Wave Accounting and Dayforce integration

What moves between them

Wave invoice and transaction events trigger ml-connector to pull customer and account details from Wave, then map them into Dayforce cost center and employee cost allocation records via polling. The flow is primarily one-directional from Wave into Dayforce. Employee records are polled from Dayforce on a regular schedule to keep the two systems aligned on headcount and org structure. Customer records from Wave populate Dayforce internal contacts and cost center owners where the org unit exists.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector stores Wave OAuth credentials and refreshes the two-hour access token before expiry, listening for Wave webhook events on invoice updates and transaction creation. For Dayforce, it manages the hourly ROPC token refresh and polls the employee and org unit endpoints with date range filters to detect changes since the last sync cycle. Customer names from Wave map to Dayforce internal contact records, and account codes in Wave are matched against Dayforce GL codes configured in the admin console. Transaction line items route to the matching cost center in Dayforce based on the account mapping. ml-connector tracks the client-specific Dayforce URL with daily refresh to avoid redirect overhead and ensures every transformed record carries a full audit trail for replay if a downstream call fails.

A real-world example

A small professional services firm uses Wave Accounting for invoicing clients and tracking expenses by project, and Dayforce for payroll and benefits. Before the integration, the finance team manually entered project expense allocations from Wave into Dayforce cost centers at payroll time, often re-entering data for the same clients across multiple pay periods. With Wave and Dayforce connected, each transaction in Wave automatically routes to the correct cost center in Dayforce based on the customer and account mapping, so payroll run calculations land on the right projects and expense accounts. Month-end reconciliation is faster because invoice and payroll expenses are already allocated.

What you can do

• •Sync Wave invoices and transactions into Dayforce cost center allocations based on customer and account mappings.
• •Map Wave customer records to Dayforce internal contacts and org units so payroll expenses route to the correct projects.
• •Handle Wave OAuth token refresh and Dayforce hourly token expiry automatically without manual intervention.
• •Listen for Wave webhook events on invoice and transaction changes and poll Dayforce for employee and org unit updates on a schedule you control.
• •Maintain a full audit trail on every record transformation and support replay if a sync step fails.

Questions

Which direction does data move between Wave and Dayforce?

The primary flow is from Wave into Dayforce. Wave invoices, transactions, and customer records are transformed and synced into Dayforce cost center allocations and employee records. Employee records are also polled from Dayforce back into Wave to keep headcount and org structure aligned.

Does Wave's webhook system work with Dayforce's poll-only architecture?

Yes. ml-connector listens for Wave webhook events on invoices and transactions and immediately pulls the full record from Wave, then queues those records for mapping into Dayforce. Dayforce employee and org unit changes are polled on a regular schedule since Dayforce does not publish webhooks, ensuring both systems stay in sync.

How are Wave customer and account records mapped to Dayforce cost centers?

ml-connector matches Wave customer names to Dayforce internal contact records and org units, and Wave account codes are matched to GL codes configured in the Dayforce admin console. Transaction line items route to the corresponding cost center based on these mappings, so payroll expenses land on the correct project or business function.