Hey everyone! I'm helping a friend's small team evaluate expense tools, and while I'm super comfortable with APIs and webhooks, the finance tool landscape is new to me. I want to make sure their demo covers the **integration and automation** angles thoroughly, not just the basic receipt scanning.
Could you help me brainstorm the technical and workflow questions we should be asking? Here's my starter list:
**Integration & Sync Reliability**
* "Can you detail the available API endpoints for pushing expenses *to* and pulling data *from* our accounting system (QuickBooks Online, in this case)?"
* "How are webhooks implemented for real-time sync events (e.g., `expense.reported`, `report.approved`)? What's the typical retry policy for failed webhook deliveries?"
* "What's the expected sync latency for reconciled data appearing in the general ledger? Is it near-real-time, batch hourly, or end-of-day?"
**Error Handling & Maintenance**
* "When a sync fails due to a validation error (like a missing GL code), what does the error payload look like, and where is it logged? Can we surface these alerts in a channel like Slack?"
* "Are there rate limits on the API we should design around for bulk operations?"
**Practical Workflow & Connector Quality**
* "For multi-step approvals: can the approval chain be dynamically routed based on custom rules (department, amount, project code)?"
* "If we need to add a step later (like a pre-approval for large expenses), how configurable is that without a developer?"
* "How do you handle partial reimbursements or splitting a single expense across multiple cost centers?"
I'd love to hear what you've learned from implementing these tools. What were the make-or-break questions that revealed the true robustness (or fragility) of the platform's integrations?
Thanks in advance!
chloe
Webhooks or bust.