Accounting Sync

Your invoices, payments and supplier paperwork land in your accounting software without you typing any of it twice.

• Approve invoices that are Sent, Part-Paid or Paid, one at a time or up to 100 at once
• Payments you record in Cooledge push across, and payments added at your provider come back
• Supplier bills and credit notes sync on their own, no button to press
• A sync badge on every document tells you exactly where it is, with Retry when it needs another go
• Nothing gets silently overwritten. Anything Cooledge cannot decide on its own is flagged for you

This guide covers the sync itself, and it works the same way whether you use Xero or QuickBooks Online. Connecting is the part that differs, so start with Xero Integration or QuickBooks Integration, then come back here.

You can only have one accounting provider connected at a time. Until one is connected, none of the sync buttons, badges or filters described below appear anywhere in Cooledge.

What Syncs

Out of Cooledge

When you approve an invoice, this is what lands at your provider:

• The invoice with all its line items, descriptions, quantities and prices
• The customer, matched to an existing contact or created as a new one
• The tax code on every line
• Your branded invoice PDF as an attachment
• The job reference, when the invoice is linked to a job

Deposits are pushed as real payments against the invoice rather than as a negative line. That means your revenue, your GST and the cash you have actually received all stay correct in your books.

Payments you record in Cooledge push to the payment account you nominate in settings. Supplier bills and supplier credit notes push with their attachment, coded to your supplier bill expense account.

Back into Cooledge

This is the two-way part, and it is deliberately narrow. Only three things are ever written back:

1. Payments added at your provider, against an invoice that Cooledge pushed. They appear as payments on the Cooledge invoice and can move it to Part-Paid or Paid.
2. Voids and deletions at your provider. Cooledge voids its copy of the document and reverses any payments that came from the provider.
3. A supplier bill marked fully paid at your provider sets the Cooledge bill to paid.

What Does Not Come Back

Everything else stays where it is. Explicitly, none of this flows back into Cooledge:

• Customers and contacts
• Amounts, totals and invoice numbers
• Line items, descriptions or tax settings
• Any document Cooledge never pushed in the first place
• Payments against documents Cooledge never pushed

Your local amounts are never overwritten. If a payment is changed at your provider, Cooledge raises a flag instead of rewriting your record, so you get to decide which figure is right. Cooledge is the source of truth for the paperwork your customer sees.

Which Invoices Can Be Approved

An invoice can be approved when it is Sent, Part-Paid or Paid. Never Draft, never Void.

If an invoice is not eligible, the approve button is simply not there, and its checkbox in the invoices list is disabled. There is no message on the invoice explaining why. Check the invoice status: nine times out of ten it is still a draft.

Approving One Invoice

In the portal:

1. Go to Invoices and open the invoice
2. Click Approve to Xero (or Approve to QuickBooks)
3. You get a toast reading Invoice queued for Xero sync

The badge moves to Queued, then Syncing, then Xero: Synced. A background worker picks up queued work every 2 minutes, so give it a couple of minutes before you go looking for it at your provider.

The button changes wording depending on where the invoice is up to. After a failure it reads Retry Xero. On an invoice you previously dismissed it reads Push to Xero anyway.

On the mobile app, open the invoice, open the Invoice Actions sheet and tap Approve to QuickBooks, which carries the subtitle Send this invoice to QuickBooks.

Batch Approving From the Invoices List

Most people do this once a week rather than invoice by invoice.

1. Go to Invoices
2. Click the Ready to sync card at the top of the page. Its sub-label reads Not yet in Xero or Not yet in QuickBooks, and clicking it applies the matching filter
3. Tick the rows you want. The select-all checkbox ticks only the approvable rows on that page, so it will never catch a draft
4. The bar at the bottom shows 20 selected, with Approve 20 to Xero and Clear
5. Click the approve button. You can send up to 100 invoices in one go

You get a result toast like 7 invoices queued for Xero sync. Anything skipped is grouped by reason, for example 3 skipped: not sent yet or 2 skipped: already synced, so you can see at a glance what did not go.

Two things worth knowing about the selection: it clears whenever you change a filter, sort, search or page, and it does not carry across pages. Work one page at a time.

What the Badges Mean

Every invoice, bill and credit note carries a sync badge.

The provider name is only ever prefixed on the synced state. Every other badge shows the bare label, so you will never see "Xero: Needs attention".

There is no popover and no link through to the document at your provider. The reason text shows as a tooltip on the badge in lists, and as a sentence underneath the badge on detail pages.

Where the badges appear

• Invoices list: the badge only, no actions
• Invoice detail: the badge, the reason, Retry and Dismiss
• Purchases hub: on bill and credit note rows, with Retry and Dismiss
• Invoice detail again: a badge per payment, so you can see which payment is holding things up
• Mobile: the badge and its actions on invoice detail

Filtering the Invoices List

The accounting filter on the invoices list has exactly these options: All accounting, Ready to sync, Not synced, Queued, Synced, Needs attention, Held, Failed and Won't sync.

Two quirks to remember:

• The filter says Held and Failed where the badge says On hold and Sync failed. Same thing, shorter word
• Ready to sync is a wider net than Not synced. It also picks up failed and needs-attention invoices, so it means everything you could approve right now

Payments

Going out. Payments you record in Cooledge push to the payment account you nominate in accounting settings. Until you choose one, invoice payments sit in the queue on hold rather than failing.

Coming back. A payment entered against the invoice at your provider comes back into Cooledge as a payment, and can move the invoice to Part-Paid or Paid.

Worth knowing before you do a big catch-up. An invoice that reaches Paid because of a payment at your provider fires everything a payment recorded in Cooledge fires, including the paid notification to your customer and the review request automation. If you are about to mark a stack of old invoices as paid in your accounting software, expect those emails and review requests to go out.

If a payment is later changed or removed at your provider, Cooledge does not rewrite its own record. It flags the invoice as Needs attention and leaves the decision to you.

Voids

Voided at your provider. Cooledge voids its copy and reverses any payments that came from the provider. If that invoice has payments taken in Cooledge, nothing is changed automatically. It is flagged Needs attention instead, because real money went through it on your side.

Voided in Cooledge after it synced. This cannot always be finished for you, usually because your provider will not void a document that has payments applied to it. When that happens the badge turns to Needs attention with either Your accounting provider refused to void this document. Void it there instead. or This was voided here after it synced. Void it at your provider too. Both mean the same job for you: void the copy at your provider, then dismiss the Cooledge document so it stops trying.

Supplier Bills and Credit Notes

There is no approve button for supplier paperwork, because it syncs on its own:

• A supplier bill syncs when it moves from draft to approved
• A credit note syncs when it moves from draft to applied

Both are coded to the account you set as Supplier bill expense account, and both push with their attachment. Badges, Retry and Dismiss live on the bill and credit note rows in the Purchases hub.

They lock once they have synced. After a bill or credit note reaches your provider its money, supplier and dates are locked, and its lines cannot be changed. You will see: This bill has synced to Xero; edit it there or add a credit note. Status changes are still allowed, so you can still move it from approved to paid, or void it.

Two other things to know:

• Marking a supplier bill fully paid at your provider sets the Cooledge bill to paid
• Voiding a supplier credit note at your provider sends no signal back to Cooledge, so void it in Cooledge as well

More on the paperwork itself in Supplier Bills and Credit Notes.

Editing an Invoice After It Has Synced

Editing a synced invoice regenerates the PDF and pushes the updated version across, so the copy at your provider always matches the PDF your customer is holding. What you are allowed to change depends on the invoice status, and the rules are the same in the portal and on mobile.

If your provider refuses the change because payments are applied at their end, the invoice flags Needs attention with Your accounting provider will not change the amounts on a document that has payments applied. Remove the payment there, then retry.

How Quickly It Syncs

Work you queue in Cooledge is picked up by a background worker that runs every 2 minutes.

Changes made at your provider come in through webhooks, so they usually land within a minute or two. A safety net sweep also runs regularly in case a webhook goes missing, so anything that slips through is picked up within half an hour at the latest. If something has been sitting for longer than that, it is not a timing problem. Check the badge.

Accounts and Tax Codes

Go to Settings → Integrations → Accounting Settings.

Click Save settings when you are done.

What happens when one is missing. Documents that need a setting you have not filled in go On hold rather than failing outright. Nothing is lost. Fill the setting in, hit save, and everything waiting on it releases itself. The save confirmation tells you how many, for example Accounting settings saved. 4 queued items released.

In Australia GST is normally a single rate, so tax codes usually look after themselves. The extra pickers only turn up when your provider has more than one code sitting at the same rate and Cooledge will not guess between them.

Troubleshooting

On Hold: Waiting on Something You Control

These clear themselves. Fix the cause and the held documents go on their own, though Retry is there if you want to push one along.

Needs Attention: Someone Has to Decide

These will not clear on their own, because Cooledge is not willing to guess with your numbers. Fix the cause, then hit Retry.

Sync Failed

Sync failed is the retryable one. Something went wrong in transit rather than in your data. Hit Retry. If the same invoice fails repeatedly, check the reason text under the badge, because it usually names the problem.

Dismissing a Document

Dismiss is offered on Needs attention only. It tells Cooledge to stop trying to sync that document in either direction, and the badge becomes Won't sync. Use it when you have already sorted the document out by hand at your provider and you just want Cooledge to leave it alone.

Three things to be clear about:

• A dismissed invoice can still be pushed later. The button on the invoice reads Push to Xero anyway
• Dismissing a bill does not unlock it for editing. A bill that has synced stays locked either way
• Dismissed documents are still easy to find. The accounting filter on the invoices list has a Won't sync option

Common Questions

Do I have to approve every invoice by hand? Yes, approving is deliberate. You choose what goes into your books. Batch approving from the invoices list makes it a weekly job rather than a daily one.

Can I push a part-paid invoice? Yes. Sent, Part-Paid and Paid are all eligible. Only drafts and voids are out.

If I fix a customer's address in Xero, does it come back? No. Customers and contacts only travel one way. The same goes for amounts, invoice numbers, line items and tax settings.

Why is my supplier bill locked? Because it has synced. Change it at your provider, or record a credit note in Cooledge. Status changes are still allowed.

Something has been Queued for an hour. Is it stuck? Probably on hold behind a missing setting or an expired connection rather than genuinely queued. Open the document and read the reason under the badge.

Can I connect Xero and QuickBooks at the same time? No, one provider at a time. Disconnect the current one first.

Related Articles:

• Xero Integration →: Connecting Xero and its settings
• QuickBooks Integration →: Connecting QuickBooks Online and its settings
• Creating Invoices →: Building an invoice in the first place
• Sending Invoices and Getting Paid →: Sending, payments and reminders
• Supplier Bills and Credit Notes →: Recording what your suppliers charge you
• Understanding Deposits →: How deposits sit against an invoice

Need a hand with accounting sync? Email us at support@cooledge.com.au