Sage 50 and Brex integration

What moves between them

The main flow runs from Brex into Sage 50. When Brex finishes coding a card transaction or expense, ml-connector reads the accounting record with its GL account and dimensions and posts it into Sage 50 as a journal entry or a vendor bill, then marks the Brex record EXPORTED so it is not posted twice. Brex bill-pay vendors flow into Sage 50 vendor records, and Sage 50 vendors are matched back so transfers reference a known supplier. Card and cash transactions are read from Brex for reconciliation. Posting is one-way into the ledger; ml-connector does not move money or write financial entries back into Brex.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector stores both credential sets encrypted and sends the Brex bearer token on every request, refreshing the OAuth access token before it expires and checking that a static token has not lapsed after 90 days of inactivity. On the Sage 50 side it drives a local Windows agent that opens the company file with the Sage username and password, so all writes happen through the SDK rather than a remote endpoint, and the customer machine must stay logged in for syncs to run. Brex pushes the ACCOUNTING_RECORD_READY_FOR_EXPORT webhook, which is verified with its Svix signature before the record is pulled and posted; a scheduled poll backfills anything a webhook missed, which also covers Sage 50 since it has no push. The Brex gl_account_id and dimension fields are mapped to Sage 50 GL accounts first, so every journal line lands on a valid account. Brex merchant names rarely match Sage 50 vendor names exactly, so a fuzzy match and cache layer resolves the supplier. The agent holds a single-session lock, so the integration user must differ from anyone logged into Sage 50 interactively, and Brex 429 responses are retried with backoff. Every record carries a full audit trail and can be replayed if a Sage 50 write fails.

A real-world example

A 90-person design and marketing agency keeps its books in Sage 50 on an office Windows machine and gives staff Brex cards for software subscriptions, travel, and client expenses. Before the integration, a bookkeeper exported the Brex transaction list each week and hand-keyed every charge into Sage 50, picking the GL account by memory and reconciling the card statement line by line at month end. With Sage 50 and Brex connected, each coded Brex record posts into Sage 50 as a journal entry on the correct expense account through the local agent, and card vendors line up with Sage 50 suppliers. The weekly re-keying is gone and the card account is reconciled as charges settle.

What you can do

• •Post coded Brex card transactions and expenses into Sage 50 as journal entries or bills on the correct GL accounts.
• •Keep Brex bill-pay vendors aligned with Sage 50 vendor records and resolve fuzzy merchant names to known suppliers.
• •Mark each Brex accounting record EXPORTED after it posts so no charge is entered into Sage 50 twice.
• •Authenticate Brex with a bearer token or refreshed OAuth and write to Sage 50 through a local Windows agent and SDK login.
• •React to the Brex accounting-record-ready webhook, backfill by scheduled poll, and replay any failed Sage 50 write from a full audit trail.

Questions

Which direction does data move between Sage 50 and Brex?

The main flow is Brex into Sage 50. Coded accounting records and card spend move from Brex into Sage 50 as journal entries or bills, and Brex vendors are synced to Sage 50 vendor records. ml-connector does not move money or write financial entries back into Brex; once a record posts, it is marked EXPORTED in Brex so it is not sent again.

How does ml-connector write to Sage 50 if Sage 50 has no cloud API?

Sage 50 is desktop software with only a local SDK, so ml-connector runs a small Windows agent on the same machine as Sage 50. The agent logs in with a dedicated Sage 50 username and password and writes through the .NET SDK on the US edition or Sage Data Objects on the UK edition. Because the SDK takes an exclusive session lock, the integration user must be separate from anyone using Sage 50 interactively, and the machine must stay logged in for syncs to run.

Does the integration use Brex webhooks or polling?

Both. Brex pushes the ACCOUNTING_RECORD_READY_FOR_EXPORT webhook when a transaction is coded, and ml-connector verifies the Svix signature before pulling and posting the record. A scheduled poll backfills anything a webhook missed and covers Sage 50, which has no event push and must always be polled.