Sage 50 and Salesforce integration

What moves between them

The primary flow runs from Sage 50 to Salesforce. Customer and vendor records from Sage 50 are matched to existing accounts and contacts in Salesforce or created as new records. Sales invoices and orders in Sage 50 are synced to Salesforce as orders or custom financial objects. Secondary flow: new Salesforce opportunities and orders can be polled and written back to Sage 50 as sales transactions and projects. General ledger accounts are synced one direction for reference and reporting.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector runs a Windows process with access to the Sage 50 company data folder and polls for modified records by LastModifiedDate or TransactionDate on a configurable schedule, typically 5 to 15 minutes. On the Salesforce side, it stores OAuth2 credentials encrypted and refreshes the session token when expiry approaches, avoiding mid-call 401 errors. Customer records are matched by name, email, or custom external ID fields. Sales invoices are mapped to Salesforce Order objects with LineItems, and the sync respects Salesforce field types and required fields. Because Sage 50 SDK requires exclusive access to the company data files, the integration user must not log in interactively to Sage 50 while a poll is running. Salesforce rate limits are monitored and retries back off exponentially. Every record carries a full audit trail and can be replayed if a write fails.

A real-world example

A mid-sized professional services firm runs Sage 50 for accounting and payables and uses Salesforce for customer relationship management and deal pipeline. Before the integration, the accounting team received deal wins from the sales team via email or spreadsheet, then re-entered the customer and invoice details into Sage 50 by hand each month, creating mismatches between CRM deal value and accounts receivable. With Sage 50 and Salesforce connected, new opportunities won in Salesforce automatically create sales orders in Sage 50, and invoices raised in Sage 50 sync back to Salesforce so the sales team sees which deals have been billed. Customer master data stays aligned, and month-end reconciliation between CRM pipeline and accounting is automatic.

What you can do

• •Sync Sage 50 customers and vendors to Salesforce accounts and contacts, matched by name or external ID.
• •Move sales invoices and orders from Sage 50 to Salesforce as Order and OrderItem records.
• •Read Salesforce opportunities and orders and create corresponding sales transactions and projects in Sage 50.
• •Poll Sage 50 via the local SDK on a configurable schedule with no interactive user login required.
• •Authenticate Salesforce with OAuth2 client credentials and handle token refresh and rate-limit retries automatically.

Questions

Does ml-connector work with both Sage 50 US and Sage 50 UK editions?

Yes. Sage 50 US uses the .NET SDK or legacy COM/ODBC layer, while Sage 50 UK uses Sage Data Objects (SDO) COM/ActiveX DLLs. ml-connector supports both through their respective SDKs. The Windows machine must have Sage 50 installed, and the integration user must not log in interactively to Sage 50 while polling is running.

How does the integration handle Salesforce token expiry?

ml-connector stores OAuth2 credentials encrypted and monitors Salesforce session tokens, which expire after 2 hours by default. Before a token expires or if a call returns 401 Unauthorized, ml-connector automatically refreshes the token so no manual re-authentication is needed.

Can transactions flow both ways between Sage 50 and Salesforce?

Yes. The primary flow is Sage 50 customers and invoices to Salesforce. Secondary flow: new Salesforce opportunities and orders can be polled and synced back to Sage 50 as sales transactions and projects. Customer master data aligns in both directions so the two systems stay consistent.