Connecting Accounting and Excel: How an Integration Works

Almost every small company has two programs that know nothing about each other. Accounting knows the invoices, the costing sheet knows the jobs, the mailbox knows the enquiries. In between sits a person typing numbers from one window into the other. That works, until it doesn't.

What goes wrong when retyping

Typos. €4,800 becomes €4,080. Nobody notices until the costing doesn't add up.

Duplicates. An invoice is transferred twice because two colleagues both saw it. Or it isn't transferred at all, because each thought the other would do it.

Delay. The numbers in the costing sheet are as current as the last afternoon someone had time to transfer them. Decisions are made on the state of the week before last.

Lost time. Ten minutes per invoice sounds like little. At twenty invoices a week, that's over 170 hours a year one person spends copying.

What an integration does

An integration is a piece of software that lets two programs talk to each other. It fetches data from one program, translates it into the other's format and writes it there. That happens automatically, for example every night or the moment a new invoice is created.

In practice it looks like this: an invoice is created in accounting. A few seconds later it's in the costing sheet, with the same amount, the same customer, the same number. Nobody typed anything. If the invoice is corrected in accounting, the correction is in the costing sheet too. The numbers match in both programs, always.

What can be connected

Almost anything that has a data export or a programming interface. For small companies that's usually:

• Accounting software such as Lexware, sevdesk or DATEV, which deliver or accept invoices, receipts and contacts.
• Excel and Google Sheets, which keep serving as the working surface but are filled automatically.
• Mailboxes, from which enquiries or orders move into a task list.
• Supplier and customer portals where orders are entered by hand today.
• Time tracking, calendars and document storage, so appointments and files hang on the right case.

If a program has no interface but can export files, it usually still works: the software reads the export file and continues from there.

What an integration costs

A single connection between two programs is a typical first step and sits in the four-figure euro range. It's in use within a few weeks, often sooner. The effort depends on how well the connected program hands out its data and how differently the two sides name things.

Counter-calculation: if the integration saves one person two hours a week, it has usually paid for itself within a year, and the typos are gone from day one.

How to tell you need one

If someone in your company regularly puts one window next to the other and copies, you need one. If you check numbers twice because you don't trust the transfer, you need one. If a colleague says "I always do that on Fridays" and Friday falls through, you need one.

Tell me which two programs in your company don't talk to each other. I'll tell you in the first call whether and how they can be connected. That takes about 30 minutes and is free.