Sage Intacct and Rippling integration

What moves between them

The main flow runs from Rippling into Sage Intacct. After each payroll run, ml-connector reads Rippling's calculated labor cost allocations and posts them into Sage Intacct's general ledger as GL entries, mapped to the matching GL accounts and dimensions (cost centers, departments) per your configuration. Employee records, departments, and accounting dimensions flow from Rippling to Sage Intacct to ensure the dimension values referenced in payroll allocations already exist in Sage Intacct. Employee lifecycle events (hires, terminations, department changes) update the dimension records in Sage Intacct so the GL allocation targets remain valid. Sage Intacct general ledger entries are typically read-only from the Rippling integration perspective.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector stores both credential sets encrypted and manages two distinct authentication flows. For Sage Intacct, it sends an initial getAPISession call with your partner and user credentials, caches the returned sessionid for up to 50 minutes, and automatically refreshes the session when the cache expires or when a subsequent call fails. All subsequent GL postings and dimension reads reuse the cached session. Rippling authentication uses either OAuth2 bearer tokens (refreshed on 401 responses) or static API keys, depending on your integration mode. The integration serializes all Sage Intacct payloads as valid XML, strips forbidden C0 control characters (except tab, newline, and carriage return) before entity-reference escaping, and submits through the single XML gateway endpoint. Because Sage Intacct returns HTTP 200 even for application-level errors, ml-connector parses every response XML body for errormessage tags and status codes. For Rippling, if webhooks are not available (direct API-key integrations), ml-connector polls the /platform/api/employees endpoint with an updated_at filter on your payroll schedule. Cost centers and accounting dimensions are synchronized first, so every payroll GL entry references a valid Sage Intacct dimension. Payroll run data is marked with a uniqueid in each GL entry for server-side deduplication on retries, and the full audit trail logs every XML payload and Rippling response for troubleshooting.

A real-world example

A mid-sized professional services firm uses Rippling for payroll and HRIS across multiple legal entities and cost centers, and uses Sage Intacct for general ledger and accounting. Before the integration, the accounting team ran Rippling's payroll export each pay period and manually re-keyed labor cost allocations into Sage Intacct's GL by hand, spending two days per close chasing discrepancies between Rippling's payroll totals and Sage Intacct's labor accounts. With Rippling and Sage Intacct connected, each payroll run's calculated labor costs flow directly into Sage Intacct's GL on schedule, allocated to the correct cost center and GL account. Employee hires and terminations in Rippling instantly update the matching dimension records in Sage Intacct, so cost center references remain valid. Month-end close now starts with the labor accounts already reconciled and the manual re-keying step is eliminated.

What you can do

• •Post Rippling payroll labor cost allocations into Sage Intacct's general ledger after each pay run, allocated to the correct GL accounts and cost centers.
• •Keep Sage Intacct dimension values (cost centers, departments, legal entities) synchronized with employee records and organizational changes in Rippling.
• •Manage Sage Intacct's session-based authentication, caching the sessionid for up to 50 minutes and refreshing on expiry or session errors.
• •Handle Sage Intacct's XML gateway serialization, control-character stripping, and HTTP 200 response parsing for application-level errors.
• •Track payroll GL entries with a uniqueid for deduplication on retry and maintain a full audit trail of every GL posting.

Questions

Which direction does data move between Sage Intacct and Rippling?

The primary flow is Rippling into Sage Intacct. Payroll labor cost allocations and employee dimension records move from Rippling into Sage Intacct, while cost centers, departments, and accounting dimensions are kept in sync. Sage Intacct GL entries are typically read-only from the Rippling integration perspective.

How does ml-connector handle Sage Intacct's XML gateway and session authentication?

ml-connector sends an initial getAPISession call with your partner and user credentials and caches the returned sessionid for up to 50 minutes. Subsequent GL postings reuse the cached session. When the cache expires or a call fails, the session is automatically refreshed. All payloads are serialized as valid XML, forbidden control characters are stripped before escaping, and every response is parsed for application-level errors inside the XML body.

What happens if Rippling webhooks are not available?

Direct API-key integrations do not receive Rippling webhooks, so ml-connector polls the /platform/api/employees endpoint with an updated_at filter on your payroll schedule. Employee lifecycle events (hires, terminations, department changes) are read from polling and immediately sync the matching dimension records in Sage Intacct so GL allocations remain valid.