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Connect Xero or QuickBooks and every booking is sent to it as an invoice addressed to the parent. Payments you record there come back to the booking in ClubDock, so you keep one set of books instead of two.
Only a Manager can connect or disconnect accounting software.

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What changes once you connect

Card and Tax-Free Childcare payments taken through ClubDock Pay are still recorded by ClubDock, and sent to the booking’s invoice for you.

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What it costs

On monthly bills, connecting costs £6.00 a month, added to your ClubDock bill for any month with sessions on bookings sent to your accounts. A month with none costs nothing for it. There is no trial. The price is shown on Settings → Accounting before you press anything. A club on a deal arranged by hand with ClubDock is not charged, and the screen shows no price.

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Connect

1

Open Accounting

Go to Settings → Accounting.
2

Choose your software

Press Connect Xero or Connect QuickBooks.
3

Agree to the price

The first time, you are asked, for example, “Connect Xero for £6.00 a month?”. Press Agree and connect Xero. Cancel connects nothing. You are not asked again if you later disconnect and reconnect.
4

Authorise ClubDock

Sign in at Xero or QuickBooks, choose your organisation or company, and allow access. ClubDock asks only for the permissions it needs. You come back to ClubDock, which shows Connected to and your organisation’s name.
5

Choose your accounts for ClubDock Pay

A dialog asks where card payments arrive, where Tax-Free Childcare payments arrive, and where Stripe’s fees go. See below.
Settings → Accounting at 1280px showing the Connect Xero and Connect QuickBooks cards, with the price note highlighted

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Choose where ClubDock Pay money goes

So that card and Tax-Free Childcare payments can be applied to invoices, ClubDock needs three accounts from your chart of accounts:
  • Card payments arrive in: the bank account Stripe pays out to, or a Stripe clearing account if you keep one.
  • Tax-Free Childcare payments arrive in: the bank account NS&I pays into.
  • Stripe’s fees go to: an expense account, such as bank or merchant fees.
The dialog cannot be closed until all three are chosen and you press Save. Any one left on Choose an account is named underneath, for example “Choose where card payments arrive.” An expense account cannot be chosen as where money arrives. In QuickBooks, accounts that are neither bank nor expense accounts are listed separately, under Other current assets (such as a clearing account). If your ledger cannot be read, or has no bank or expense account yet, the dialog says so. Add the account in your accounting software, then press Check again, or Not now to come back later. Until all three are chosen, card and Tax-Free Childcare payments wait, and each booking shows a sync problem. Once you choose, everything that was waiting is sent.
The dialog asking where ClubDock Pay money goes in Xero, with its three account choices

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How payments come back

  • Xero tells ClubDock when a payment is recorded against an invoice, so bookings update on their own. If one looks behind, use Refresh from accounts on that booking.
  • QuickBooks tells ClubDock as soon as a payment is recorded, so a booking updates within a minute or so.

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Switching to the other software

You can connect only one at a time. Connecting the other replaces it, and ClubDock forgets every invoice, credit note and payment it sent to the old one. Bookings show as not yet sent, and they are raised again in the new software. Reconnecting the same software and the same company forgets nothing. Reconnecting the same software but a different company counts as a move. Your three ClubDock Pay accounts are cleared too, and you choose again.
Switching software, or switching company, raises every booking again as new invoices in the new one. Check with whoever keeps your books before you do it.

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Disconnect

  1. Go to Settings → Accounting and press Disconnect.
  2. Confirm. New bookings stop reaching your accounts. Nothing already sent is removed.
You can record payments in ClubDock by hand again straight away. ClubDock’s access is withdrawn at Xero or QuickBooks too.

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If your connection expires

ClubDock renews its sign-in every night, so a quiet holiday does not let it lapse. If Xero or QuickBooks rejects ClubDock’s access, for example because someone removed it there, the club is disconnected and your Managers are emailed to reconnect. A brief outage at the provider does not disconnect you; ClubDock keeps trying.