Workday Financial Management and Adyen integration

What moves between them

Settlement reports from Adyen flow into Workday's general ledger on a daily or per-batch schedule, typically aligned with payment processing cutoffs. Each settled transaction is mapped to the corresponding GL account in Workday - cash accounts by payment method, fees and chargebacks to their respective expense accounts. The main flow is read-only: Adyen settlement data moves into Workday without write-backs to Adyen, since Adyen payment records cannot be edited post-submission. Refunds and chargebacks are captured as separate transactions in Workday to preserve the audit trail.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector manages two separate OAuth2 flows: the Workday REST refresh-token exchange for each poll, and the Adyen webhook signature verification on incoming settlement events. When Adyen settlement reports become available, ml-connector fetches them, extracts transaction details by payment method and merchant account, and builds journal entries in Workday with the correct GL account mappings and amounts. Polling on Workday happens at intervals you control (typically daily overnight), while Adyen webhooks trigger near-real-time capture of refunds and chargebacks so your GL catches up before month-end. ml-connector stores both API keys encrypted, validates every Adyen webhook against its HMAC signature before processing, and tracks failed reconciliations so they can be replayed. Because Workday settlement cycles may lag Adyen processing, a configurable delay ensures GL entries post only when the cash is truly settled.

A real-world example

A mid-sized e-commerce operator runs Workday Financial Management for accounting and Adyen for payment processing across multiple sales channels and geographies. Before integration, the accounting team ran settlement reports from Adyen weekly and manually entered the totals into Workday's general ledger by payment method and region, a process that introduced lag and manual entry errors. Once the integration was live, each day's Adyen settlements flowed automatically into Workday during the nightly process, with captures, refunds, and chargebacks recorded as separate line items so month-end close could reconcile payments to cash without reconciling thousands of individual transactions.

What you can do

• •Fetch Adyen settlement reports on a schedule aligned with your payment processing cycles and post them to Workday's general ledger.
• •Map Adyen transaction types (captures, refunds, chargebacks) to the correct GL accounts by payment method and merchant account.
• •Verify every Adyen webhook with HMAC-SHA256 signature validation before processing refunds or chargebacks.
• •Manage OAuth2 refresh tokens for both Workday and Adyen, re-authenticating transparently on each poll and webhook.
• •Track reconciliation mismatches and replay failed GL entries without duplication or manual re-entry.

Questions

How does the integration handle Workday's SOAP and REST APIs and Adyen's REST-only approach?

ml-connector uses Workday's REST/JSON API with OAuth2 refresh-token flow for polling, which is simpler and more reliable than SOAP for reconciliation reads. Adyen provides only REST, so both systems communicate via JSON, making the integration straightforward. SOAP complexity is avoided entirely for this use case.

What happens if Adyen settlement reports are delayed or Workday GL entries need to be reversed?

ml-connector adds a configurable post-delay to settlement polls so GL entries do not post until the cash is truly settled in Adyen, preventing premature recognition. If a reversal is needed, ml-connector can replay a prior settlement snapshot from its audit log and post the correcting entry, preserving the full transaction trail without manual deletion.

Can the integration handle refunds and chargebacks that come days after the initial payment was settled?

Yes. Adyen webhooks notify ml-connector of refunds and chargebacks in near-real-time, and they are recorded as separate journal entries in Workday dated when the reversal occurs, not when the original payment posted. This keeps your cash accounts accurate even when disputes arrive weeks later.