Workday Financial Management and AvidXchange integration

What moves between them

Supplier records and GL account hierarchies are synced from Workday to AvidXchange on a daily or weekly schedule, establishing the valid vendors and cost centers that invoices can be coded to. Once vendors are in place, invoices arrive in AvidXchange through any mechanism (OCR, email, API). After approval workflow routing and payment execution, payment records flow back into Workday's cash management and GL posting modules on a configurable schedule, keyed by the supplier and GL account mappings already established.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector stores Workday ISU credentials and OAuth2 refresh tokens encrypted, and decrypts them only for outbound calls. AvidXchange authentication uses either the Company Token / User Token pair or the OAuth 2.0 client credentials, also held encrypted, with token refresh on 401 responses. On the Workday side, ml-connector respects ISU account and security group setup on your tenant and uses date-range filters to discover new and modified suppliers, invoices, and payments within each poll window. GL account hierarchies and worktags are aligned first so invoice coding in AvidXchange references valid Workday GL dimensions. Because Workday is pull-only for financial entities and AvidXchange operates on scheduled batch sync, ml-connector orchestrates both sides on a clock tied to your invoice and payment schedule rather than waiting for webhooks. Every record carries supplier reference data, GL codes, and deduplication keys so failed calls can be retried without duplicate invoice or payment records. Workday's complex SOAP operations (bulk invoice import, journal submission) are available through the SOAP surface when needed, while REST handles lighter reads for faster polling cycles.

A real-world example

A mid-market business services firm uses Workday for GL, supplier payments, and financial reporting, and AvidXchange for centralized invoice receipt and approval workflows across multiple cost centers. Before the integration, AP received invoices in AvidXchange, routed them through approval workflows and executed payments, but GL and cash-management staff had to manually enter supplier records and payment data back into Workday, creating a lag of 2 to 3 days before financial records closed. With Workday and AvidXchange connected, the vendor master syncs from Workday automatically, invoices are coded in AvidXchange against live GL accounts from Workday, and completed payments flow back into Workday immediately after execution, reducing close cycle time and eliminating manual AP-to-Finance handoff errors.

What you can do

• •Sync supplier records and GL account hierarchies from Workday to AvidXchange to establish valid vendors and cost centers for invoice coding.
• •Retrieve completed invoice and payment records from AvidXchange and post payment journals into Workday's cash management and GL modules.
• •Authenticate Workday via ISU credentials and OAuth2 refresh-token flow, and AvidXchange via proprietary Company and User tokens or OAuth2 client credentials.
• •Poll both systems on a schedule aligned with your invoice receipt and payment execution cycle, with deduplication and replay of failed records.
• •Map supplier names, GL accounts, and worktags between Workday and AvidXchange so invoice approval routes to valid cost centers and payment postings land on the correct GL lines.

Questions

Which direction do supplier and payment records move between Workday and AvidXchange?

Suppliers and GL accounts flow from Workday to AvidXchange so invoices can be coded to valid vendors and cost centers. Completed invoices and payment data flow from AvidXchange back to Workday so cash and GL records are current without manual entry. Workday remains the system of record for your chart of accounts and supplier master; AvidXchange enriches the workflow and payment processes.

How does ml-connector handle Workday's SOAP and REST API surfaces?

Workday offers two API surfaces: SOAP Web Services for complex operations like journal submission and bulk invoice import, and a REST API for lighter-weight reads. ml-connector uses REST by default for polling supplier and invoice changes within date-range windows, which is faster and lower-load than polling via SOAP. SOAP endpoints remain available for operations that require it, and ISU credentials are used with WS-Security tokens for SOAP calls.

What happens when AvidXchange and Workday have different supplier names or GL codes?

ml-connector aligns supplier names, GL account hierarchies, and worktags between the two systems on the first sync, so invoices coded in AvidXchange reference GL accounts that exist in Workday. If a supplier is added to Workday after the initial sync, the next polling cycle discovers it and syncs it to AvidXchange automatically. Custom mappings can be configured per customer for one-to-many relationships between Workday and AvidXchange accounting dimensions.