We are currently having a difference when loading data via Webservice / Rest from Xero to our own software:LucaNet and it is specifically from unrealized / realized gain and losses from Foreign currency. The reason being is that those values are being calculated by xero but not being posted as a transaction while we are pulling transactions from Xero to LucaNet. Hence we have a few differences in the Balance Sheet and PnL on some GL Accounts. Specifically Bank Accounts and PnL accounts for unrealized gain / losses.
Does anyone have an idea on that?
Help would be much appreciated.
BR
Andy
this issue sounds best answered by diving into the specific data of a request. The best forum for that is likely the Xero API tech support team.
You can start a case by emailing api#xero.com - include your client id and formatted data related to the discrepancy.
Related
I have noticed a general trend that most of the helpful information is not available to pull from the Xero API (eg cash summary or import bank statement lines).
What I don't understand is how is that g-accon (https://www.g-accon.com/) is able to provide these reports if it is not available through the API? what am I missing?
I have developed a google apps script to get the trial balance from Xero so that I can build the balance sheet and P&L. The next step was the cash summary report but given the limitations above it seems like it is not possible (at least for my level of knowledge)?
Any help would be much appreciated.
I have looked at the API documentation, API explorer and xero.uservoice.com all of which point to not be being able to use API to get cash summary report or bank statement lines...
I'm looking for a way to allow our clients to do recurring payments to discount these payments based on the credit in their account which can be earned or deposited in many ways. For example, if they need to pay $20 and have $5 in credit, I would like to only bill the remaining $15 automatically without any need for additional website visits.
Looking at the documentation for PayPal's REST APIs, I don't see any clear way to do this. Is the only way to do this to send them a refund automatically? Or is there a way to get approved to bill clients up to X amount per month but allow us to bill under that amount. I thought billing agreements would allow for this, but after reading the documentation, I'm unable to figure out a way to do it. If it's possible, could someone walk me through what API calls would be needed to do this?
Thanks for any help you can offer.
There are a couple of different ways you could do this sort of thing, but I would avoid the REST API for now. It's still too new and doesn't provide as much functionality and features as the classic API.
Within the classic API, you can use either use Preapproved Payments, which consists of Preapproval and Pay APIs, or you could just use Express Checkout and/or Payments Pro with Reference Transactions.
Either way you'd basically be building your own recurring payments system where you'd setup a billing agreement and then your app would trigger the variable amount payments accordingly.
I'm just wondering if anyone can provide me with some information into how e-commerce websites automatically calculate the postage and shipping costs for items ordered on-line?
Do these websites use plug-ins/web services to dynamically request this information from the postage/shipping provider? Or do developers manually retrieve the postage costs from the associated shipping provider and then develop their own approximate postage/shipping cost calculation algorithm (in agreement with the e-commerce business of course)? Or are there any alternative approaches used?
Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.
EDIT: I have done some basic research on the topic. I've seen some plug-ins for WordPress but each plug-in was limited to specific postage/shipping companies only.
Do these websites use plug-ins/web services to dynamically request
this information from the postage/shipping provider?
Yes, this is certainly an option. In my experience, the APIs provided by UPS and FedEx are decent and work for the UK market.
Or do developers manually retrieve the postage costs from the
associated shipping provider and then develop their own approximate
postage/shipping cost calculation algorithm?
I would not recommend this - a maintenance headache for one reason - and have never seen it done.
Or are there any alternative approaches used?
Sometimes, fixed shipping-costs can be used - for example, when delivery is to a single country or products weights are relatively static. No API call is needed in these scenarios.
Based on my research, I've found that there doesn't seem to be a single standardised way of calculating shipping/postage costs on e-commerce websites. Some companies provide plugins for WordPress, etcetera, to assist in this process, while others companies provide API's.
Primarily, I'm interested in using a UK based shipping/postage provider.
The Royal Mail is the largest postal provider in the UK and it provides an API for a number of tasks; however no official API appears to be available for cost calculation. I did however manage to find an unofficial Royal Mail cost calculation API. It can be found at the following link.
Before jumping in I'd like to know what all of my options are, and, if possible their pros and cons.
The two I know of are using ActiveMerchant, or the paypal_recurring gem, but will they satisfy these requirements?
Ability to accommodate monthly and annual billing
Ability to suspend, cancel accounts etc
Deal with out-of-date card details or failed payments
The to-do list for the paypal_recurring gem includes 'adding support for IPN' - how will not having this impact functionality?
I know there is the railskit SaaS but I'd rather code something myself as the railskit is still on 3.2.1.
I know there are services like cheddergedder/chargify etc, but do they tie you in? Are they US only? Are they worth considering - or are they usually just aimed at non-developers?
Thanks in advance.
I just finished going through this, so I'll try to shed some light on your options. I ended up using Paypal Express Checkout for all recurring purchases through Paypal. We had a custom-rolled recurring billing setup that charges a customer's credit card monthly through Authnet, but had to switch because we needed an international solution, and Paypal was one of the only ones that supported the currencies we needed, and wasn't entirely a nightmare to code.
You can use ActiveMerchant for recurring billing with this plugin, though keep in mind that it is not officially a part of ActiveMerchant, and therefore is subject to break if ActiveMerchant changes how it handles certain things. Because of that, I ended up using the paypal-recurring to handle communication through Paypal, and then rolled my own IPN parser, with help from Railscasts. Another link that helped me a lot was this, though all the :txn_type values ended up being different.
With regards to that last link, here are the 4 :txn_types that I specifically watch out for:
express_checkout - first postback.
recurring_payment_profile_created - sent on first postback when the user first subscribes.
recurring_payment_profile_cancel - sent if user cancels subscription from Paypal's site.
recurring_payment - Money has been transferred to your account. This is what I wait for before I renew their subscription on a monthly. This post also comes with payment_status, which needs to be completed.
The other stuff you mentioned, like handling failed payments and out-of-date cards, is handled through your Paypal account.
Just a word of warning - the only reason I ended up using Paypal is because it is universally recognized and trusted, and it accepted international currencies. There is an enormous amount of documentation on their site, and most of it is redundant, confusing, and entirely too long. My recommendation is to make sure you really want/need to deal with recurring payments, as they are difficult to implement correctly and can be more trouble than they're worth.
I'm currently looking at Ryan Bates example of Stripe. They are a California based company that uses/offers the features you have listed.
www.stripe.com
They only charge when you receive money. I think that they are 3% plus $0.30 per successful transaction. Much better than some other companies that have a monthly minimum. Right now you have to have a bank in the USA to use their services as a merchant. However, anyone can use your site with out of the country credit cards.
The SaaS Kit is now tested with Rails 3.2.2. :) It doesn't support IPN yet, but it's on to the todo list. With all the info here in one spot, I suppose I have no excuse not to get it done. :)
I'm trying to create a simple personal project: I want to give myself bounties for completing tasks that often fester on my todo list. If I complete a task, for example, $5 should automatically move out of my savings account into a discretionary spending debit card.
Are there any APIs or banks that have those APIs that could let me do that? All of the paypal APIs seem to charge a fee, which would be kind of silly if the money is simply moving between accounts. Any suggestions?
Most banks/organisations will charge I suspect as a vast amount of money made by these organisations is from transfer charges. I cannot think of free api that would let you do it.
However you could consider using another commercial organisation, say like Amazon, and perhaps use it's APIs to supply purchase with gift cards automatically? I'm not saying Amazon is free, I'm just using it as an example.
It's not quite what you want but may be acceptable.
it may not be pretty, but you can use curl to do transactions over https, provided your online bank uses standard html forms in some way, but it typicaly takes 3 processes
1. Login to get a token (user name and password will be required)
2. Use token to get a cookie (in some cases 1 and 2 are reversed)
3. use curl to post the form data for your transaction
There are some good pointers on using curl in similar ways here:
http://curl.haxx.se/docs/httpscripting.html