01

Pick your country and click Connect

In Schakel, go to Connections, pick the country your administration sits in and click Connect with Exact Online. The country matters: Exact runs a separate installation per country, and a sign-in on the Dutch one does not work on the Belgian one.

Or go straight to https://start.exactonline.nl/
02

Sign in at Exact

Sign in with your normal Exact account. If you are already signed in, Exact skips this step. Use the account that can reach the administration you want to connect; there is no separate API account to create.
03

Approve the access

Exact shows what Schakel may do: read and write relations and sales invoices, and read your ledger, journals and VAT codes. Approve it and you land back in Schakel, with the name of your administration shown.
04

Check which administration is attached

Exact has no administration picker in its consent screen, so Schakel takes the one that is active at Exact at that moment. If you work with several, check on the Connections page that the right one is shown. There is a number beside it: that is Exact’s own administration number, and it is the only way to tell two administrations with the same name apart. If it is wrong, choose Pick another administration.

Worth knowing

If you switch administrations, your booking settings are cleared: journal, ledger accounts and VAT codes belong to one administration and mean nothing in another. Schakel asks for them again rather than sending invoices Exact will refuse.
Exact wants a sales journal on every invoice. If you have only one, Schakel fills it in for you at connect time. If you have several, you pick it yourself in the connector settings.
Exact’s VAT codes are short codes that differ per administration: in one 21% is called "1" and in another "VH". Schakel reads the list out of your administration, so you pick from a list instead of copying one across.
Exact allows at most 60 requests a minute and 5000 a day, per administration. That is plenty for a connector that sends invoices, and it is why the settings screens only fetch their lists when you open them.
If nobody uses the connector for thirty days, the access expires at Exact and you have to connect again. That is Exact’s rule, not ours. A connector that simply runs never hits it.
If you withdraw the access at Exact, the connector stops booking and Schakel says so on the Connections page. Connecting again repairs it; your settings and your connector stay as they were.

If something goes wrong

I land back in Schakel with no administration connected.: The access was declined, or the screen sat open too long: the request expires after ten minutes. Just click Connect again. Nothing is stored half way.
The wrong administration is attached.: On the Connections page choose Pick another administration. You do not have to sign in again: the same access reaches all your administrations. Note that your booking settings are cleared, because they belonged to the old administration.
Exact refuses my invoices with a message about the journal.: The journal in the settings no longer exists or is not a sales journal. Open the connector settings and pick it again; the list comes straight out of your administration.
My invoices are in Exact but not on my VAT return.: They are waiting as drafts. That is the state the connector starts in, so you can check the first few. Switch off Leave invoices as drafts in Exact in the connector settings once you trust them; the waiting drafts are opened on the next run.

Once you hold the keys, this is where they go. Every connector below talks to Exact Online.

Screens move around. If what you see does not match the screenshots, message us and we will look at it with you, and fix the page.