How does invoicing hours work in Exact Online?
A sales invoice in Exact Online belongs to an account (the client) and consists of lines. Each line has a description, a quantity, a price, a VAT code and a GL account the revenue is booked to. Invoice date, due date, numbering and layout come from your administration.
Exact Online is built for bookkeeping and larger administrations. So the invoice is often the end of a process with several people involved: staff log hours, a manager approves them and the finance team invoices.
That handover is where things usually go wrong: hours that never get invoiced, or get invoiced twice. A fixed route from approved hours to a draft in Exact prevents that.
What do you set up before the first invoice?
Get this base right once. Then finance only has to review each invoice.
| Item | Why |
|---|---|
| Accounts with billing address | The invoice has to reach the right legal entity at the right address. |
| Revenue GL accounts | So you see revenue per type of work in your figures. |
| VAT codes | Every rate you use (21%, 9%, 0%) must exist as a sales code. |
| Invoice layout and payment term | Your company details, IBAN and term on every invoice. |
| Agreement on line detail | A line per task or per day, so the client sees what they pay for. |
Decide up front who does what: who approves hours, who finalises invoices. Then everyone knows when an invoice is ready.
Step by step: hours from Half5 into Exact Online
Half5 builds the draft; Exact Online stays the place where the invoice is finalised and sent.
- Connect Exact Online under Integrations. You sign in to Exact Online (OAuth) and choose there which administration Half5 may use.
- Half5 fetches your accounts. New clients you create in Half5 are also created as accounts in Exact Online.
- Mark each activity ‘Billable’ or ‘Non-billable’, with its own ‘Hourly rate’ where needed.
- Your team logs hours. With ‘Approve hours before invoicing’ on, only approved hours are included.
- Open the report, filter by period or client and choose ‘Create draft invoices from report’. Half5 makes one draft per client with the billable hours not yet invoiced.
- The draft appears as a sales invoice in Exact Online, with description, quantity, price and the VAT code with the matching percentage on each line. Change the draft in Half5 and it's updated in Exact.
- Review the draft in Exact Online, finalise it there and send it from Exact. Choose ‘Finalize’ in Half5 as well, so it's clear there that the invoice is done.
What syncs and what doesn't?
The integration is meant for teams where finance has the final say. Half5 prepares, Exact Online finalises.
- Rides and leave never become invoice lines.
- Hours on an activity marked ‘Non-billable’ stay off the invoice.
- Changes you make to the draft in Exact don't flow back to Half5.
| Data | Syncs? | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts (clients) | Yes, both ways | Clients in Half5 and accounts in Exact stay aligned. |
| Draft invoice | Yes, Half5 to Exact | With invoice date, due date and lines. |
| VAT code | Yes | Matched by percentage to your active VAT codes in Exact. |
| GL accounts | Partly | Half5 fetches them, but the per-activity ‘Ledger account’ isn't set on Exact lines yet. |
| Projects | No | The project name can still appear in the line description. |
| Sending by e-mail | No | You send from Exact Online itself. |
What do you check in Exact before finalising?
Check which revenue GL account each line is booked to. Since Half5 doesn't send the per-activity account to Exact yet, this is the moment to set it right.
Check VAT for foreign clients too. Half5 picks the rate from your country and the client's; for a business client in another EU country that's 0% with VAT reverse-charged. Make sure Exact has a VAT code with that percentage.
How Half5 does it
Half5 connects to Exact Online through OAuth and syncs accounts. ‘Create draft invoices from report’ makes one draft per client with the billable hours not yet invoiced (with approval on, only ‘Approved’ ones) and puts that draft in Exact Online as a sales invoice. Projects don't sync.
Half5 doesn't e-mail Exact invoices: you finalise and send them in Exact. The per-activity ‘Ledger account’ isn't set on Exact lines today, so check the revenue account in Exact. More on approving first in Approving hours and on the whole flow in Invoicing from hours.
Frequently asked questions
Can Half5 e-mail Exact Online invoices?
No. With Exact Online, Half5 only prepares the invoice as a draft. You finalise it and send it from Exact Online.
Why is an hour missing from the draft?
Usually the activity is ‘Non-billable’, the hour was already invoiced, or it isn't approved yet while ‘Approve hours before invoicing’ is on. Filter the report on approval and invoice status.
The VAT on a line in Exact is wrong. How come?
Half5 looks for an active VAT code in Exact with the same percentage as the line. If none exists, the code stays empty and you fill it in within Exact.
Do my Exact projects sync?
No, project sync is only available for Moneybird. You can have Half5 include the project name in the line description.
Can I connect more than one Exact administration?
When connecting you choose which administration Half5 may use. Invoices from Half5 go to that administration.
