Pennylane Accounting Exports

Accounting exports

Prerequisite: pennylane-access. Scopes: exports:fec, exports:gl, exports:agl, trial_balance:readonly, fiscal_years:readonly.

1. Always start with the fiscal year

Exports take a date range, never a fiscal year id. So read the year first:

$fy = PLGetAll 'company-a' 'fiscal_years' $null '-start'
$fy | Select-Object id, start, finish, status

status: open, reopen, closed, frozen. There is no "current fiscal year" endpoint and no server-side filter on status: the selection happens in memory. Several years can be open at once (open + reopen) — do not assume uniqueness, and confirm with the user when it is ambiguous.

2. The three exports

Same model for all three: create a job, poll, then download. Not a synchronous download.

$base = 'https://app.pennylane.com/api/external/v2'
$hd   = PLHdr 'company-a'
$b    = @{ period_start = '2026-01-01'; period_end = '2026-12-31' } | ConvertTo-Json

$job = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "$base/exports/fecs" -Headers $hd `
         -Method Post -ContentType 'application/json' -Body $b

do {
  Start-Sleep -Seconds 5
  $st = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "$base/exports/fecs/$($job.id)" -Headers $hd -Method Get
} while ($st.status -eq 'pending')

if ($st.status -eq 'error') { throw "Export failed" }
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $st.file_url -OutFile $out   # IMMEDIATELY

• period_start and period_end are required everywhere, YYYY-MM-DD. No other field is accepted (additionalProperties: false).
• status is pending | ready | error. file_url stays null until ready.
• file_url expires after 30 minutes. Download at once; never store the URL.
• The analytical general ledger also accepts mode: in_line (default) or in_column. Ask which if the use is not obvious — the column form reads better in a spreadsheet.
• Neither the FEC format, nor generation time, nor a recommended polling interval is documented. Poll under the rate limit (25 req / 5 s); 5 seconds is prudent.

3. Trial balance

$tb = PLGetAll 'company-a' 'trial_balance' $null $null 1000

Required: period_start, period_end. Optional: is_auxiliary. limit up to 1000. No filter, no sort.

Per line: number, formatted_number, label, debits, credits.

• No net balance: debits and credits are gross, the subtraction is yours.
• No account id in the response — only numbers. formatted_number is the padded number (512 → 51200000), useful to reconcile a short number against a formatted account.

4. Chart of accounts and journals

$accounts = PLGetAll 'company-a' 'ledger_accounts' @(
  @{ field = 'number'; operator = 'start_with'; value = '401' }
) $null 1000
$journals = PLGetAll 'company-a' 'journals'

The same account number exists under several ids, one per VAT rate (706000 at 20 %, 10 %, 5.5 %, exempt). Always work with ids, never numbers, and resolve them dynamically: they are per-company.

Watch out: creating an account starting with 401 or 411 also creates a supplier or a customer record. Not undoable through the API.

5. Delivering

Exports are files destined for a third party (accountant, audit). So:

• name them explicitly: FEC_CompanyA_2026-01-01_2026-12-31.txt;
• write them where the user actually keeps their work, not into a temp folder;
• one entity per file — never merge two companies into one export, that is an accounting error;
• state the period and the entity when handing it over, so the user can check before forwarding it.

6. Entities without API access

An entity on a plan without API access has no token. Its exports are retrieved manually from the web interface. Never attempt an API call on it: PLHdr raises an explicit error on purpose. Say clearly, in any consolidated delivery, that this entity is not covered.

7. Pitfalls

• Exports by date range, not by fiscal year — read fiscal_years first.
• file_url: 30 minutes.
• exports:gl appears on the general-ledger endpoint pages but is absent from the scopes documentation page. If a 403 lands there, that is the likely cause: check with PLMe before looking elsewhere.
• The trial balance gives no net balance and no account id.
• No duplicate protection: re-running an export creates a new job. Harmless for the books, but it consumes rate limit.
• Since the 2026 API changes, filtering and sorting on created_at / updated_at were removed from accounting endpoints: sort on id or date. Default sort is now descending on journals, accounts and lines.