Connections: accounting programs, Paymob and e-invoicing

The connections are built into CreekPOS Online and are switched on one by one once their set-up with each provider is finished. None is switched on yet: this chapter describes them ahead of their launch.

#What it is

Settings → Connections links your shop to other programs and services: an accounting program (Zoho Books, Xero or QuickBooks Online), your own Paymob account for card and wallet payments, and Flick for UAE e-invoicing. Each one is a card with Connect, its state, and what it has sent.

Connections are part of Online Restaurant and Chain, with no add-on and nothing per document. Only the owner or a manager connects, tests, maps and disconnects; every action is in the shop's activity log. Connections only read your shop's data: they never change your sales, stock or customers. They are not in the buy-once desktop program.

#Connecting an accounting program

1. In Settings → Connections, press Connect on Zoho Books, Xero or QuickBooks Online.
2. The program's own sign-in page opens. Sign in there and allow CreekPOS. Your password stays with the program; CreekPOS keeps only a sealed token.
3. Choose the organisation (the company) to send to.
4. Check the accounts: CreekPOS reads the program's chart of accounts and tax rates and suggests where each kind of line goes (sales by VAT rate, VAT, cash, card, cost of goods, expenses). Change any of them, then save.

From then on everything goes by itself. Sync now sends what is waiting at once; Disconnect stops it. If the program stops accepting the connection (a password changed, access withdrawn), the card says Connect again and nothing is sent until you do; reconnecting the same organisation keeps the mapping and sends nothing twice.

A Zoho Books organisation is served from its own data centre, the UAE's included.

#What goes to the program

• One sales journal per branch and day: sales by VAT rate, the VAT, cash, card and other payments apart, returns, the cost of goods if you ask for it, expenses, cash in and out, over and short. A day is sent once it has closed, two hours after midnight.
• Customers on credit become contacts in the program, each credit receipt an invoice, a return of one a credit note, and each repayment a payment on the customer's oldest open invoices. Those receipts then stay out of the day's journal, so nothing counts twice.
• Bills and expenses from Books, if you switch them on (off by default, so a Books that already imports the till's purchasing does not send them twice).

#Each document once

• Every document is sent once and remembered. A send whose answer was lost is looked up in the program before it is tried again.
• A till receipt that arrives after its day was sent goes as an adjustment journal of the difference. What your accountant already has is never edited.
• A daily cap keeps within the program's own limits; what is left goes the next day.

#Problems and Send again

A document the program refused is tried again a few times over the next hours. If it still fails, it is listed under Documents not sent with the program's own words, for example an account that was deleted there. Correct the cause, then press Send again.

#Paymob: card and wallet payments

Paymob connects your own Paymob merchant account for the Emirates, in AED. Open it with Paymob; it starts in test mode with test keys and test cards, and you go live with Paymob when you are ready. Then in Settings → Connections → Paymob → Connect, paste the keys from your Paymob dashboard (the API key, the secret and public keys, the HMAC secret and the card integration ID, and a wallet one if you have it). Keys from another country's Paymob are refused.

Pay online in your online shop. With the connection on, your online shop offers Pay online (card / wallet) beside cash on delivery. The guest pays on Paymob's page. The order counts as paid only after Paymob's signed confirmation is checked and the payment is read back from Paymob; coming back from Paymob's page proves nothing by itself. A paid order reaches the tills marked as paid. An order left unpaid is cancelled after a while.

Refunds. A paid online order that is cancelled can be refunded in full with Refund through Paymob on the order's page, once. An order still going must be cancelled first; a delivered order is returned at the till.

Pay links. From a customer's page in the credit book, make a pay link for what the customer owes, or for what is left of one receipt, or less, never more. Send it on WhatsApp; the customer pays by card on the phone, and the payment lands on their account as a card payment. The customer's own statement shows a Pay now button. A link lives 30 days and can be cancelled.

Settlements and the statement for Books. CreekPOS reads Paymob's transactions every day. Download the statement (CSV or OFX, up to 92 days): each payment, each refund, and Paymob's fee as a line of its own when Paymob reports one. Import it in Books into an account named "Paymob": each line goes in once.

Not matched. A payment that no order or pay link of yours made (a link made in Paymob's own dashboard, a payment after the order closed) is listed under Not matched. Nothing is booked from it: decide, then Mark as handled with a note.

The Paymob card shows today's takings, refunds and count, the last settled day and whether you are in test mode. We charge nothing per payment; Paymob's fees are your agreement with Paymob.

#E-invoicing through Flick

Flick is the e-invoicing service provider CreekPOS connects to. Through it, Books sends your tax invoices and credit notes to customers with a TRN as UAE e-invoices (PINT AE), and receives your suppliers' e-invoices. The dates and the rules of the programme are on the UAE e-invoicing page. Flick charges for its service separately; ask us on WhatsApp. This is not tax advice.

What you do:

1. Appoint a provider by your deadline (31 March 2027 for most shops). With Flick, Flick registers your shop (TRN, trade licence, address) and gives you a participant ID.
2. In Settings → Branches, set your TRN and address exactly as registered, and switch Books on.
3. In Settings → Connections → Flick, connect with the participant ID and choose your default credit-note reason (and the exemption reason if you sell exempt supplies).
4. Invoice companies from Books (Books → Sales → Invoices) with their TRN and full address: street, city and emirate.
5. Watch the status on each invoice; correct an e-invoice already filed with a credit note, never by editing.
6. If your system fails, report it to the FTA within 2 business days: that duty stays yours.

The readiness checklist on the Flick card: Books on, your TRN and address, connected, your registration with Flick live with the FTA and on Peppol, the same TRN, invoices and credit notes enabled. Until every line is ticked, nothing is sent and nothing is given up: the documents wait.

What is sent: every tax invoice and credit note issued in Books (not drafts) to a customer with a TRN, dated from the day you choose. Each one once. A document with a problem (a missing TRN or emirate, a credit note without its reason) is held as Not sent with what is missing and a correction form; nothing wrong reaches Flick.

The status shows on the invoice page and as a line on its A4 print: Waiting to be sent, Sent to Flick, Reported to the FTA, Reported to the FTA and delivered to the buyer, or Refused with Flick's own words.

Suppliers' e-invoices become draft bills in Books → Purchases, matched to the supplier by its TRN (else by its exact name). Your accountant checks and posts them. A supplier CreekPOS does not know waits until you add it.

What is not sent:

• till receipts to consumers: sales to consumers are outside the programme, and a till receipt stays a simplified tax invoice on paper;
• A4 tax invoices printed from the till: invoice companies from Books so that they go;
• customers without a TRN;
• reverse-charge lines: such a document is held as Not sent with that reason.