Sage Business Cloud Integration Setup Guide
Connecting to Sage Business Cloud
As Sage Business Cloud and Lightyear are both cloud-based, set up and connectivity between the systems is seamless. Here's how!
Please Note: Our Sage Business Cloud integration only works via the Northern Hemisphere API. This includes accounts from UK, IE, US, DE, ES, CA and FR. If you are from any other region using Sage Business Cloud, please contact us directly!
From the Navigation Pane, head over to Settings > Accountancy > select Sage Business Cloud > Connect
You’ll see a pop up modal asking for you to select the set up you have within your Sage Business Cloud account (don’t worry, this can be changed later). More information about what each option is can be found below!
Once you have changed the settings to your liking, click Confirm & Connect.
You will be redirected to the Sage website and asked to login to your account.
You may see this screen in Sage, be sure to click Allow in order to successfully connect.
Once you have entered your Sage Business Cloud email and password, back in Lightyear you will be asked to select the Business you are working in.
Click the dropdown menu and select the appropriate Business. If you only have one Sage Business Cloud business, there will be one result. If you have multiple Sage Business Cloud businesses, make sure to select the one relevant to the Lightyear account. Click Confirm.
Lightyear will automatically sync the following data back from Sage Business Cloud which are required to process your payables bills:
- Sage Business Cloud Suppliers
- Chart of Accounts
- Tax Rates
Sage Business Cloud API doesn't allow for Categories to be synced and imported from Lightyear.
The name of the Sage Business Cloud company will be displayed once the connection is established to inform you which account is connected. The connection will remain active even when you log out and back into both systems and any user with Export permissions within Lightyear will be able to export bills to Sage Business Cloud.
Syncing of your Lightyear and Sage Business Cloud account is now complete and you will be connected.
If you do nothing else in this section, please ensure you skip ahead to set your default tax rates before you move on. Trust us, it will make your life SO much easier moving forward.
Software Settings
Customize your Sage Business Cloud settings by selecting Accountancy Software Settings. In this section, you can:
- Automatically apply Chart of Accounts on line item level
- Turn on or off the ability to send attachment to Sage
- Group line item data
Automatically apply Chart of Accounts on a line item level?
- Yes - Save time by coding it in Lightyear, and we’ll remember the next time we extract the line item that you’ve coded the supplier lines to.
- No - keep these blank for you to code individually.
Send attachment to Sage?
- Yes - this will send a copy of the document upon export which can be found as an attachment to the bill in Sage Business Cloud.
- No - this will only send your bill data to Sage and not send a copy of the document across to Sage Business Cloud upon export.
Group line item data?
Turning this on will allow you to export Grouped Account data, rather than line item data. For the full article on this, click here.
Sync Document Number to:
This field is required. When populated, on export to Sage Business Cloud, the Invoice Number will be input to the Supplier Reference or Reference field.
Sync PO Number to:
When populated, on export to Sage Business Cloud, the PO Number will be input to the Supplier Reference or Reference field. This can be left blank if you don't need the PO number in Sage Business Cloud.
Please Note: If you select Supplier Reference for the Document Number, the PO Number cannot also be Supplier Reference.
Sage Business Cloud Suppliers
Sage Business Cloud Suppliers are what Lightyear uses to connect a Supplier within Lightyear to a Supplier within Sage Business Cloud. Any existing Suppliers in Sage Business Cloud will appear here after connection.
When you connect to Sage Business Cloud, by default, your list of existing Sage Business Cloud Suppliers are synced to Lightyear.
Importing from Sage Business Cloud
To import your Sage Business Cloud Suppliers, go to Accountancy > Sage Business Cloud Suppliers > Import Suppliers
This import will include the following details, taken from your Sage Business Cloud account:
- Supplier Name
- VAT Number
- Country Code
- Currency
- Default Account Code
- CIS Registered
- Sort Code/BSB Number
- Bank Account Number
- Bank Account Name
- IBAN
- BIC
- Default Tax Code
If you want to remove a Supplier, simply click the red trash can icon 
on the right of each line.
Create New Sage Business Cloud Suppliers
If you find you don't have a Supplier set up in your Sage Business Cloud account and Lightyear, you can easily create this within Lightyear.
To do this, click the + Supplier 
button in the top right of Sage Business Cloud Suppliers. The following modal will display:
In the Supplier Name field, enter the name of the Supplier as you would like it to display from within Lightyear and Sage Business Cloud. Once this is entered, click Confirm.
This will be created both in Lightyear and Sage Business Cloud. The Supplier in Lightyear will display with the Default Account Code, Country and Currency set up within your Sage Business Cloud account.
If you make any changes or update the details of the Supplier within Sage Business Cloud, you can update this in Lightyear by clicking the Import Suppliers 
button.
Update Lightyear Suppliers
After importing your Sage Business Cloud Suppliers from Sage Business Cloud, you can quickly create Lightyear Suppliers alongside this. While in Accountancy > Sage Business Cloud Suppliers, click the Update Lightyear Suppliers 
button. You will be given the option to Create & Override or Create Only New.
Create & Override will create new suppliers that don't exist within Lightyear, and update the information with what's set up in Sage Business Cloud.
Create Only New will create new suppliers that don't exist within Lightyear, without updating any current suppliers.
Suppliers in Lightyear will then be created with the information from Sage Business Cloud, automatically populating the Supplier Name, Country, Currency, Default Account Code, Default Tax Code and Bank Details.
This supplier information can be updated at any time, and changed from what's saved in Sage Business Cloud. For full details on this, click here.
Missing Country Codes? Click here to fix this.Chart of Accounts
Account Codes are all imported to Lightyear when you link your Sage Business Cloud account. These are displayed within the Account Code section of Accountancy. The Account Codes can be viewed in one long list or by filtering by Type, in the top left corner.
If you make any updates to your Accounts within Sage Business Cloud, you can go to Accountancy > Account Codes in Lightyear and click the Import from Sage Business Cloud button, this will update and refresh your list.
If you wish to reduce the number of Account Codes that Lightyear presents to you in the dropdown lists, uncheck the tick boxes on the right of each Account Code.
Don't forget to add a Rounding Account Code at the bottom of the page. This will automatically code any automated rounding rows to a specified Account Code.
Set a Default Tax Rate
When you initially connect to Sage Business Cloud, Lightyear will automatically import all your Sage Business Cloud defined tax rates.
You will need to choose two Sage Business Cloud tax rates to act as the defaults for taxable and non-taxable items. Lightyear will use these defaults to send the relevant tax code to Sage Business Cloud if a line is taxed/tax free, this is unless you choose to manually assign a different non-default tax rate to the item from within Lightyear's Bill Review section.
To choose your 2 defaults go to Settings > Accounting Software > Tax Rates.
The below image shows what a typical setup looks like. We have selected the 2 standard tax rates (Standard 20% and Exempt 0%).
Now when Lightyear detects an item that is taxable or non-taxable, it will use these defaults to send with the invoice to Sage Business Cloud (unless you manually select one of your other non-default codes for the item/supplier).
Set a Default Tax Rate against a Supplier
Usually the Supplier Default Tax Rate is left blank, which allows the 2 defaults set above to work with maps.
But there may be circumstances where you assign a certain supplier with a different tax code to the defaults you have set at company level.
Go to the Suppliers > Select Supplier > Edit. You can then choose to set a default tax rate from the drop-down list.
Please Note: you can only set one default tax rate. If you set a taxable rate as the Supplier default, your Lightyear company non-default tax rate will still be applied if there is a non-taxable item within the supplier bill, and vice-versa.
Migrating Software?
Once you select Sage Business Cloud as your software, you won't be able to change it. If you are thinking about changing accountancy software, please reach out to our Support team for guidance on how to do so.
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