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FreshBooks Integration Guide
Connect FreshBooks accounting, invoicing, expense, project, and time-tracking data with enterprise systems through REST APIs, OAuth 2.0, and selected webhook events.
FreshBooks integration options at a glance
FreshBooks primarily integrates through REST APIs secured with OAuth 2.0. Its APIs support common accounting and billing operations for Clients, Invoices, Payments, Expenses, Projects, and Time entries, with JSON responses and paginated collections. FreshBooks also provides webhook-style notifications for selected resources and events, although coverage should be verified for each object and event type. Selected resources support attachment or receipt operations. Martini can consume FreshBooks APIs, receive supported webhook notifications through an API endpoint or workflow, manage pagination and checkpoints, transform JSON, and apply business rules. For events without webhook coverage, scheduled polling provides a controlled synchronization alternative.
| Integration point | Supported by FreshBooks? | Common use cases | How Martini supports it |
|---|---|---|---|
| REST APIs | Yes | FreshBooks REST APIs manage Clients, Invoices, Payments, Expenses, Projects, Time entries, and related accounting data. Common operations include listing, retrieving, creating, updating, and deleting supported resources. | Martini can consume FreshBooks REST endpoints from workflows, handle JSON responses, paginate collection requests, transform fields, and expose reusable API-led integration services. |
| Webhooks / outbound callbacks | Limited | FreshBooks provides webhook-style notifications for selected resources and events. Coverage, payload completeness, subscription scope, and delivery behavior must be verified for each integration. | Martini can expose an inbound API or webhook workflow, validate incoming requests where required, deduplicate notifications, retrieve current FreshBooks state, and process events asynchronously. |
| File / attachment APIs | Limited | Selected accounting resources support file or attachment operations, particularly expense receipts. The response may contain binary content, a download URL, or metadata requiring a separate request. | Martini can retrieve supported attachment data, preserve file metadata, transform or route files, and apply retention and error-handling policies. |
| Authentication | Yes | FreshBooks uses OAuth 2.0 with registered application credentials, authorization codes, bearer access tokens, refresh tokens, and resource permissions or scopes. | Martini can store credentials and refresh tokens as protected configuration or secrets and use bearer access tokens when calling FreshBooks APIs. |
| Bulk / async / batch APIs | Not confirmed | A general-purpose FreshBooks bulk or asynchronous processing API was not confirmed. Large transfers should use paginated REST calls and incremental synchronization where supported. | Martini can orchestrate paginated workflows, checkpoints, controlled concurrency, retries, and scheduled batches without assuming a FreshBooks bulk endpoint. |
| GraphQL APIs | Not confirmed | No official FreshBooks GraphQL API was confirmed in the supplied research. FreshBooks integrations should be designed around REST APIs. | Martini can consume GraphQL from other systems when needed, but the FreshBooks side should use its confirmed REST interfaces. |
| SOAP APIs | Not confirmed | No official FreshBooks SOAP API was confirmed in the supplied research. | Martini can consume SOAP services from other systems in a broader workflow, but should not assume SOAP access to FreshBooks. |
| Database access | Not confirmed | FreshBooks does not provide direct customer database access as an integration mechanism. Reporting and persistence should use supported APIs or exports. | Martini can write normalized FreshBooks data to supported databases for reporting, reconciliation, or downstream processing. |
How FreshBooks exposes data and business events
FreshBooks REST APIs
FreshBooks REST APIs are the primary integration mechanism for accounting, invoicing, expense, project, and time-tracking data. The APIs expose JSON resources and commonly return paginated collections for list operations.
Martini implementation pattern
Martini implementation pattern: a workflow authenticates with an OAuth 2.0 access token, calls the appropriate FreshBooks resource endpoint, follows pagination, validates the response, maps the vendor object to a canonical model, and writes it to the target system or returns a controlled API response.
Implementation sequence
FreshBooks Webhooks
FreshBooks supports webhook-style notifications for selected resources and events. Coverage is not universal, so the integration must verify supported objects, event names, payload contents, subscription scope, and delivery behavior.
Martini implementation pattern
Martini implementation pattern: Martini exposes an inbound API or webhook workflow, accepts the notification quickly, validates the configured authentication or signature mechanism, records an event key, and retrieves the current FreshBooks resource when the notification is incomplete before processing it asynchronously.
Implementation sequence
FreshBooks Attachments
Selected FreshBooks resources support attachment or receipt operations, particularly Expenses. The integration must determine whether content is returned inline, through a download URL, or as metadata requiring another request.
Martini implementation pattern
Martini implementation pattern: a workflow retrieves the FreshBooks resource and supported attachment representation, preserves file metadata, applies file-size and retention rules, and sends the document or reference to the target system without placing large content in ordinary logs.
Implementation sequence
Scheduled FreshBooks Synchronization
Scheduled polling is the fallback for FreshBooks resources or events without suitable webhook coverage. Paginated REST requests and updated-time filters or other supported incremental mechanisms can limit each run.
Martini implementation pattern
Martini implementation pattern: a scheduled workflow loads the last successful watermark, retrieves changed FreshBooks objects page by page, processes records idempotently, and advances the checkpoint only after the relevant target writes succeed.
Implementation sequence
Common FreshBooks integration patterns
Pattern 1: Create FreshBooks invoices from orders
When to use this pattern
Use this pattern when an approved order or subscription event must become a FreshBooks Client and Invoice. It is appropriate when the source system owns order approval while FreshBooks owns accounting document creation.
Integration direction
Example Mapping
| FreshBooks Field | Canonical Field | Target Field |
|---|---|---|
| order.customer | customer.externalId | Clients.customerReference |
| order.lineItems | invoice.lines | Invoices.lines |
| order.currency | billing.currency | Invoices.currency |
| order.totalTax | billing.taxAmount | Invoices.taxes |
Martini implementation pattern
Martini receives or retrieves the approved order, resolves or creates the FreshBooks Client, maps line items, tax, currency, and external references, and creates or updates the Invoice. A stored source order ID and FreshBooks Invoice ID prevent duplicates; validation failures are routed for correction while transient API failures use bounded retries.
Martini capabilities used
- workflows
- API consumption
- OAuth 2.0 configuration
- data mapping
- business rules
- error handling
Pattern 2: Reconcile invoices and payments
When to use this pattern
Use this pattern when CRM, payment, subscription, or customer-portal systems need current FreshBooks invoice and payment status. The design should distinguish invoice state from individual Payments and preserve partial-payment and currency information.
Integration direction
Example Mapping
| FreshBooks Field | Canonical Field | Target Field |
|---|---|---|
| Invoices.invoiceid | billing.documentId | Salesforce.Invoice__c.externalId |
| Invoices.status | billing.status | Salesforce.Invoice__c.status |
| Payments.amount | payment.amount | Salesforce.Payment__c.amount |
| Payments.invoiceid | payment.invoiceId | Salesforce.Payment__c.invoiceExternalId |
Martini implementation pattern
A FreshBooks webhook workflow or scheduled synchronization retrieves current Invoices and Payments, maps statuses and amounts, and updates the target system without overwriting locally managed fields. Martini records processed event or resource identifiers, retries transient failures, and uses reconciliation runs to detect missed or out-of-order notifications.
Martini capabilities used
- webhooks
- scheduled workflows
- API consumption
- data mapping
- idempotency controls
- error handling
Pattern 3: Synchronize expenses and receipts
When to use this pattern
Use this pattern when FreshBooks Expenses and associated receipts must be transferred to a financial platform, expense application, or reporting store. It is useful when category, tax, document, and duplicate controls are required.
Integration direction
Example Mapping
| FreshBooks Field | Canonical Field | Target Field |
|---|---|---|
| Expenses.amount | expense.amount | NetSuite.expense.amount |
| Expenses.category | expense.category | NetSuite.expense.account |
| Expenses.vendor | expense.vendor | NetSuite.expense.entity |
| Expenses.receipt | expense.attachment | NetSuite.expense.file |
Martini implementation pattern
Martini retrieves paginated Expenses, maps categories, vendors, dates, tax, and amounts, and requests receipt data when the applicable FreshBooks attachment operation is available. The workflow stores cross-system identifiers, applies file retention and validation rules, and separates unsupported or malformed attachments from retryable API failures.
Martini capabilities used
- scheduled workflows
- REST API consumption
- file handling
- data mapping
- validation
- error handling
Pattern 4: Synchronize projects and approved time
When to use this pattern
Use this pattern when project and workforce systems need to exchange FreshBooks Projects and Time entries or when approved time is used for billing reconciliation. Ownership of Clients, Projects, rates, approvals, and invoice creation should be defined before enabling bidirectional updates.
Integration direction
Example Mapping
| FreshBooks Field | Canonical Field | Target Field |
|---|---|---|
| project.externalId | project.id | Projects.projectId |
| timeEntry.hours | time.duration | Time entries.duration |
| timeEntry.clientId | time.clientId | Time entries.clientId |
| timeEntry.approved | time.approvalStatus | Time entries.status |
Martini implementation pattern
Martini retrieves or receives approved work data, resolves FreshBooks Clients and Projects, maps time and billing attributes, and writes only records that satisfy approval and ownership rules. Checkpoints, deterministic keys, and reconciliation reports make reruns safe and expose differences before invoice generation.
Martini capabilities used
- workflows
- scheduled synchronization
- data mapping
- business rules
- checkpointing
- error handling
Applications commonly integrated with FreshBooks
FreshBooks can be integrated with sales, commerce, payment, accounting, enterprise finance, and collaboration applications. These patterns typically use REST APIs on both sides, with Martini coordinating authentication, mapping, reconciliation, event handling, and operational controls.
| Application | Scenario | Direction | Martini Pattern |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salesforce | Create FreshBooks Clients and Invoices from CRM opportunities or contracts and return invoice and payment status to Salesforce. | Salesforce → Martini → FreshBooks | Martini receives approved opportunity or contract data, maps customer and billing fields, creates or updates FreshBooks Clients and Invoices, and synchronizes status or payment results back to Salesforce with duplicate detection and retry handling. |
| HubSpot | Synchronize customer, deal, invoice, and payment information between sales operations and billing processes. | HubSpot → Martini → FreshBooks | A Martini workflow consumes HubSpot deal events or scheduled changes, resolves the FreshBooks Client, creates or updates billing objects, and writes invoice status back to HubSpot while preserving system ownership for sales fields. |
| Shopify | Create or reconcile FreshBooks Clients and Invoices from ecommerce orders, refunds, taxes, and payment outcomes. | Shopify → Martini → FreshBooks | Martini receives or retrieves Shopify order data, maps order lines and tax details to FreshBooks Invoices, stores the source order identifier, and processes later status or refund changes without creating duplicate invoices. |
| Stripe | Reconcile payment events with FreshBooks Invoices and Payments and provide a consistent view of settlement status. | Stripe → Martini → FreshBooks | Martini receives payment notifications or polls payment status, matches the source transaction to a FreshBooks Invoice, maps amounts and currencies, and updates or reconciles Payments with idempotency controls. |
| QuickBooks Online | Support accounting-platform migration or coexistence by moving or reconciling Clients, Invoices, Payments, and Expenses. | QuickBooks Online → Martini → FreshBooks | Martini extracts paginated objects from each platform, maps tax, currency, status, and identifiers to a canonical model, applies conflict rules, and records cross-system IDs for safe reruns. |
| Xero | Synchronize accounting and invoicing information during migration or multi-system finance operations. | Xero → Martini → FreshBooks | Scheduled Martini workflows retrieve changed objects, normalize accounting fields and line items, apply ownership and tax rules, and write the result to FreshBooks or Xero with checkpointed reconciliation. |
| NetSuite | Send FreshBooks invoice, expense, project, payment, or time data to an enterprise financial system or coordinate bidirectional finance processes. | FreshBooks → Martini → NetSuite | Martini polls FreshBooks or receives supported events, transforms objects into NetSuite-compatible structures, applies account and tax mappings, and routes validation failures for review rather than retrying unchanged requests. |
| Slack | Notify finance and project teams about invoice failures, overdue invoices, payment changes, or synchronization errors. | FreshBooks → Martini → Slack | A Martini workflow consumes FreshBooks events or scheduled exception results, formats concise notifications with links or identifiers, and sends them to selected Slack channels while suppressing duplicate alerts. |
How to build a FreshBooks integration in Martini
Objective
Establish FreshBooks access using a registered OAuth 2.0 application and protect tenant-specific identifiers and tokens.
Instructions in Martini
- Register or identify the FreshBooks application and required scopes
- Store client credentials, refresh tokens, and account identifiers as protected Martini configuration or secrets
- Configure bearer-token authentication and token refresh behavior
- Keep credentials out of workflow payloads, URLs, and logs
Objective
Select an event-driven or scheduled entry point based on the FreshBooks resource and its confirmed notification coverage.
Instructions in Martini
- Use a FreshBooks webhook endpoint for supported events
- Use a scheduler for resources without suitable webhook coverage
- Define the resource, event, account, and tenant scope
- Set a polling watermark or event deduplication key
Objective
Obtain the current FreshBooks object or collection and make the workflow resilient to pagination and incomplete notifications.
Instructions in Martini
- Call the relevant FreshBooks REST endpoint
- Retrieve the current object when a webhook contains only an identifier
- Follow pagination links or response metadata
- Persist page progress and synchronization checkpoints
Objective
Coordinate validation, enrichment, target calls, and exception paths in a maintainable Martini workflow.
Instructions in Martini
- Separate authentication, retrieval, transformation, and target-write stages
- Apply account and business ownership rules
- Route validation failures separately from transient API failures
- Use reusable workflow logic for common FreshBooks resource handling
Objective
Convert FreshBooks JSON objects into a canonical model and target-specific payloads without coupling downstream systems to vendor fields.
Instructions in Martini
- Map Clients, Invoices, Payments, Expenses, Projects, and Time entries explicitly
- Normalize dates, currencies, taxes, statuses, identifiers, and line items
- Handle optional fields and resource-specific attachment behavior
- Preserve FreshBooks and source-system identifiers for reconciliation
Objective
Control creation, update, reconciliation, and duplicate behavior before writing to downstream systems.
Instructions in Martini
- Check for existing Clients or Invoices before creation
- Define ownership for customer, project, tax, currency, and payment fields
- Use deterministic synchronization keys and processed-event identifiers
- Reject or quarantine records that fail required business validation
Common FreshBooks data objects used in integrations
| Object | Typical Use | Common target systems | Martini handling |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clients | Represent customers or organizations billed by a FreshBooks business and provide the customer context for invoices and projects. | Salesforce, HubSpot, Shopify, NetSuite, Xero | Martini maps source customer identifiers, contact details, billing attributes, and account relationships; it stores cross-system IDs and checks for existing Clients before creation. |
| Invoices | Represent issued billing documents with line items, taxes, totals, status, and payment information. | Salesforce, Shopify, Stripe, NetSuite, Xero | Martini transforms line items, tax, currency, totals, and external references, applies duplicate-prevention rules, and routes validation or reconciliation exceptions separately from transient failures. |
| Payments | Represent payments recorded against Invoices or client balances and support settlement reconciliation. | Stripe, Salesforce, NetSuite, Xero, customer portals | Martini matches Payments to source transactions and Invoices, preserves partial-payment information where supported, and applies idempotency using transaction or resource identifiers. |
| Expenses | Represent business expenses with amounts, categories, vendors, dates, and associated receipts where available. | NetSuite, Xero, QuickBooks Online, data warehouses, expense platforms | Martini maps categories, tax treatment, dates, amounts, and vendor data, retrieves supported receipt information, and prevents duplicate expense imports. |
| Projects | Organize billable work for clients and provide context for time tracking and project billing. | NetSuite, project management platforms, workforce systems, reporting stores | Martini synchronizes project identifiers, client relationships, status, and ownership while applying rules for which system controls project creation and updates. |
| Time entries | Capture billable or non-billable work recorded against Projects and Clients. | workforce platforms, project management systems, NetSuite, reporting stores | Martini converts time, project, client, approval, and billing attributes into the target model and can use approved entries for billing or reconciliation workflows. |
Authentication and security considerations
OAuth 2.0 access
FreshBooks uses OAuth 2.0 for third-party application access. Applications are registered to obtain client credentials, exchange an authorization code for tokens, and send access tokens as bearer tokens.
Protect integration credentials
- Store client secrets, access tokens, refresh tokens, scopes, and FreshBooks account identifiers in protected Martini environment configuration or secrets.
- Request only the permissions required by the integration.
- Plan for token refresh, revocation, reauthorization, and account or business changes.
- Do not place credentials in workflow payloads, URLs, or ordinary logs.
Secure inbound notifications
For FreshBooks webhook workflows, validate the authentication or signature mechanism required by the configured FreshBooks subscription, record event identifiers, and avoid treating an unverified notification as trusted business data.
Operational considerations for FreshBooks integrations
Pagination and checkpoints
FreshBooks collection responses are commonly paginated. Store page progress and a last-successful watermark, and allow for records modified during a synchronization window.
Rate limits and retries
Respect FreshBooks rate limits and response headers where provided. Use bounded exponential backoff for throttling and transient failures, but do not repeatedly retry malformed requests or business validation errors.
Idempotency and reconciliation
Store source and FreshBooks identifiers, use deterministic synchronization keys, and record processed webhook events. Reconciliation workflows should detect missed, delayed, duplicated, or out-of-order notifications.
Accounting data quality
Define ownership for invoice status, taxes, discounts, credits, refunds, currencies, rounding, and partial payments. Keep vendor-specific mappings isolated from canonical and target models.
Attachments and schema changes
Confirm whether expense receipts are returned as binary content, a download URL, or metadata. Use tolerant mappings for optional fields, monitor FreshBooks API changes, and test representative invoice, payment, tax, currency, and line-item variations.
Why use Martini instead of scripts or point-to-point integrations?
Centralized orchestration
Martini coordinates FreshBooks API calls, webhook intake, scheduled synchronization, target-system writes, validation, and reconciliation in maintainable workflows rather than scattering logic across scripts.
Reusable integration assets
Common authentication, pagination, mapping, error, and checkpoint logic can be reused across Clients, Invoices, Payments, Expenses, Projects, and Time entries while keeping vendor-specific behavior isolated.
Controlled transformation
Martini maps FreshBooks JSON into canonical and target-specific models, applies tax, currency, ownership, and duplicate rules, and can expose controlled APIs for other systems.
Operational reliability
Workflow-level error handling, retries, logging, monitoring, and reconciliation provide a more consistent operating model than individual point-to-point scripts.
Frequently asked questions
FreshBooks can be integrated through its REST APIs secured with OAuth 2.0, selected webhook-style event notifications, and resource-specific attachment or receipt operations. REST APIs support Clients, Invoices, Payments, Expenses, Projects, and Time entries. Systems can use webhooks for supported events and scheduled, paginated API synchronization for resources without suitable event coverage.
Yes. Martini can integrate with FreshBooks by consuming its REST APIs, managing OAuth 2.0 authentication, receiving supported FreshBooks webhook notifications, processing selected attachments, and orchestrating mappings, business rules, synchronization, retries, and reconciliation workflows.
No. A dedicated FreshBooks connector is not required. Martini can use FreshBooks' confirmed native integration mechanisms, including REST APIs, OAuth 2.0, selected webhook notifications, and supported attachment operations.
Lonti does not charge an additional per-connector or per-vendor fee to integrate FreshBooks with Martini. Integration usage is subject to the provisioned capacity of the Martini environment. Separate costs may apply from FreshBooks, cloud infrastructure, or other third-party systems depending on subscriptions, usage, and deployment choices.
REST APIs secured with OAuth 2.0 are the primary and recommended method. Selected FreshBooks resources also support webhook-style notifications, while attachment or receipt operations are available for certain resources. No official FreshBooks GraphQL or SOAP API, general-purpose bulk API, or direct database access was confirmed.
Yes, Martini can expose an inbound API or webhook workflow for FreshBooks notifications. FreshBooks webhook coverage is resource- and event-specific, so the integration should verify supported events, validate requests as required, deduplicate notifications, retrieve current state when necessary, and use polling reconciliation for missed events.
Martini can use webhook-triggered workflows or scheduled REST API polling with pagination and stored watermarks. JSON mappings transform FreshBooks Clients, Invoices, Payments, Expenses, Projects, and Time entries into canonical and target-specific models, while business rules control ownership, tax, currency, status, and identifier reconciliation.
Martini workflows can separate authentication, rate-limit, transient, validation, and business errors. Transient failures can use bounded retries and backoff, while validation failures are routed for correction. Cross-system IDs, deterministic references, processed event identifiers, checkpoints, and reconciliation runs help prevent duplicate Clients, Invoices, Payments, and other objects.
Related Martini documentation
API Workflows
Mapping Security
Connect FreshBooks with your enterprise systems
Use Martini to build secure FreshBooks integrations around REST APIs, OAuth 2.0, selected webhook events, scheduled synchronization, data mapping, and reliable workflow orchestration.