the status of the new bill is changed (Accounts Payable)
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New Sales Invoice - Triggered when you add a new sales invoice or the status of the new invoice is changed (Accounts Receivable)
Easy Project actions
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Create Project Budget Expense - action creates a new planned or real expense entry for the project budget
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Create Project Budget Income - action creates a new planned or real income entry in the project budget
For our case study workflow: Create Easy Project real expenses from new XERO paid bills, we chose a XERO trigger: New Bill, and Easy Project action: Create Project Budget Expense (with option real).
Trigger and action used for the case study workflow
Zapier account with an appropriate plan
To run ZAPs on Zapier platform, we need to create an account and choose an appropriate pricing plan depending on a number of Zapier transactions per month.
Zapier transaction means a successful automation of something by a ZAP. A transaction is counted each time your Zap successfully transfer data from one app to another.
| Pricing plan | Limit of successful transactions per month | Monthly price | Price for additional transaction over the limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small | 1 000 | € 16 | € 0.016 |
| Medium | 3 000 | € 40 | € 0.0128 |
| Large | 10 000 | € 100 | € 0.01 |
Pricing plans for running ZAPs
For our case study, Zapier transactions mean how many paid bills per month are transferred to our project budgets.
XERO account to allow Zapier to connect to API
The Xero account must have either Standard or Advisor level rights in order to use the Xero API, which is required for connecting to Zapier. Read-only, Invoice Only, and Cashbook Client roles don't have the ability to use the API.
Easy Project account to allow Zapier to connect to API
The Easy Project account must have assigned the role with permissions to manage the budget in order to use the Easy Project API, which is required for connecting to Zapier. Easy Project account also must be a member of the project where we want to distribute the financial data to project budget.
Easy Project account permissions for budget
Rules for data distribution to the right project budget
If you want to financial data distributed to the right project budget, you have to be able to set up a list of monitored projects IDs in your accounting system, assign this project ID to bill/invoice and trigger this data to Zapier for an action in Easy Project.
In XERO, it is possible to set up the Tracking category named Project. This category is a part of a bill/invoice line. A specific category option assigned to bill/invoice line represents ID of the project in Easy Project, where we want to transfer the accounting data to the right project budget.
Other accounting systems possible integrations via Zapier
If you have one of these accounting systems, project finance controlling is piece of cake for you with Easy Project.
Zoho Books
https://zapier.com/apps/zoho-books/integrations
Integrated for expenses and incomes financial data.
New Expense
- Triggered when an expense is created.
New Sales Invoice
- Triggered when a new sales invoice is created with a paid status.
List of Project IDs
- Reporting Tags (for an expense and an invoice item)
- Custom field with a drop-down value (only for invoices)
FreshBooks New
https://zapier.com/apps/freshbooks-new/integrations
Integrated for expenses and incomes financial data.
New Expense
- Triggered when a new expense is created.
New Invoice
- Triggered when a new invoice is created.
List of Project IDs
- Not supported, is possible to use the note for expense or invoice.
QuickBooks Online
https://zapier.com/apps/quickbooks/integrations
Integrated only for incomes financial data, triggers for expenses data are not supported.
New Sales Invoice
- Triggered when a new sales invoice is created.
New Payment
- Triggered when a payment is received.
List of Project IDs
- Projects tracking https://community.intuit.com/articles/1549960-quickbooks-online-projects
