Here is everything you need to know about the Pinch integration, it's connection type and what it can and can't do based on certain limitations of the different accounting and inventory systems.
Connection:Pinch uses an "Authentication" type integration that requires you to Authorise Pinch access to your Accounting System data. If the user that initiated this authorisation is removed form the account or has their permissions changed at any time this will disconnect the integration and it will require reestablishing for the system to sync data again.
The only difference to this is the Cin7 Core integration which has a custom configuration that leverages API Keys. Once connected it operates in a similar way but is not a "one-click" setup. Most Cin7 clients also connect Xero as a source or reconciliation for bookkeeping purposes, but this is not used to draw data from in any way.
Sync:
Pinch uses a hybrid of Live-Sync and Web-hook sync types within this integration. This means that some actions automatically sync when your Accounting or Inventory System sends a web-hook to Pinch and other times the sync will occur when Pinch performs it's scheduled hourly Sync looking for updates which is different per system.
- Xero: Instant Send from Pinch, received changes from Xero via web-hooks, Hourly Invoice Sync, 1am everything Sync.
- QuickBooks: Instant send from Pinch, received changes from Quickbooks via web-hooks, Hourly Invoice Sync.
- MYOB: Hourly Syncs all data from up to a month before the last successful sync.
- CIn7 Core: Hourly Syncs all data from up to a month before the last successful sync + Web-hooks from certain API events.
Invoice Templates (Branding Templates):
Xero is the only Integration that supports multiple Branding Themes (Invoice Templates) that can be configured to either have or not have Pinch enabled. This gives Xero clients even more flexibility on which invoice are payed or Auto-debited via Pinch or are ignored by our system.
For all other Integration Pinch is enabled in it's entirety by default, with the only configurable setting being "Invoice Issued Notification" which let's Pinch also send notifications to clients about newly detected invoices.
Payments Data:
When Pinch takes a payment on Credit Card the payment is instantly either successful or declined. In the event of a successful payment the Pinch system will sync the payment data to your Quickbooks Account and record this against the corresponding invoice as either "Partially Paid" or "Fully Paid". This data should always be syncing, and if you notice a payment has been paid in Pinch but not marked as such in the accounting software this is an indicator that the sync might have experienced an issue. In the event of this contact support@getpinch.com.au and don't manually mark or reconcile anything (As this can cause issues when we trigger the sync of data again)
For Bank Account payments (Direct Entry) this process is a little different. This uses a system called BECS and based on how the infrastructure works all Bank Account payments as "Assumed" to have been successful until we are given a declined response from the bank. What this means is an invoice is paid via Bank Account and Pinch will automatically submit payment info to your accounting software and mark the invoice as "Paid". When the bank returns a "Declined" or "Insufficient Funds" response from the bank they pass this information to Pinch, and we will reverse the payment from the corresponding invoice and mark the invoice to "Unpaid" freeing it up to be paid again via Pinch on additional attempts or via another payment source.
Settlements:
Pinch Bulk settles funds for each of the different payment types up to two times per day depending on payments made during that period. There as; Amex, Bank Account, Credit and Debit.
These settlements can be found within the "Settlements" tab in Pinch and come with a "tra_" transfer ID and Accounting Software reference number. You can also see what invoices are accounted for within the bulk settlement and this same data is synced to your accounting software for easy reconciliation purposes. You can also see the fee breakdown and your weighted average of fees.
Pinch does not currently support "Next Day" type settlements and instead relies on the standard speed of the BECS payment infrastructure.
Surcharging:
In the event you wish to surcharge your clients and pass the Pinch transaction fees onto them this will change the way Pinch reconciles these against the Clearing Account in your Accounting Software to balance your account.
When a surcharged payment is made on Pinch two things happen.
1. Create the payment as per normal and sync the appropriately matching data to your accounting software which is recorded against the Pinch Clearing Account.
2. Pinch creates a seperate surcharge invoice equal to the surcharged fees and associates this to the same client with a reference to the original invoice. This surcharged invoices is recorded against the Pinch Fees Account and is used to offset the fees amount against the actual invoice value.
Due to limitations of the Quickbooks API and it's invoicing logic this surcharged invoice does not contain the reference like the other systems and is numbers sequentially with the next available invoice number.
Declined fees and Refund fees:
These are recorded against the "next available" settlements and deducted from that bulk settlement total as a negative line item in the settlement that references the invoice the refund or bank decline fee are associated to.
Refunds need to be accounted for manually by the merchant as different businesses manage refunds in a different way.