Plex and Airbase integration

What moves between them

Purchase orders and supplier invoices flow from Plex into Airbase. ml-connector polls Plex on a schedule aligned with your buying cycle (typically every 5-15 minutes), retrieves newly created or modified purchase orders and invoices, and creates corresponding bills and POs in Airbase for AP processing. GL account mappings are synced in both directions so that when Airbase posts journals to your connected GL, the account references and cost center allocations match Plex source data. Airbase GL posting is read-only, so ml-connector does not write financial entries back to Plex.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector stores Plex OAuth2 credentials and Airbase bearer token encrypted and refreshes the Plex token when a call returns 401. It polls Plex purchase orders and invoices on a cadence you configure, filtering by modified_date to detect changes incrementally. For each new PO or invoice, it maps Plex supplier references to Airbase vendor records, creates or updates the corresponding Airbase bill or PO, and tags each record with its Plex source ID for deduplication. GL accounts and cost centers are aligned first, so every invoice line references an Airbase GL account that exists in your connected ledger and maps to a Plex cost center. Because Plex stored procedures and permission models vary per customer, ml-connector validates role-based access on the Plex side and retries with exponential backoff if rate limits are encountered. The integration also subscribes to Airbase webhooks for purchase request approval events so that approvals in Airbase can trigger downstream actions if needed. Every record carries its Plex transaction ID and Airbase record ID, enabling full traceability and replay if a sync fails.

A real-world example

A mid-sized discrete manufacturer runs Plex for production, procurement, and finance across three plants. They use Airbase for accounts payable and spend control to manage supplier payments and prevent duplicate invoicing. Before integration, the AP team received purchase orders and supplier invoices from procurement via email and CSV exports, manually entered them into Airbase, and then had to reconcile GL postings against Plex at month-end close. With Plex and Airbase connected, every PO created in Plex appears in Airbase within minutes, invoices are matched automatically, and GL posting is pre-aligned with Plex cost centers. The AP team now spends their time on exception handling and vendor disputes rather than data entry, and month-end close starts with GL accounts already reconciled.

What you can do

• •Poll Plex purchase orders and supplier invoices on a configurable schedule and create corresponding bills and POs in Airbase for AP processing.
• •Map Plex suppliers to Airbase vendors and align GL accounts and cost centers so invoices post to the correct accounts.
• •Authenticate with Plex OAuth2 credentials and Airbase bearer token, handling token refresh and credential encryption.
• •Subscribe to Airbase webhook events for purchase request approvals and trigger downstream workflows when needed.
• •Track every transaction with its Plex and Airbase record IDs for full audit traceability and replay on failure.

Questions

Which direction does data move between Plex and Airbase?

Purchase orders and supplier invoices flow from Plex into Airbase for AP processing and bill matching. GL accounts and cost centers are aligned in both directions so that Airbase GL posting references the correct Plex cost center. Airbase GL posting is read-only, so ml-connector does not write financial entries back into Plex.

How does the integration handle the fact that Plex has no native webhooks?

ml-connector polls Plex purchase orders and invoices on a schedule you control, typically every 5-15 minutes, filtering by modified_date to detect new and changed records incrementally. This ensures that POs and invoices appear in Airbase with a predictable lag aligned to your buying cycle, and avoids the need to wait for a push from Plex.

What happens if Plex and Airbase have different suppliers or GL account structures?

ml-connector maps Plex suppliers to Airbase vendors based on your configured mapping rules, and aligns GL accounts first before invoices are created. If a Plex supplier or GL account does not exist in Airbase, the invoice is flagged for manual review and logged in the audit trail so the AP team can resolve the exception and replay the record.