Loading

The Outbound Accounting Mirror

The outbound mirror copies what is posted in ActiveManage out to an accounting package you still run alongside it: Xero, QuickBooks Online, Sage Accounting or Capita Integra. It exists for the period when your accountant, auditor or statutory book still lives in the old system. The ActiveManage ledger stays the system of record; the mirror never hands control over.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → Finance:

  • Bank Feeds & Reconciliation — the Outbox tab (what was queued, sent or failed) and the Connections tab (mirror settings)

Architect Panel → ERP - Finance:

  • Accounting Code Map — translates your account, tax, analysis and counterparty codes into the other system's
  • Accounting Outbox — the queue as a datastore; its badge counts failures

Turning it on

The mirror is off twice over, deliberately: the provider ships switched off, and a connection mirrors nothing until its own setting says so. Reading from Xero is not consent to write to it.

  1. Create and authorise a connection for the package (see the article on connecting a feed provider in this section).
  2. On the connection's Settings, set Mirror documents to this ledger to 1 and Mirror documents dated from to the first day to send, so switching on does not replay history.
  3. For Xero, QuickBooks or Sage, set Mirror payments too to 1 to send receipts and payments allocated against invoices already mirrored.
  4. Map codes in Accounting Code Map: every account you post to needs its code in the other system.
  5. On the Outbox tab press Find new postings and send once, read the result, then switch on the Accounting Outbound Mirror task.

What is sent

  • Journals: posted journals not yet sent. Journals that came in from a feed are never sent back out.
  • Invoices: by default a posted document goes as the journal it produced. A connection can instead name document types to send as invoices, with customer, lines, quantities, prices and tax, so the other system computes its own postings. Invoices go when they post, never as drafts.
  • Payments: with Mirror payments too, a receipt or supplier payment allocated against a mirrored invoice goes as a payment, and its cash journal is then not also sent. A payment waits until its invoice has been sent.

Only documents of the connection's own company are sent through it.

Working the Outbox

Under Show choose Failed or waiting, Failed, Queued, Sent, Cancelled or Everything. Each row shows the document, connection, status, attempts, when it was queued, and the last error or the other system's reference. Send now sends a queued or failed document immediately; Retry puts a failed or cancelled one back in the queue; Cancel stops it being sent. A failed document is retried on each run up to a limit, then stays failed and visible.

What goes wrong

  • An unmapped account: the document is refused, naming the code. Add it to Accounting Code Map. Unmapped analysis and tax codes pass through as they are.
  • QuickBooks or Sage refuses a counterparty: both need the customer or supplier mapped to their own ID; neither creates one silently. Xero creates the contact by name.
  • Xero analysis: Xero has at most two tracking categories, so only the first two analysis codes go.
  • Not verified live: the adapters are built from each vendor's published API and tested without a network. Check the first documents in the other system before trusting the mirror.

Worked example

A charity moves its operations onto ActiveManage but its auditors want Xero to agree until year end. The finance manager sets Mirror documents to this ledger to 1 from 1 April, maps its 40 nominal codes, presses Find new postings and send, and sees April's journals go across with Xero's references. One fails on an unmapped code; they map it and press Retry. The architect then switches on the Accounting Outbound Mirror task.

Recommendations

  • Set a start date before switching on, so history is not replayed.
  • Map every posting account first; an unmapped account stops the document.
  • Switch payments on before receipts are mirrored: a receipt already sent as a journal is never re-sent as a payment.
  • Investigate a second failure rather than pressing Retry again.