BeanBox syncs with your accounting system each day automatically (See When and how does data sync occur? ).
You also have the option to manually trigger a sync immediately. To sync the account you’re currently viewing, you can simply hover over the “Last synced” text located in the top right corner of your dashboard, and a “Sync now” button will appear.
Alternately, if you’re wanting to sync a different company within your BeanBox account, go to the top right hand corner of your BeanBox dashboard and click Settings (cog) > Xero Connections. You’re then able to select “Sync Now” next to the appropriate account.
There are two times when you should manually trigger a sync:
1. You’ve made changes and want to see updated reports immediately
If you’ve added or removed some repeating invoices in your accounting system, and want to immediately update your BeanBox reports, you can manually click “Sync Now” and BeanBox will pull the latest data from your accounting system and update the reports.
2. You’ve created a new repeating invoice but need to change something on it
This one is important to have accurate figures … if you create a new repeating invoice in Xero, with the starting date in the past, as soon as you save the repeating invoice the first occurrence will trigger. If you then realise that you need to adjust something on the repeating invoice the same day, it is important that you run a manual sync with Xero before adjusting the invoice. Otherwise BeanBox will not know about the first occurrence of the invoice.
Here’s a comparrison to explain how this works:
New Repeating Invoice Created, and then edited that same day – Incorrect Figures
You create a new repeating invoice, with the first occurrence being today, or in the past.
Xero immediately triggers the first invoice and sets the “next invoice date” for the next time it will run.
You then edit something on the repeating invoice template that same day, before BeanBox has synced with Xero.
Xero now saves the “Start date” of the repeating invoice as the next date the invoice will occur (because that is when the newly edited repeating invoice will first run).
BeanBox automatically syncs later that day with Xero and Xero says the invoice starts at the next invoice date, and doesn’t provide any info for the first occurrence that has already happened. Therefore BeanBox doesn’t know about the first occurrence of the repeating invoice and this is missing from reports. But future projections are correct.
New Repeating Invoice Created, and then edited that same day – Getting Accurate Figures
You create a new repeating invoice, with the first occurrence being today, or in the past.
Xero immediately triggers the first invoice and sets the “next invoice date” for the next time it will run.
You then want to edit something on the repeating invoice template, but you stop.
You go into BeanBox and choose “Sync now”. BeanBox pulls in the up to date information, including the correct start date of this new repeating invoice.
Then you go to Xero and edit the repeating invoice template. Xero now updates the “Start date” of the repeating invoice to being the next date the invoice will occur (because that is when the newly edited repeating invoice will first run). But this isn’t a problem because BeanBox has already synced so knows about the first occurrence of the invoice.
BeanBox automatically syncs later that day with Xero and gets the updated details for the repeating invoice, which it builds into the future projections. BeanBox will report the correct figure for the first occurrence of the invoice and the adjusted figures/description for the future occurrences of the invoice.
To run a manual sync, go to your BeanBox dashboard > hover over “last synced” > click Sync Now.
Note: You only have to do this for brand new repeating invoice templates that have their first date in the past (so immediately trigger the first occurrence) and then you want to edit the template in Xero on the same day you have created it.
